Thinking back, I believe I was taught the term originally applied to indigenous people from North and South America.

What about Africans, some of the are pretty dark. What are they, the people of Cain?

I've seen some pretty dark people from India, they must be Lamanites too?

    All, and I mean ALL, the darkies are human beings, children of the most high ghawd, who FAILED to complete some or all their duties assigned to them during the Great War in Heaven when we affiliated with the two-thirds of the host of Heaven aligned with Jesus, against the one-third who aligned with Lucimafer (his assigned name as a Simpson's character).

    During the Great War in Heaven, which lasted just over half an Eternity, many fell to the temptation of 'goofing off', along with some who 'malingered,' and there were even those who slept on duty.  Some even cowered in their trenches when those around them were heeding the call to charge the enemy!!

    Only those who showed leadership, bravery, cunning, courage, and other assorted badges of honor were allowed to be born White.  Obviously, the majority of humans born into this world have NOT been White & Delightsome, so that goes to show you how tough that War in Heaven was ... or that the vast majority of ghawd's children did not take it seriously.

    Just because you have a war in which no one can be injured, much less killed, doesn't mean you shouldn't take the whole thing as seriously as those staging the whole comedic affair!

    Sometimes, I think to myself that the War in Heaven was probably just a big, everyone-is-involved Spelling Bee or hop-scotch tournament . . .

    In the 4th Grade, we had a multiplication Bee with the other 4th Grade class.  I knew all my times tables through 12, and I boldly announced that I was in the running for winning the whole thing.  Well, I was the second one to be asked a question.  The other 4th-grade teacher looked me in the eye and asked, "...four times three...?"  I froze...  I'd never heard that phrase before!  Four times three...?...?...?  Then she called time on me, and I was the first person to have to sit down.

    Obviously, had she asked, "three times four," I would have immediately responded with the correct answer!

    So anyway, the War in Heaven had 3/4s of ghawd's army getting caught goofing off, yelling, "Medic!!!" when we couldn't even be injured, or going AWOL to attend a rave ... and all of us came to Earth some shade of off-white to burnt umber.

    And then there were the "Africans" who were simply conscientious objectors and never signed up and thus pissed off ghawd and it took him until 1978 to get over his petulant little snit-fit.

    You can take this to church because it's totally gospel!!

Lamanites did not develop dark skin until they were naughty. Mormon cosmology regards dark skin as a curse from God for having a worldview that white people don't agree with.

If these brown people would get with the program, they would once again become "white and delightsome" as if by magic.

Lamanites are Jews who lost their whiteness through sin. Sins like not letting their little brother boss them around. The literary depth of the BoM is truly astonishing.

I bet LDS Inc. really regrets "white and delightsome" and other racist stuff that is present in their scriptures. Maybe some future "revelation" will be presented to the masses informing them of an interpretation error that has been corrected, in Gordon B. Hinckley speak, a "couplet" that did not represent reality.

Fairmormon took a shot at explaining the situation, saying that JoJu, in the 1840 edition DID change it to pure & delightsome, but then goes on to use some intellectual buggery to 'explain' how human error kept in the white & delightsome until ghawd finally figured it out and rechanged the change . . .


https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Textual_changes/%22white%22_changed_to_%22pure%22



So they'll take 'human error' as capable of overpowering ghawdly intent.  Poor ghawd, hoist by his own begotten petard...

While I'm rambling, along with the above, there sure is a myriad of LDS Inc. doctrine that increasingly is going to be a hard sell in the future, embarrassing, attempting to maintain an untenable position. Without wholesale changes, in the Western world, the loss of members and lack of new member growth seems almost certain to continue.

Weren't there supposed to be 12 tribes that somehow classified all the various people of the world? I honestly don't remember who was supposed to be in which tribe. It's all so dumb.

It makes Mormon watching entertaining. They take it all so seriously.

    Here's a story about how cheesy mormonism can be...

    Back in the day, a new missionary's first stop was the SL Mission Home on North Temple.  The Elders and Lady Elders would check in on Saturday morning for five days of instruction and advanced babysitting by those in charge.  The complete spectrum of human behavior was displayed as parents parted from their new Elder/Lady Elder, not expecting to see him/her for two years.

    Each week's inductees, usually around 200, attended a temple session on Monday. After the session, the missionaries walked up to one of the assembly halls to meet with the General Authorities. It is my recollection that the Lady Elders were excluded from this elite session due to hormonal imbalances that were prevalent at the time.

    Whichever of the GAs present to take charge of the 'session' would give a rambling talk about Wheat white and ready to harvest, which was taken as confirmation that White wheat was best, but to the what we could...

    Then we (yes, I got to participate in such a session) were told, "Hey, we're in the house of the lord, we up here on the stand have ALL the answers, and we are happy to share, so ask us ANY gospel doctrine deep mystery questions you have, and we'll do our best to answer.

    Well, back in the 60s, before satellite mapping and no portion of the earth being a secret, those of us with inquiring minds wondered where the "lost ten tribes" were hiding out.  So, invariably, this issue would be presented to our lords and masters, sitting up there on the stand, looking smug and sanctimonious.

    I learned later that at that time, this question ALWAYS came up, and the GAs finally had to draw straws to see who got to respond to it because each GA is and was a huge pile of gooey, heaving ego...

    So an elder, still in his baker's hat and green apron, would stand, be recognized, and then ask the question, "Where are the lost ten tribes?"

    The lucky short straw puller would then go into his little act and then, pursuant to whatever style he (or she ... hahaha!) favored, would announce, "Well, Elder, if we knew the answer to that, they wouldn't be lost, now would they?"


    Oh, the merriment, the polite Celestial laughter!

    Why can't we go back to those days of yore, when the church wasn't behind (and pushing hard) inflation, Communism, aka The United Order, and allowing Blacks to own, and drive, Cadillacs?

Yeah, there's that simmering resentment again.

You've never gotten over Marky Peterson's refusal to say it was okay if Latinos drove Cadillacs.

It's been decades, Jesus. Go wash your Corolla and let bygones be bygones.

We got chopped Chevvies, and I'm okay with that, Gladys

No need to be bashful, my friend. I'll never forget the time you drove me to Taco Bell in your kitted-out low-rider Corolla.

If I recall correctly, I got a Chalupa Supreme and you got a ticket for hitting that fire hydrant.

Good times!

      
        Also, and it's a minor point but important to me: There is no such thing as a Chalupa Supreme because ALL Chalupas are, by definition, supreme.

> . . . ALL Chalupas are, by
> definition, supreme.

Well then, participation trophies all around!

Ed,
Quick check your prescription bottle, you took the wrong color pill.

In Mormon mythology the Book of Moses declared Blacks are children of Cain.

The book of Abraham states that Ham, the don of Noah, had a black wife named Egyptus, "who preserved the curse in the kand".

Biblically, Ham was the father of the countries of Africa.

In the Book if Mormon, there is mention of the children of Lehi becoming a sea faring people and colonizing the Pacific Islands.

The people of India and China are not mentioned specifically in Mormon Mythology. Nor are the aboriginies of Australia.

How were the inhabitants of upstate NY supposed to know about far away peoples? They didn't get out much. Tediously engraving sacred records on golden plates was a full time job. What happened when they made a mistake? Did they cover it with "Gold Out" and write over it? Did they scratch it out and write next to it? Writing all of those doodle-looking "caracters" must have been tiring. That would explain why there have been over 3000 corrections to the BoM.

I have a more plausible explanation for why the ancient Nephites had the exact same prejudices as 19th Century white people. Some of those white people made the whole thing up and passed it off as a divinely ordained work of ancient origin.

Pardon my Lamanite, but ancient my ass. Joseph Smith was a charleton and a narcissist who created his own church to gratify himself. It's plain as day. Can TBMs see it? Not a chance. Those who deem themselves pioneers of sobriety and enlightenment are in fact bat shit crazy.

You might say that was then, this is now. The religiously motivated (with horrific results) settler colonialism has switched to mindspace. But why does BYU have a statue of a guy who killed his enemies? Do so-called followers of Christ kill their enemies? Wouldn't that negate the whole prophet thing?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2024 08:24AM by bradley.

Ain't no one a Lamanite.

Unless they identify as such. Any suggestions for Lamanite pronouns?

It was important to declare Polynesians to be Lamanites because that meant they weren’t “of the lineage of Cain”, and could be full members of the church. LDS Inc did quite well in Polynesia, plus they had all the good vacation spots.

South Asians in general were neither group. Cain only applied to Africans. Filippinos were probably considered Lamanites because they sort of look Polynesian, unlike the nearby Japanese, who did not look Polynesian.

Everyone not from NW Europe was second class. Or lower.

One of the most interesting subjects in the world is the great migration of indigenous Chinese (i.e., not Han Chinese) to the Philippines. From the Philippines, they went on to paddle outrigger canoes to settle the southern islands, eventually populating the various Polynesian islands, extending all the way to New Zealand. They could not have done it without the outrigger canoe, which allowed them stable and smooth paddling. Polynesians also went on to help settle Madagascar. They developed ways to navigate to various islands in a big open ocean. This took a few thousand years, and had zilch to do with American indigenes, and especially not with "Lamanites". I just love reading about all this.

Yep, the Austronesians.

From southern China, across the strait to Taiwan, south to the Philippines, then to Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. The travel "kit" of outrigger canoes, sweet potatos, chickens and other gear is thought to have originated in or around the Fijian islands, and that is what allowed the extreme settlement of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, including, lately, Hawaii some 500 years ago.

The Austronesian migrations resemble the Indo-European migrations in scale and importance, and both were first discovered by linguists who realized that geographically distant peoples spoke closely related languages. Both discoveries happened about 1700 CE, when educated colonials who traveled widely inferred the connections.

The original Austronesian people have left no trace in mainland China, but speakers of the languages still live in the hinterlands of Hainan and Taiwan, where they are called Mountain People and suffered greatly at the hands of the Han peoples who followed more recently. There are also significant populations in coastal regions of Indochina and smaller groups as far afield as eastern India.

Doesn't it make you wonder how the heck they ever found the Hawaiian Islands?

Hawaiian Islands, Easter Island, Madagascar. It's as if once they had the outrigger/travel kit, they were determined to use their frequent flyer miles come hell or high water.

The Indo-Europeans, to offer another example, devised their steppe kit of ox-pulled wagons, horses, wool, and superior weaponry to spread from Ukraine to Ireland and Scandinavia in the west to Mongolia in the east. Then at about 2000 BCE, their Indo-Iranian descendants used their kit of metallurgy, chariots, and military organization to spread from Ukraine to China, Iran, and India. And a millennium after that, their Iranian-speaking descendants-- the Scythian/Saka tribes--expanded from the Altai-Sayan region of Mongolia/Russia/Kazakhstan in the northeast to Central Europe in the west and to southwestern China in the south. There were thus Indo-European and Iranian ecumenes stretching the length of Eurasia for millennia at a time.

As our resident misanthropic biologist might remark, humans seem to act much like bacteria in the sense that they'll go wherever there's something to eat and someone with whom to copulate.

It's that simple.

Fascinating. I think I have a pretty typical view of Eurasian history - Mesopotamia got the ball rolling with domesticated wheat and early cities, then things shifted to the eastern and northern Mediterranean - Cyprus, Egypt, Greece and Italy. After the fall of Rome, the center of power shifted to France and Germanic areas, and then England and Spain joined in after Columbus, and here we are living in the McDonalds Hegemony.

Sounds like if you draw a 500 mile radius circle around say Armenia or the central Caspian Sea, that is where much of Eurasia's people, languages and technology really came from.

We quickly get back to Diamond and his observation that civilization took off in the Near East because it had to take off in the Near East. That was region that had the right plants and the right animals and hence produced the agricultural and the pastoral revolutions, and that basic set of technologies was transmissible both east and west within the same temperate climatic band.

A similar dynamic unfolded on the steppe, which represents a grassland that stretches from the Hungarian Plain to Mongolia and even parts of Manchuria. Add in the coincidences that horses were much more common in Ukraine than anywhere else, raising the probability that that would be the place where they were domesticated; the mutation that caused a subset of sheep to produce much greater volumes of wool; propinquity to the development of the wheel in Eastern Europe; and very large deposits of copper, tin, and iron to support metallurgy, and the opening of a de facto superhighway across the Eurasian continent makes great sense. Those facts alone explain the cultural advantages of the richness of the 500 mile circle you mentioned.

It's also important to note that mathematically the vast majority of recognized languages would arise in that area since the vast majority of people originated there. The agricultural revolution increased population densities immensely; I'm sure someone has done the calculations on that, but I'd bet it was by a couple of orders of magnitude. As a result, there was an enormous expansion of humans out of our presumptive "Eden" who swamped the much smaller groups wherever they went. The languages of the agricultural peoples would therefore have replaced the much more sparsely spoken earlier languages, explaining the pattern we see in the prehistoric and historic periods.

The same thing happened with the Indo-Europeans. The original people probably numbered only 10 or 20 thousand individuals, speaking a minor language from the Caucasus some 6,000 years ago. Yet their advantageous position, some interesting technologies, and good luck enabled them to spread so widely that today nearly half of all humans speak Indo-European languages.

It wasn't superior genes, nor divine favor, nor anything else except luck. That was true of Anatolia/Mesopotamia, of the steppe, of the Bantu expansions in Africa, and inevitably of earlier peoples who are lost to history.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------


> A similar dynamic unfolded on the steppe, which
> represents a grassland that stretches from the
> Hungarian Plain to Mongolia and even parts of
> Manchuria.


LW:

Were you listing to 'In the Steppes of Central Asia' by Alex Borodin as you wrote that?

truth, Please

I am not.

My interest arose from college classes with one of the foremost experts on the Central Asia, classes on the Mongolian Empire and then the Qing Dynasty in China; also from a class on Greek mythology taught by a professor who took an interest in me and started giving me monographs on the Central Asian societies that spawned Dorian Greece, Iran, India, and Tocharia, among other cultures. I have continued studying these topics for a very long time and have mentioned some of the authors--Maria Gimbutas, Colin Renfrew, James Mallory--in passing on this site.

My interest was stimulated anew by David Reich, whose research on the human genome have enabled us at last to track the migrations that were previously implied by archaeology and comparative linguistics and mythology. The Reich book was recommended to me by one of our fellow posters, to whom I am deeply grateful.

Over the last two years I have read David Anthony's The Horse, the Wheel, and Language and Asko Parpola's The Roots of Hinduism, both of which are on the topic of Central Asian nomadism and were difficult books that I read multiple times. Those works bring us up to date on most the research through the late Indo-Iranian period, so I have recently turned to the next stage in that history: the Scythians and the Saka in the first millennium BCE.

To that end I read Barry Cunliffe's excellent volume on the Scythians, followed by Beckwith's more controversial but enlightening The Scythian Empire. The Scythians are the people who developed the cavalry techniques and weaponry that enabled the Scythian and Sarmation invasions of Europe, followed by the Alans, the Huns, the Turks, and the Mongols. As you know, I write about the Indo-Europeans all the time.

There is also a great new paper from Reich's lab on The Southern Arc, which is the region from Iran to Greece below the Caspian and Black Seas. It's detailed and scientific but fills in big gaps in the previous consensus about those fascinating steppe peoples.

So that's my background. I am unfamiliar with Alex Borodin.

I'm just figuring out what you were asking!

> Were you listing to 'In the Steppes of Central
> Asia' by Alex Borodin as you wrote that?
>
> truth, Please

I thought you were saying that you were referring to a archaeologist or linguist named Borodin, perhaps a podcast, which is why I answered the way I did. But you were referring to the composure.

Whoosh!

Was this a loss of composure?

Or a loss of composer?

Or perhaps just a loss for a composter. . .

The exploration wasn't all paddling, or even mostly paddling. I don't know how far back the sailing outrigger canoes go, They devised what are now known as proas, double-ended boats where either end could serve as the front of the boat.

The larger boats had two sails. I don't know if catamarans ever had two hulls and four sails, but there were (and are) ocean going catamarans. The larger boats could carry quite a lot of cargo and crew.

Here's how a proa worked:
https://oceanpeople.org/sailing-technology/

It amazes me that it took them so long to discover New Zealand, which is relatively close, and a pretty big target to hit. As for Hawaii and Easter Island, they were pretty recent discoveries, and we have no idea how many expeditions were launched that never found land, and all aboard perished.

The Hawaiian Islands in particular are large enough, that they will leave a signature disturbance in wave patterns that will persist for thousands of miles. The Polynesians got quite good at interpreting subtle disturbances in wave patterns, They no doubt knew there was something out there in the northern central Pacific.

The outrigger was invented ca 3,000 BCE and enabled the Austronesian removal to Taiwan and then to the Philippines and further. Originally they consisted of two parallel canoes, and over time the model shifted to one larger canoe and one simple outrigger. It appears that they employed crab-claw sails from at least 1,500 BCE.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20078617, pp. 1-23.

This is another example of a simple technology that is hard to beat, which is why outriggers are still used today by people all over Southeast Asia as well as coastal Africa, Sri Lanka, and other places where the Austronesians traveled.

Ah, I was trying to think of a phrase to describe those sails, and finally just gave up, thinking it was not that important. "Crab-claw sails" is perfect.

Hobie Corp, famous for making trailerable catamarans, also makes a double outrigger kayak, the Adventure Island. It is pretty ingenious, and uses Polynesian names for the outrigger assembly - aka, the crossmember that the outrigger attaches to, and ama, the outrigger itself. Barring equipment failure or a really large wave, they are nearly impossible to capsize.

The story of a 12 ton ocean-going catamaran with two crab-claw sails, that has done 10 major expeditions, including sailing around the world over 3 years (2014-17):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hōkūleʻa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokulea the internet gods do not like the non-standard characters in the above URL. I think this will work.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2024 12:14PM by Brother Of Jerry.

    From the cited Wiki article:

    "Led by Captain Elia David Kuʻualoha "Kawika" Kapahulehua* and Navigator Pius "Mau" Piailug, a Carolinian master navigator*, Hōkūleʻa departed Honolua Bay, Maui, Hawaiʻi for Papeʻete, Tahiti, as part of the celebration of the United States Bicentennial.

    "Mau navigated from Hawaii to Tahiti without instruments.  Due to a conflict between crew members which escalated into physical violence, Mau abruptly returned home to Micronesia after reaching Tahiti.  Hōkūleʻa had to be navigated back using western instruments (compass, nautical charts, sextant, chronometer, dividers, parallel rulers, pencil, nautical almanac)."


    What do you want to bet that it was the ol' Nephites v. Lamanites getting in the way of a beneficial cooperative venture...

The flight patterns of birds would have provided a better guide to finding Hawaii than waves. But I doubt Hawaii was ever found intentionally. The cleverer Polynesians would have been able to navigate back, and there does seem to be some evidence of that. There is even some evidence that the Polynesians reached South America, and may have even been the first humans to sight the pack ice off South America if traditions are true. They attempted (and failed) to settle some Antarctic islands, Norfolk Island etc. For every expedition that reached a Hawaii or other suitable remote island, there was probably another which vanished. Other expeditions would have reached atolls which could barely sustain human life (little or no fresh water for example) and didn't have enough material to repair ships. It would have been a one way trip for them.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Doesn't it make you wonder how the heck they ever
> found the Hawaiian Islands?

By accident after being blown off course.

I've read two of Diamond's books, and am rather fond of him. He's not a blowhard trying to get his book out there. He's a patient, self-deprecating man who tries to figure out how we got here and there. While he himself doesn't claim that he knows everything about his own writings and research, he does do a good job explaining why certain cultures bubbled to the top, and why certain primitive ("specialized", in anthropology-speak) remain so yet today. But he's right on by pointing at the ability to store food, plant crops, and raise domesticated animals that became beasts of burden, etc. But certain places still exist (like Central- and Sub-Saharan Africa), where there are still no domesticated animals or crops that can be stored. So, when you think why the Congolese haven't bubbled to the top, as it were, it's because they weren't born in the middle east, Europe, South Asia, etc. Luck o' the draw.

Hagoth in the Book of Mormon
Hagoth is introduced in the Book of Alma. Here's a brief summary of what the scripture says:

Alma 63:5-7 mentions Hagoth building an exceedingly large ship and several other ships. He and many other Nephites launched westward from the land Bountiful to travel to a land which has never been mentioned in the scriptures.
Verses 8-9 indicate that after this initial voyage, many more Nephites followed him in subsequent ships. However, it's recorded that they were never heard of more, suggesting that they did not return to Zarahemla.
Polynesian Connections
Over the years, various Church leaders and members have speculated that Hagoth and his voyagers may have contributed to the ancestry of Polynesian peoples. Here are a few key points:

Statements from Church Leaders: Some leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have made statements or speculated about this connection. For instance, President Spencer W. Kimball once referred to Polynesians as "children of Lehi," suggesting a link between Polynesians and the peoples of the Book of Mormon.

Cultural and Oral Traditions: Some Polynesian oral histories and cultural traditions resonate with the idea of ancient sea voyages from a distant land, leading some to draw parallels with Hagoth's story.

Scientific and Archeological Perspectives
It’s important to note that while these connections are inspiring and meaningful to many, conclusive scientific evidence directly linking Hagoth's travels to the settlement of Polynesia hasn't been established. The oceanic voyages of Polynesian ancestors, known for their remarkable navigation skills, are widely acknowledged to have originated from Southeast Asia and spread across the Pacific.

Faith and Tradition
For many Latter-day Saints, the belief in Hagoth's connection to Polynesians is more a matter of faith and cultural tradition rather than scientific proof. This belief serves to strengthen the identity and spiritual heritage of Polynesian members.The scriptures, including the Book of Mormon, don't provide any information about Hagoth's personal life, including his sexual orientation, skin color, social or economic status. Hagoth is mainly mentioned in the context of his shipbuilding and the voyages he undertook.