The Horse in the Americas
[Wheels in the Ancient World]
War and Prosperity
[Pride, Wealth and Class Distinctions Arise]
1 3 Nephi 6:1; Alma 46 Last semester we rushed it toward the end to get to the Lord’s coming to the Nephites, so we are going to have to backtrack a little bit and go back to 3 Nephi 6. We are going to ask a lot of questions this semester, too. Last semester we began with Alma 46.1 said that had everything in it. If there was nothing else in the book but that, it would prove the Book of Mormon and give us enough nourishment to go on to the end of time. This is just as good. This chapter contains more historical wisdom in as small a scope as you can ever get it. (That’s a bad sentence, isn’t it?) It’s the most concentrated form of historical wisdom; it tells us everything. The whole story is right in this chapter, and it especially applies to us. Is Brother Barrows here? Let’s read this first verse, and then I’m going to ask you why this is a good place to begin. 3 Nephi 6:1: “And now it came to pass that the people of the Nephites did all return to their own lands in the twenty and sixth year [note the date], every man, with his family, his flocks and his herds, his horses and his cattle, and all things whatsoever did belong unto them.”
1 We can’t get any further until we’ve taken care of horses then, because this is the main crux. This is the strongest argument, supposedly, that has been raised against the Book of Mormon. Well, what about these horses it’s talking about here? What’s the objection? Why shouldn’t they talk about horses? Incidentally, this also introduces us to another thing—how we interpret the words. If you are going to be literal, according to this, every male over the age of twenty owned more than one horse. It says, every man returned to his horses. What that means is every man, such as they were, returned to as many horses as he had, such as they were. They did all return—every man returned with his family and his horses. It’s generic. Whatever men there were that had horses returned to whatever horses they had. This is generic, as it tells us, because it [uses] the indefinite whatsoever; whatsoever man had whatsoever horses returned to whatsoever horses he had.
1 We’ve got to get rid of this “horses” business, though, because this worries us, doesn’t it? Is there any evidence that Indians had horses? Well, yes, they rode horses all over the plains. Well, when and where did they get those horses? Nobody knows, as a matter of fact. But, first of all, what about horses in Egypt? We know they had them in the New Kingdom because we have pictures of them, but if you go look for horses’ bones you’ll never find any—no evidence of that sort
2 Where do you read about camels in the Bible? Do you remember who rides camels? Remember who was riding away on a camel, and she had the icon hidden under the camel’s saddle? It goes back to the patriarchal romances. That’s the story of [Jacob] and Rachel. Abraham is placed at 1800-2000 B.C., way back there. In other words, the patriarchal narratives talk about everybody riding around on camels, yet the best scholars say they didn’t have camels. There’s no evidence that they had camels. All we have is the written record, but the written record is quite adequate, isn’t it? Where did they get the idea of their having camels and riding around on them? All it takes is just one piece of evidence and that changes the whole picture. So you are not going to prove a negative by the absence of something.
2 When the horses came, the plains Indians were the greatest riders. Do you learn to ride and do people change customs overnight, Brother Call? Is a custom like riding acquired readily and quickly by people? We know from Mesopotamian records, which are very ample, that men drove horses as teams, even as four-horse teams, for a thousand years before anybody rode them. They never rode horses. They drove them and had them pull wagons. Why don’t people take advantage of those things?
2,3 Another thing you might say is that there is definite proof that the Arabs never knew the wheel because they never ride wheeled vehicles. They don’t ride them at all. They’ve known the wheel for thousands of years, but you won’t find them using wheeled vehicles. In fact, they are suspicious. When the bicycles first started being used, they wouldn’t touch them. They were forbidden because they said, the DULAB (wheel) was driven by the IBTIS (devil). The devil makes the front wheel go, but you make the back wheel go. You are collaborating with the devil when you ride a bicycle, so they wouldn’t ride bicycles. The thing is that through thousands of years the Arabs were never found using wheeled vehicles, though they knew all about them, that they were practical, etc. Flinders Petrie, the Egyptologist and father of Egyptian archaeology, pointed that out. The Egyptians had certain inventions, and they knew their neighbors had [other inventions]. But they never adopted those conveniences, and the other way around. The neighbors never adopted their conveniences. They worked very well on both sides. It’s a very strange prejudice we have about these things.
3 Santa Fe was the place where they traded the horses. But the interesting thing is that those horses didn’t come from Mexico; they weren’t Spanish horses. They were going into Mexico from Santa Fe, and they all came from the plains. But that was in the sixteenth century. The Spanish hadn’t even been here before. The horses were coming down. And what’s more, as I said, these customs are never adopted—riding, driving, etc. People are extremely conservative in those things. Yet we find the Indians are the best bare-back riders in the world. They just have to see a horse and off they go. We are told that when the horse appeared down in Peru in the Incan empire people were terrified. They’d never seen a horse, and they ran away. Why didn’t the plains Indians and other Indians in Florida run away from the horse? They didn’t. There is no sign of their being even impressed by horses. They were far better riders than the Spanish; they knew all about it. There are all sorts of blanks and holes we know nothing about here. You can’t make an open-and-shut case of the horse at all. The moral is that the problem isn’t solved yet, and you can’t prove a negative. So this shouldn’t slow us down; we should go right on here. But when they see [the word] horses, please immediately call you up on that. But again, you can see that the language is used very generally here. There is much more we could say about horses, but it is not necessary now.
3 Notice that nice things were going on here. “They did return to their own lands.” This is a happy ending, you see. Every man had gone back to his own home—everyone who had escaped death, of course. Others didn’t. Verse 2: “And they did return to their own lands and their possessions, both on the north and on the south, both on the land northward and on the land southward.” So with everybody happy there’s an ending again.
3 3 Nephi 6:1-4,17 What makes that introduction particularly appropriate for the present moment in history, Brother Clay? (This is a good one.) This is a happy beginning of a new era. All of a sudden things are peaceful after fourteen years of war. They had a terrible time. All of a sudden the whole area is at peace, the north and the south. Everybody’s back home and happy. Everybody is much happier than they were—a new opportunity, a new chance, a new leaf. That’s why I called your attention to the twenty-sixth year [verse 1], because if we turn in the same chapter to verse 17 we see it was the thirtieth year. [Within four years] : “They were in a state of awful wickedness.” It took just four years for the whole thing to collapse. Should that be a warning for anyone? This is a very rich chapter. This is going to tell us why it happened, exactly how, the process, everything else. What were Moroni’s policies toward the enemy and the opposition? Never. He always called them his brethren. The minute they showed any signs of weakening, he would immediately want to parley and discuss things. But the funniest thing was that after the war was over, what did he do?. He took their word for it and let them go home. That was that. This happened time and again. You notice that was a wise policy, and this policy is going to make for prosperity here. Notice, they go back and they are going to be very generous with the opposition. We talk about the robbers here. It was the war of the robbers, like the Roman robbers. Notice, verses 3-5 describe their liberal policies here.
5 3 Nephi 6:5 “And now there was nothing in all the land to hinder the people [cloudless skies, all serene] from prospering continually [ah ha, what’s the “fly in the ointment?” Is it economics it political? It’s because of what the people are—if the people weren’t “damn fools”], except they should fall into transgression.” Alas, we have human nature to face here, don’t we? From here on you expect the happy ending. It may turn sour very soon, and we find that it does. In just the thirtieth year they had reached a stage of awful wickedness. We want to know how that was possible.
5 3 Nephi 6:6 This verse 6 is an interesting one, too. They appointed judges. We know that the system of judges superseded that of the kings under Mosiah. How would the appointing of judges insure the peace? What’s the threat here? Is the thing going to last? Verse 6: “And now it was Gidgiddoni, and the judge, Lachoneus, and those who had been appointed leaders, who had established this great peace in the land.” So it was the judges who established the peace. Why was it judges? Why wasn’t it the king? Ten guesses. Of course, they didn’t have a king. The judges were the government. But why judges instead of the legislature? They had a lot of organizing to do, but the judges were permanent here. This was a life position with these people. The judges are in and everything comes back to them. Well, if you don’t have good, honest judges you might as well close up shop. Where are you if the judge isn’t honest? What is a common theme of the prophets in the Old Testament? That the judges are crooked, that they accept bribes. Isaiah and Jeremiah talk about the easily bribed judges, etc.
6 3 Nephi 6:7 So the people began to prosper and wax great. It was a happy time of law, equity, and justice, with nothing to hinder prospering except they should misbehave themselves. The good judge Lachoneus appointed leaders that were competent, and there was peace in the land. So what would you naturally expect them to engage in with peace after a long and ruinous war? ‘They destroyed so many buildings and highways; they have to rebuild them.”Great projects, lots of chance for nice big fat contracts for construction, etc.—corruption all over the place. That’s exactly what happens here. There had to be lots of repairs, lots of reconstruction in their inner cities. It was not just destruction, but they had been neglected. It had been a terrible war, and they had to use all their resources for other things. Naturally, if you have a lot of cities, what do you have to have connecting them? There are some nice fat contracts there, too, aren’t there?
7 3 Nephi 6:8 “And there were many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place [a regular system. So it’s the twenty-eighth year, just two years away] . . . and the people had continual peace.” Two years is hardly something to boast about, is it? Even we could keep peace for two years. “But it came to pass in the twenty and ninth year there began to be some disputings among the people.” And now we see where the trouble begins. What was the threat to this highly successful economy and would it last?
8 3 Nephi 6:10 There’s gold in everything for one thing. And they don’t just wear gold, but what else do they wear? [Answer is inaudible]. Right, they load themselves like a walking Christmas tree, with feathers and all sorts of clinking, rattling, and glittering garbage. Then they parade themselves. It’s comical in Central America. They overdo it so, whether it’s on the Mayan, or the illustrations of the Popol Vuh. It shows the grandees parading around with much too much hardware on. That’s a sign of pride, and it talks a great deal in the Book of Mormon about their precious, costly apparel. It doesn’t say beautiful apparel ever. It just says costly, that’s the main thing. That’s the only thing that interests us—that it has the proper label on it. The cost is what makes them great. This is the way the people were. “And some were lifted up unto pride and boastings because of their exceedingly great riches.”
8 3 Nephi 6:11,12 “They were divided into ranks according to their riches.” Start reading verse 11 first; this is the most important. “There were merchants and lawyers.”
Ah, now what would you say? Business and law were the big things then, weren’t they? There were merchants; it was a business civilization. Where you have a business civilization, you are going to have legalism and courts. You can’t do business without lawyers. They get all the money, but you have to have them or they won’t let you stir. This is part of it. It was legalistic.
10 3 Nephi 6:12 Here [in the Book of Mormon] “some were ignorant because of their poverty.” And you see the equation. Always until our own day, scholarship has always been considered a life of austerity. That’s the Hermetic standard, you see. Though they could have great wealth, they didn’t choose that. That’s corrupting. They weren’t all that way, were they? Some were lifted up.