Native American Hebrew and Greek language comparisons

There are exam­ples of Hebrew cus­toms, char­ac­ters, beliefs and lan­guage among Native Amer­i­cans. Accord­ing to Mor­mon, they knew how to write in Hebrew and of course had Hebrew cus­toms and beliefs (Mor­mon 9:33). The Greek lan­guage is also com­pared to the Native Amer­i­can lan­guages of the Indians.

The name of the Creeks for man, is ish­to, and so it is in Hebrew…The same remark might be made with respect to the word Kenaai, for Canaan. Jeho­vah they call Y‑he-ho-wah. The roof of the house they call toubano­ra; in the Hebrew it is debonaour. The nose they call nichiri in Hebrew, neheri. The great first cause, Yo-hewah; in Hebrew, Jeho­vah. Praise the first cause, in their lan­guage, hal­leluwah; in Hebrew, hal­lelu­jah. Father they call abba; the same in Hebrew. Now they call na; in Hebrew, na. To pray they call pli­ale; in Hebrew, pha­lae. In their lan­guage, abel is manslaugh­ter; the same in Hebrew. Wife, awah; in Hebrew, eve, or eweh. Win­ter, kora in Hebrew, cora. God, Ale; in Hebrew, Ale, or Alo­hi­ni. A high moun­tain, ararat; the same by the Indi­ans of Penob­scot.” (Hay­wood 1823 pg. 282)

Silas T Rand knew sev­er­al lan­guages to include Hebrew con­cern­ing Mic­mac Indians:

There are also some words in the lan­guage which resem­ble Greek. The Mic­mac word Ellenu, an Indi­an, is not very dif­fer­ent from Hel­lene, a Greek. Ellenu esit (“He speaks Mic­mac”) is strik­ing­ly like the Greek, Hel­l­enize (“He speaks Greek”). But in oth­er respects the lan­guage resem­bles the Hebrew, espe­cial­ly in the suf­fix­es by which the pro­nouns are con­nect­ed in the accusative case with the verb.” (Silas T Rand 1893)

Their lan­guages are very diverse and dif­fers as much from one anoth­er as Dutch, French, Greek and Latin. Declen­sion and con­ju­ga­tion resem­ble those in Greek, for they, like the Greeks, Have duals in their nouns and even aug­ments in their verbs.” (In Mohawk Coun­try: Ear­ly Nar­ra­tives About a Native People)

Shilu in Indi­an is the same as Shiloh in Hebrew; the Indi­an word for father is Abba; the word for “wait­er of the high priest” is Sagan in both Indi­an and Hebrew; the word for man in Indi­an is Ish or Ishie.” (Adair 1735)

Gaspesian/Micmac Indi­ans:

Our Indi­ans agree with the Greeks and Latins in this, that they use always the sin­gu­lar, and almost nev­er, or at least very rarely, the plur­al, even when they speak to their mis­sion­ar­ies, or to some oth­er per­son of promi­nence. They express them­selves by the word kir^ which means “thou,” whether it is the child speak­ing to its father, the wife to her hus­band, or the hus­band to his wife.” (Cler­cq 1680 pg. 141)

Antipas – name of a gen­er­al in the BoM (Alma 56); name of a moun­tain in the BoM (Alma 47:7, 10); It is a Greek name, an abbre­vi­a­tion for ‘Antipa­ter.’

Archean­tus – Nephite com­man­der (Moroni 9:2); a typ­i­cal Greek for­ma­tion, made using the Greek pre­fix ‘arch-‘ (“great, chief”), as in the Bib­li­cal Greek names Archelaus and Archippus.

Judea – the name of a Nephite city (Alma 56, 57); it is the Greek (i.e., New Tes­ta­ment) form of the Hebrew name ‘Judah,’ refer­ring to the tribe, the South­ern King­dom, and the area of south­ern Pales­tine occu­pied by the tribe of Judah (the Jews).

Ango­la – city name at Mor­mon 2:4 – Greek ‘ange­los’, mean­ing ’angel’”

Mor­mon 9:33 – And if our plates had been suf­fi­cient­ly large we should have writ­ten in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have writ­ten in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imper­fec­tion in our record.

Native American and Hebrew beliefs and customs

In 1735, James Adair lived iso­lat­ed among the North Amer­i­can Indi­ans for 40 years. He wrote a book about their cus­toms and prac­tices of the Indi­ans. In this book he pos­tu­lat­ed that the Indi­ans are from the lost 12 tribes of Israel he stat­ed 22 rea­son list­ed below:

1. Their divi­sion into tribes. 2. Their wor­ship of J‑hov‑h. 3. Their notions of a theoc­ra­cy. 4. Their belief in the admin­is­tra­tion of angels. 5. Their lan­guage and dialects. 6. Their man­ner of count­ing time. 7. Their prophets and high priests. 8. Their fes­ti­vals, fasts and reli­gious rites. 9. Their dai­ly sac­ri­fice. 10. Their ablu­tions and anoint­ings. 11. Their laws of unclean­li­ness. 12. Their absti­nence from unclean things. 18. Their mar­riage, divorces and pun­ish­ments of adul­tery. 14. Their sev­er­al pun­ish­ments. 15. Their cities of refuge. 16. Their purifi­ca­tions and prepara­to­ry cer­e­monies. 17. Their orna­ments. 18. Their man­ner of’ cur­ing the sick. 19. Their bur­ial of the dead. 20. Their mourn­ing for the dead. 21. Their rais­ing seed to a deceased broth­er. 22. Their change of names adapt­ed to their cir­cum­stances and times.”

(About Gaspesian/Micmac Indians)

They say that when the sun, which they have always rec­og­nized and wor­shiped as their God, cre­at­ed all this great uni­verse, he divid­ed the earth imme­di­ate­ly into sev­er­al parts, whol­ly sep­a­rat­ed one from the oth­er by great lakes : that in each part he caused to be born one man and one woman, and they mul­ti­plied and lived a very long time : hut that hav­ing become wicked along with their chil­dren, who killed one anoth­er, the sun wept with grief there­at, and the rain fell from the heav­en in such great abun­dance that the waters mount­ed even to the sum­mit of the rocks, and of the high­est and most lofty moun­tains. This flood, which, say they, was gen­er­al over all the earth, com­pelled them to set sail in their bark canoes.”
(Cler­cq 1680 pg. 85)

(Chero­kee belief of a great deluge)

A long time ago a man had a dog, which began to go down to the riv­er every day and look at the water and howl. At last the man was angry and scold­ed the dog, which then spoke to him and said: “Very soon there is going to be a great freshet and the water will come so high that every­body will be drowned; but if you will make a raft to get upon when the rain comes you can be saved, but you must first throw me into the water.” The man did not believe it, and the dog said, “If you want a sign that I speak the truth, look at the back of my neck.” He looked and saw that the dog’s neck had the skin worn off so that the bones stuck out. Then he believed the dog, and began to build a raft. Soon the rain came and he took his fam­i­ly, with plen­ty of pro­vi­sions, and they all got upon it. It rained for a long time, and the water rose until the moun­tains were cov­ered and all the peo­ple in the world were drowned. Then the rain stopped and the waters went down again, until at last it was safe to come off the raft. Now there was no one alive but the man and his fam­i­ly, but one day they heard a sound of danc­ing and shout­ing on the oth­er side of the ridge. The man climbed to the top and looked over; every­thing was still, but all along the val­ley he saw great piles of bones of the peo­ple who had been drowned, and then he knew that the ghosts had been dancing.”
(Mooney 1902 pg. 261)

(Gaspesian/Micmac Indi­ans — Hebrew one year betrothal and dowry)

The one of our Indi­ans who wish­es to mar­ry a girl must live an entire year in the wig­wam of his mistress’s father, whom he must serve and to whom he must give all the furs of moose and beavers which he kills in hunt­ing. By the same law it is for­bid­den to the future hus­band and wife to aban­don them­selves to their pleasure.”
(Cler­cq 1680 pg. 238)

(Gaspesian/Micmac Indi­ans — ancient Hebrew belief of a women being unclean dur­ing her men­stru­al period)

A mat­ter which is yet more sur­pris­ing is this — they observe still to this day cer­tain cer­e­monies of which they do not know the ori­gin, giv­ing no oth­er rea­sons than that their ances­tors have always prac­ticed the same thing. The first is this, that the women and girls, when they suf­fer the incon­ve­niences usu­al to their sex, are account­ed unclean.”
(Cler­cq 1680 pg. 227)

(Gaspesian/Micmac Indi­ans — This one is more Egypt­ian, but the Hebrews were once enslaved by the Egyptians.)

I have learned only this from our Indi­ans, that the chiefs of their nation for­mer­ly entrust­ed the bod­ies of the dead to cer­tain old men, who car­ried them sacred­ly to a wig­wam built on pur­pose in the midst of the woods, where they remained for a month or six weeks. They opened the head and the bel­ly of the dead per­son, and removed there­from the brain and the entrails.”
(Cler­cq 1680 pg. 302)

They are either descen­dants of the lost tribes of Israel, or they have had, in some for­mer era, a close con­tact and inter­course with the Hebrews, imbib­ing from them their beliefs and cus­toms and the tra­di­tions of their patriarchs.”
(War­ren Williams, Ojib­wa History)

(Gaspesian/Micmac Indi­ans)

After the death of one’s broth­er, it is per­mis­si­ble to mar­ry his wife, in order that she may have chil­dren of the same blood if she has not had any by her first husband.”
(Cler­cq 1680 pg. 228)

Greek Cross and the Sun Cross

The Greek style cross (a cross with all arms of equal length) dates back to 1600 BC. It’s a sym­bol found in ancient Greek temples.

It con­tin­ued to be used by the ear­ly Chris­tians after Christ’s death. It is a sym­bol of the Greek Ortho­dox Church, Egypt­ian gnos­tic Chris­tians, and also used in Europe.

I believe the Celtic sun cross has its ori­gins from the Greeks.

This is a sym­bol held sacred by many civ­i­liza­tions and groups of peo­ple that are found in the Mid­dle East and Europe. Con­sid­er­ing the DNA cul­tur­al and lin­guis­tic ties that Native Amer­i­cans have to Greeks, Hebrews, and the Mid­dle East. It should be no sur­prise that this sym­bol is also sacred to North Amer­i­can civ­i­liza­tions dat­ing back to the Hopewell Indians.

Below are exam­ples of the Greek/Sun Cross. I believe that Lehi and his fam­i­ly held this sym­bol to be an impor­tant and sacred sym­bol because the Egypt­ian hiero­glyph for good is a cir­cle with a Greek style cross on it and the plen­ti­ful use of this sym­bol found among the Hopewell and oth­er pre-Columbian Indi­an cul­tures, and also held sacred by those cultures.

1600 BC mar­ble sacral cross from the Tem­ple Repos­i­to­ries of Knos­sos. (Her­a­clion Archae­o­log­i­cal Muse­um, Greece):

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Cop­tic Cross used in the Mid­dle East Ear­li­er Greek Cross:

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Ear­ly Chris­t­ian Gnos­tic cross Celtic Sun Cross:

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The remains of a Hopewell Greek-style Cross:

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Mis­sis­sip­pi­an arti­facts of Greek-style Crosses:

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The exam­ple on the right is a Greek style gor­get that would be worn as a neck­lace. Notice the Greek cross on cloth­ing that appears to be a reli­gious ceremony:

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The Mic­mac Indi­an sym­bol for Holy:

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In a stone grave in a small mound with­in an exten­sive for­ti­fi­ca­tions on the banks of Big Har­peth Riv­er, two and a half miles from Franklin, on the plan­ta­tion of Gen­er­al Graf­fen­ried, four cop­per cross­es were exhumed, rest­ing upon the skull of an old Indi­an. The cop­per had stained the bones of the cra­ni­um of a deep green col­or. In their gen­er­al out­lines two of these cross­es pre­sent­ed the gen­er­al con­tour of the human fig­ure. The cross­es appear to have been stamped upon the cop­per plates with a die.
(Jones, The Amer­i­can Nat­u­ral­ist, Vol 3 1869)

Swastika

Long before the swasti­ka became an evil sym­bol of the Nazis, many ancient civ­i­liza­tions also used this sym­bol. The Greeks and Phoeni­cians used this sym­bol as did the Hopewell – mak­ing it anoth­er link that ties the two cul­tures together.

Hopewell Swasti­ka dat­ed to 200BC:

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Greek vase dat­ed before Book of Mor­mon times:

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Greek Hel­met dat­ed to 380 BC, Greek Vase date to 750BC:

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Native American Idioms and Phraseology

Native Amer­i­can idioms and phrase­ol­o­gy, as described by ear­ly set­tlers, are con­sis­tent with the Old Tes­ta­ment and the Book of Mor­mon. Below are some exam­ples of Native Amer­i­can idioms con­sis­tent with scrip­ture. Exam­ples are from John Heckewelder’s Man­ners and Cus­toms of The Indi­an Nations Who Once Inhab­it­ed Penn­syl­va­nia and the Neigh­bor­ing States.

Native Amer­i­can say­ing: “I will place you under my wings!”

Mean­ing: I will pro­tect you at all haz­ards! You shall be per­fect­ly safe, nobody shall molest you!

Scrip­ture: 3 Nephi 10:6 O ye house of Israel whom I have spared, how oft will I gath­er you as a hen gath­ereth her chick­ens under her wings, if ye will repent and return unto me with full pur­pose of heart.
(Heck­ewelder pg. 139)

Native Amer­i­can say­ing: ”To bury deep in the earth” (an injury done)

Mean­ing: To con­sign it to oblivion.

Scrip­ture: 2 Nephi 26:5 And they that kill the prophets, and the saints, the depths of the earth shall swal­low them up, saith the Lord of Hosts; and moun­tains shall cov­er them.
(Heck­ewelder pg. 140)

Native Amer­i­can say­ing: “You have spo­ken with your lips only, not from the heart!”

Mean­ing: You endeav­or to deceive me; you do not intend to do as you say!

Scrip­ture: 2 Nephi 27:25 Foras­much as this peo­ple draw near unto me with their mouth, and with their lips do hon­or me, but have removed their hearts far from me, and their fear towards me is taught by the pre­cepts of men.
(Heck­ewelder pg. 139)

Native Amer­i­can say­ing:draw the thorns out of your feet and legs, grease your Stiff­ened joints with oil, and wipe the sweat off your body.”

Mean­ing: I make you feel com­fort­able after your fatigu­ing jour­ney, that you may enjoy your­self while with us.

Hebrew Cus­tom: The wash­ing of feet is a Hebrew cus­tom. It was the first item done when enter­ing a house or tent. The host would pro­vide the water and the guest would wash his own feet. If the host was wealthy, a slave would wash the feet.

Anoint­ing of oil was used by Jews to refresh and invig­o­rate the body. This cus­tom is still done today by Ara­bi­ans. In the exam­ple there are some sim­i­lar­i­ties in the clean­ing of feet and legs from thorns and the anoint­ing of oil or grease to refresh the body.
(Heck­ewelder pg. 139)

Hebrew and Hopewell Burial Method

The Hebrews would bury their dead in tombs. Then they would take the bones of their loved and put them in a stone ossuary.

The Hopewell Indi­ans would bury their dead in tomb like struc­tures in mounds. The Hopewell Indi­ans would also bury their dead in stone-lined graves, like a Hebrew ossuary. Exam­ples of Hebrew and Hopewell buri­als are shown below:

Tomb with rock bench­es: the Tomb of Kings, Jerusalem:

Tomb with rock benches: the Tomb of Kings, Jerusalem

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Canaan­ite tombs:

Artist's impression of the burial chambers excavated at Megiddo, with a key identifying each section: three chambers B, C and D open off a central chamber A.

Hopewell Mound tombs:

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Hebrew Ossuary – Inscribed Simon the temple-builder:

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Hopewell like Ossuary:

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Temple/Masonic Medallion

They call them­selves Aquanuskion (Algo­nquin), or ye Covenant People.”
(Louise Welles Mur­ray 1908)

(Gaspesian/Micmac Indi­ans)

Not an Indi­an would ever dare to appear before the oth­ers with­out hav­ing in his hand, on his skin, or on his gar­ments this sacred sign.”
(Cler­cq 1680 pg. 147)

Mosi­ah 11:10 – And he also caused that his work­men should work all man­ner of fine work with­in the walls of the tem­ple, of fine wood, and of cop­per, and of brass.

(In ref­er­ence to the Natchez of Mis­sis­sip­pi, who said a race that pre­ced­ed them built tem­ples with much skill, and also taught them to build temples)

Their tem­ples were built with much skill and labor. They made very beau­ti­ful things with all kinds of mate­ri­als, such as gold, sil­ver, stones, wood, fab­rics, feath­ers, and many oth­er things in which they made their skill appear.
“A remark­able tem­ple was sit­u­at­ed in the town of Tal­ma­co, upon the Savan­nah Riv­er, three miles dis­tant from Cuti­fatchique, near Sil­ver Bluff. It was more than one hun­dred feet in length, and fifty feet in width. The walls were high in pro­por­tion, and the roof steep and cov­ered with mats of split cane, inter­wo­ven so com­pact­ly that they resem­bled the rush car­pet­ing of the Moors.”
(Jones, The Amer­i­can Nat­u­ral­ist, Vol 3 1869)

In 1934, the Ten­nessee Val­ley Author­i­ty (TVA), was con­struct­ing a dam which would flood a por­tion of the Clinch Riv­er in East Ten­nessee. Because the area to be flood­ed includ­ed a Hopewell Native Amer­i­can mound, a group of arche­ol­o­gists were called in to exca­vate the site. The arche­ol­o­gists came upon an amaz­ing dis­cov­ery when they uncov­ered the ruins of a large stone and wood struc­ture. So unlike any oth­er find found at a Hopewell site, British Egyp­tol­o­gist, James Ren­del Har­ris from the Lon­don Muse­um, was con­sult­ed. At the site, Har­ris iden­ti­fied the struc­ture as an “Egypt­ian Tem­ple”. A sin­gle news­pa­per arti­cle doc­u­ments this account.
“In the cen­ter of the mound, about three feet from its sur­face, I uncov­ered a large sac­ri­fi­cial vase, or altar, forty-three inch­es in diam­e­ter, com­posed of a mix­ture of clay and riv­er shells. The rim of the vase was three inch­es in height. The entire ves­sel had been mold­ed in a large wick­er bas­ket, formed of split canes, and the leaves of the cane, the impres­sions of which were plain­ly vis­i­ble upon the out­er sur­face. The cir­cle of the vase appeared to be almost math­e­mat­i­cal­ly cor­rect. The sur­face of the altar was cov­ered with a lay­er of ash­es, about one inch in thick­ness, and these ash­es had the appear­ance and com­po­si­tion of hav­ing been derived from the burning.”
(Jones, The Amer­i­can Nat­u­ral­ist, Vol 3 1869)

(Dur­ing ancient times, Hebrews were com­mand­ed to main­tain an eter­nal flame at the tabernacle/temple — Exo­dus 27:20, 21)

Hen­ri de Ton­to, who trav­elled with de la Salle and wrote an exten­sive report, thought them most “pol­ished” peo­ple he had seen. As with the Illi­nois and Natchez, they main­tained a sacred fire that was nev­er allowed to go out in their major Tem­ple… an elab­o­rate palace with dec­o­rat­ed walls ten feet high.”
(A Cul­tur­al His­to­ry of the Atlantic World, 1250–1820, by John K. Thornton)

The Pot­ta-wat-um-ees moved up Lake Michi­gan, and by tak­ing with them, or for a time per­pet­u­at­ing the nation­al fire, which accord­ing to tra­di­tion was sacred­ly kept alive in their more prim­i­tive days, they have obtained the name of “those who make or keep the fire,” which is the lit­er­al mean­ing of their trib­al cognomen.”
(War­ren Williams, Ojib­wa History)

(Gaspesian/Micmac Indi­ans)

In a word, they val­ue the [Greek style] Cross so high­ly that they order it to be interred with them in their coffins after death, in the belief that this Cross will bear them com­pa­ny in the oth­er world, and that they would not be recog­nised by their ances­tors if they had not with them the sym­bol and hon­ourable token which dis­tin­guish­es the Cross-bear­ers from all the oth­er Indi­ans of New France.”
(Cler­cq 1680 pg. 151)

(Incense)

To this day Native Amer­i­cans hold tobac­co sacred it is used in their reli­gious cer­e­monies. As described by a Native Amer­i­can, when the tobac­co smoke ris­es, it sends their prayers up to the cre­ator. In the days of Moses and the Old Tes­ta­ment, incense was burned in the tem­ple. It rep­re­sent­ed prayers ascend­ing to God.

Near Portsmouth, a flour­ish­ing town at the mouth of the Scioto, a medal was found in allu­vial earth, sev­er­al years since, by a Mr. White, a num­ber of feet below the surface….This medal, I regret to state, is not in my pos­ses­sion, but it has been described to me by Gen. Robert Lucas and the Hon. Ezra Osborn, Esq. It was Mason­ic; the device on one side of it, rep­re­sent­ed a human heart with a sprig of cas­sia grow­ing out of it; on the oth­er side was a tem­ple, with a cupo­la and spire, at the sum­mit of which was a half moon, and there was a star in front of the tem­ple. There were Roman let­ters on both sides of this medal, but what they were, Gen. Lucas and Judge Osborn have for­got­ten; they were prob­a­bly abbreviations.”
(Atwa­ter 1833, pg. 117)

The depic­tion on the right seems to show some type of reli­gious cer­e­mo­ny being done in a bowl type altar. Notice the Greek style cross is present on the clothes of the Priest. The bowl on the left is an arti­fact that also gives the impres­sion of an altar type vase. The bowl is from the Pine Tree Mound the depic­tion is from a Spiro Okla­homa artifact.

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Below is an engi­neer draw­ing of an 1823 Hopewell mound believed to be fake? The engi­neer draw­ing was attrib­uted to Maj. Isaac Roberdeau of a Hopewell mound in the shape of a Mid­dle East­ern style lamp and menorah.

Hanukah hap­pened after Lehi, so that is not a fac­tor. But the meno­rah and eter­nal flame (oil lamp) were both com­mand­ed to be used in the tem­ple by God. The meno­rah in this depic­tion is a nine stick meno­rah. Accord­ing to Jew­ish tra­di­tions. A sev­en stick meno­rah could not be out­side the tem­ple. Jews would use a nine stick meno­rah out­side the tem­ple to adhere to the sacred nature of the menorah.

Hanukkah Mound and oth­er Hopewell mounds:

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When study­ing the Natchez tem­ples many of the same imple­ments found in Hebrew tem­ples was also present in the Natchez tem­ple. In Hebrew tem­ples, you have a rec­tan­gu­lar shaped build­ing with high walls, all con­struct­ed and fur­nished with great crafts­man­ship and lav­ish­ness. Inside you have the meno­rah, an eter­nal light (oil lamp), a veil, and the Ark of the Covenant. The Natchez have many sim­i­lar­i­ties. They have an eter­nal fire that it is held with such regard that if it goes out those respon­si­ble for it are put to death. They have an altar inside their tem­ple. They have a cur­tain or veil. Behind the veil is a wick­er bas­ket that no one is allowed to open. The way that the Wick­er bas­ket is pre­sent­ed in their tem­ple behind a cur­tain that nobody is allowed to view may have sim­i­lar­i­ties to the Ark of the Covenant.

The Native Amer­i­can greet­ing is quite inter­est­ing. I’m sure many old­er peo­ple have seen the old west­ern cow­boy and Indi­an movies. Native Amer­i­cans have greet­ings that are rem­i­nis­cent of sus­tain­ing church mem­bers in there call­ing dur­ing sacra­ment meet­ing. They also have oth­er types of greet­ings. The Native Amer­i­can greet­ing is to bring the right arm to the square and say “how”.

The Algo­nquin Indi­ans have anoth­er greet­ing that after you have made a friend­ship with that tribe. There is a spe­cial way using both hands to greet a mem­ber of that tribe to show a friend­ship or trust has been estab­lished with that tribe. I can’t vouch for the source. I received this pic­ture from Wayne May:

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Freema­sons of the 19th and 20th cen­tu­ry have noticed sim­i­lar­i­ties to Native Amer­i­can cer­e­monies and freema­son­ry. There have been some books writ­ten about this sub­ject. Freema­sons have assumed that the Native Amer­i­cans have learned this from oth­er Freema­sons, but that is only an unver­i­fied idea. The oth­er option is explained by the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

The Native Amer­i­can cer­e­mo­ny of Red Hand is very inter­est­ing. The tribes that con­duct­ed this cer­e­mo­ny in their long hous­es are the Iro­quois, that being the Seneca, Cayu­ga, Ononda­ga, Onei­da, or Mohawk. Keep in mind Red Hand is a Native Amer­i­can cer­e­mo­ny, noth­ing else. The account has been edit­ed for relevance.

The pro­ceed­ings began with 4 raps at the door. The can­di­date was brought in and lis­tened to the sto­ry of Red Hand, the ancient leader. The can­di­date assumes the iden­ti­ty of the object of the story.

Red Hand was a young Chief who received cer­tain mys­te­ri­ous knowl­edge from the Cre­ator of All. He was kind, gen­er­ous, and loved by all.

One day in bat­tle, a poi­soned arrow felled him. The ene­my Indi­an rushed upon him, demand­ing the secret of his pow­er or his life. Red Hand refused to divulge the secrets, so he was scalped.

A lone wolf came upon the body and howled so loud he brought all the ani­mals from the for­est. They each con­tributed a part of their bod­ies and revived the scalp, which they put on Red Hand’s head. They formed a cir­cle around him and chant­ed for signs of life. Red Hand lis­tened with his eyes closed when a voice asked him these questions:

VOICE: “Hast thou cleansed thy­self from human guilt and impurity?”

RED HAND: “I have.”

VOICE: “Hast thou ill will toward any of thy fel­low creatures?”

RED HAND: “I have not.”

VOICE: “Wilt thou trust and obey us, keep­ing thy­self always chaste and valorous?”

RED HAND: “I will.”

VOICE: “Wilt thou hold this pow­er with which we endow thee for thine own cho­sen com­pa­ny only?”

RED HAND: “I will.”

VOICE: “Wilt thou endure death or tor­ture in its cause?”

RED HAND: “I will.”

VOICE: “”Wilt thou vow this secret nev­er to be revealed save at thy death hour?’

RED HAND: “I will.”

VOICE: “Thy death hour will be revealed to thee; thou wilt be allowed to choose thy suc­ces­sor, and at the end of thy jour­ney thou wilt be reward­ed for faith and obedience.”

The cir­cle drew clos­er and the broth­er who is the bear touched the breast of Red Hand. All stood erect. The bear grasped the hand of the leader who was to be raised, though slain, and by a strong grip pulled Red Hand to his feet.
http://​www​.phoenix​ma​son​ry​.org/​n​a​t​i​v​e​_​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​n​_​r​i​t​u​a​ls.htm

Book of Mormon ties

List­ed are what I believe to be ties to the Book of Mor­mon, either through leg­end or culture.

Christ’s Visit

Book of Mor­mon states that Jesus Christ after his res­ur­rec­tion vis­it­ed the Amer­i­can Indi­ans after great nat­ur­al dis­as­ters among the Nephites. Christ taught the peo­ple the gospel, he showed them the imprints in his hand, ordained dis­ci­ples and per­formed mir­a­cles among the peo­ple. There are some Indi­an leg­ends that sup­port this visit.

3 Nephi 17:3

3 There­fore, go ye unto your homes, and pon­der upon the things which I have said, and ask of the Father, in my name, that ye may under­stand, and pre­pare your minds for the mor­row, and I come unto you again.

(Iro­quois Legend)

The vis­i­tor appeared very old man; he appeared among the peo­ple for a while; he taught them many things; how to respect their deceased friends, and to love their rela­tions and he informed the peo­ple that the whites beyond the great water had killed their Mak­er, but he rose again.”
(Cusick 1838 pg. 31)

(Gaspesian/Micmac leg­end of a beau­ti­ful per­son who in a time of tur­moil vis­it­ed them. He taught them and per­formed mir­a­cles. The sleep men­tioned in the quote would make sense dur­ing the three days of dark­ness men­tioned in 3 Nephi. The cross men­tioned in the quote is the Greek style cross — not to be con­fused with the evan­gel­i­cal cross. The Greek cross is a sacred sym­bol found in pre­his­toric Indi­an civilizations.)

They claim that, at a time when their coun­try was afflict­ed with a very dan­ger­ous and dead­ly mal­a­dy which had reduced them to an extreme des­ti­tu­tion in every respect and had already sent many of them to their graves, cer­tain old men of those whom they con­sid­ered the best, the wis­est, and the most influ­en­tial, fell asleep, all over­whelmed with weari­ness and despair at see­ing a des­o­la­tion so gen­er­al and the impend­ing ruin of the entire Gaspe­sian nation … It was, say they, in this sleep filled with bit­ter­ness that a man, beau­ti­ful as could be, appeared to them with a Cross in his hand. He told them to take heart, to go back to their homes, to make Cross­es like that which were shown them, and to present these to the heads of fam­i­lies with the assur­ance that if they would receive the Cross­es with respect they would find these with­out ques­tion the rem­e­dy for all their ills. And so it turned out in fact, for the sick­ness end­ed, and all the afflict­ed who used the Cross with respect were restored mirac­u­lous­ly to health. In this they were more hap­py.
(Cler­cq 1680 pg. 172)

(Fore­telling Christ’s vis­it to Amer­i­ca there were incred­i­ble nat­ur­al dis­as­ter. The Dako­ta Indi­ans tell of an event passed down that match­es the destruc­tion explained in the Book of Mor­mon. The Dako­ta Indi­ans explain that dur­ing a great and ter­ri­ble tem­pest, with forked light­en­ing and quak­ing of the earth an ene­my Iowa vil­lage was ploughed to the earth to become a deep ravine where the vil­lage once stood. The Book of Mor­mon states in 3 Nephi Chap­ter 8 there were “ter­ri­ble tem­pest”, “ter­ri­ble thun­der”, “exceed­ing­ly sharp light­nings”, ”exceed­ing­ly great quak­ing of the whole earth”, ”many smooth places became rough”, “And many great and notable cities were sunk”.)

The thun­der, which the Dako­tas believe to be a winged mon­ster, and which in char­ac­ter seems to answer very well to the Mars of the ancient hea­then, bore down upon the Iowa vil­lage in a most ter­ri­ble and god-like man­ner. Tem­pests howled, the forked light­nings flashed, and the thun­ders uttered their voic­es; the earth trem­bled; a thun­der­bolt was hurled at the devot­ed vil­lage, which ploughed the earth, and formed that deep ravine.”
(Min­er 1911 pg. 29)

(Father Cler­cq believed that the Gaspesian/Micmac Indi­ans were taught the belief of the cross and the Chris­t­ian gospel by pre­vi­ous mis­sion­ar­ies, the Gaspe­sian Indi­ans said differently)

One day to make these pagans admit that the mis­sion­ar­ies who had pre­ced­ed me had taught them the man­ner in which they ought to wor­ship the Cross, the lead­ing per­son said to me, “Well, now, thou art a Patri­arch. Thou wish­est that we believe every­thing that thou tellest us, but thou art not will­ing to believe that which we tell thee. Thou art not yet forty years old and for only two hast thou dwelt with the Indi­ans; and yet thou pre­tend­est to know our max­ims, our tra­di­tions, and our cus­toms bet­ter than our ances­tors who have taught them to us. Dost thou not still see every day the old man Quiou­do, who is more than a hun­dred and twen­ty years old: He saw the first ship which land­ed in our coun­try. He has repeat­ed to thee often that the Indi­ans of Miza­michis have not received from strangers the use of the Cross, and that his own knowl­edge of it has been derived through tra­di­tion from his fathers, who lived for at least as long a time as he.”
(Cler­cq 1680 pg. 191)

The New Madrid Fault

The New Madrid fault lies along the Mis­sis­sip­pi riv­er and has earth­quakes that match the earth­quake men­tioned in the Book of Mor­mon that pre­ced­ed Christ’s vis­it to Amer­i­ca. It’s also worth not­ing that, as described in D&C 125:3, Zara­hem­la is along the Mis­sis­sip­pi riv­er, in the earth­quake zone of the New Madrid Fault.

The Book of Mor­mon describes areas of land that sank and lands that lift­ed and shak­ing that last­ed for long peri­ods of time. It also describes a vapor of dark­ness to the point that they could not light fires.

Now com­pare eye­wit­ness accounts of a New Madrid quake that hap­pened in 1811. Quotes come from the Joseph Knew website.

In all the hard shocks men­tioned, the earth was hor­ri­bly torn to pieces – the sur­face of hun­dreds of acres, was, from time to time, cov­ered over, in var­i­ous depths, by the sand which issued from the fis­sures, which were made in great num­bers all over this coun­try, some of which closed up imme­di­ate­ly after they had vom­it­ed forth their sand and water, which it must be remarked, was the mat­ter gen­er­al­ly thrown up. In some places, how­ev­er, there was a sub­stance some­what resem­bling coal, or impure stone coal, thrown up with the sand. It is impos­si­ble to say what the depths of the fis­sures or irreg­u­lar breaks were; we have rea­son to believe that some of them are very deep.” – Eliza Bryan

The sur­face was sink­ing and a black liq­uid was ris­ing up to the bel­ly of my horse, who stood motion­less, struck with a pan­ic of ter­ror […] water spouts, hun­dreds of them throw­ing water and sand were to be observed on the whole face of the coun­try, the sand form­ing minia­ture vol­ca­noes, whilst the water spout­ed out of the craters; some of the spouts were quite six feet high… In a few min­utes, on both sides of the road as far as the eye could see, was vast expanse of sand and water, water and sand. The road spout­ed water, and wide open­ings were to be seen across it ahead of me, then under me, and my [vehi­cle] sank while the water and sand bub­bled, and spat and sucked till my axles were cov­ered.” – J Fletcher

I went ashore, and found the chasm real­ly fright­ful, as it was not less than four feet in width and besides the bank had sunk at least two feet. I took the can­dle, exam­ined to deter­mine its length and con­clud­ed that it could not be less than eighty yards long.” – John Brad­bury (on the Mis­sis­sip­pi River)

The earth was bro­ken in many places and the open­ings filled with water. The hous­es much injured – the only brick chim­ney in the place entire­ly demol­ished…” – Daniel Bedinger

We were vis­it­ed by a vio­lent shock of an earth­quake, accom­pa­nied by a very awful noise resem­bling loud but dis­tant thun­der, but more hoarse and vibrat­ing, which was fol­lowed in a few min­utes by the com­plete sat­u­ra­tion of the atmos­phere, with sul­phu­ri­ous vapor, caus­ing total dark­ness.” – Eliza Bryan

A dense black cloud of vapor over­shad­owed the land.” – God­frey LeSieur

Chattahoochee, Chattanooga Nephite Words

I believe that the Chat­tanooga and Chat­ta­hoochee names are derived from the Nephites. From the quote below Chat­ta­hoochee is not a Chero­kee word but the Chero­kee con­tin­ued to use the name. Mooney believes the name can be attrib­uted to the Algonquin/Great Lake Indi­ans. I assume the Chero­kee con­tin­ued to use the name after they removed the Nephites/Hopewell from the Ten­nessee and Ken­tucky lands.

A creek of the same name is one of the head-streams of Chat­ta­hoochee Riv­er, in White coun­ty, Geor­gia. The Chero­kee pro­nounce it Tsikama’gi, apply­ing the name in Ten­nessee to the ter­ri­to­ry about the mouth of the south­ern, or prin­ci­pal, stream, where they for­mer­ly had a town, from which they removed in 1782. They state, how­ev­er, that it is not a Chero­kee word and has no mean­ing in their lan­guage.
(Mooney 1902 pg. 413)

Kentucky “River of Blood”

Ken­tucky is a pro­posed Nephite land that saw so much blood and car­nage that, after the Nephites were removed, the Chero­kee and Sack Tribes refused to enter those lands. The Book of Mor­mon states that the Nephites dumped thou­sands of bod­ies of Laman­ites slain into the Riv­er Sidon, which is like­ly the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er which bor­ders Kentucky.

An old Indi­an, in con­ver­sa­tion with Colonel James F. Moore, of Ken­tucky, informed him that the west­ern coun­try, and par­tic­u­lar­ly Ken­tucky, had once been inhab­it­ed by white peo­ple, but that they were exter­mi­nat­ed by the Indi­ans. That the last bat­tle was fought at the falls of Ohio, and that the Indi­ans suc­ceed­ed in dri­ving the Abo­rig­ines into a small island below the rapids, where the whole of them were cut to pieces. He said it was an undoubt­ed fact, hand­ed down by tra­di­tion, and that the colonel would have ocu­lar proof of it when the waters of the Ohio became low. This was found to be cor­rect, on exam­in­ing Sandy Island, when the waters of the riv­er had fall­en, as a mul­ti­tude of human bones were dis­cov­ered. The same Indi­an expressed his aston­ish­ment that white peo­ple could live in a coun­try once the scene of blood. The Indi­an chief called Tobac­co, told Gen­er­al Clarke, of Louisville, that the bat­tle of Sandy Island decid­ed final­ly the fall of Ken­tucky, with its ancient inhab­i­tants. Gen­er­al Clarke says that Ken­tucee, in the lan­guage of the Indi­ans, sig­ni­fies “riv­er of blood.””
(M.H. Frost 1819; On the abo­rig­ines of the West­ern Countries)

Colonel Joseph Daviess, when at St. Louis in 1800, saw the remains of an ancient tribe of the Sacks, who expressed some aston­ish­ment that any per­son should live in Ken­tucky. They said the coun­try had been the scene of much blood, and was filled with the manes of its butchered inhab­i­tants. He stat­ed also that the peo­ple who inhab­it­ed this coun­try were white, and pos­sessed such arts as were unknown by the Indians.”
(M.H. Frost 1819; On the abo­rig­ines of the West­ern Countries)

Colonel M’Kee, who com­mand­ed on the Ken­hawa when Corn­stalk was inhu­man­ly mur­dered, had fre­quent con­ver­sa­tion with that chief, respect­ing the peo­ple who had con­struct­ed the ancient forts. He stat­ed that it was a cur­rent and assured tra­di­tion, that Ohio and Ken­tucky had been once set­tled by white peo­ple, who were pos­sessed of arts which the Indi­ans did not know. That after many san­guinary con­tests they were exterminated.”
(M.H. Frost 1819; On the abo­rig­ines of the West­ern Countries)

Kishkumen

An Ojib­wa Indi­an Chief named Keeshke­mun, who suc­ceed­ed his father to be chief, is men­tioned in Warren’s book, Ojib­wa His­to­ry. Keeshke­mun sounds strik­ing­ly sim­i­lar to Kishku­men the Gadianton leader and one of the cities men­tioned in the Book of Mor­mon. In fact if you google Keeshke­mun, Kishku­men will come up. Ojib­wa have some of the high­est hap­logroup X DNA.

Native American Council Tower

Mosi­ah 2:7

7 For the mul­ti­tude being so great that king Ben­jamin could not teach them all with­in the walls of the tem­ple, there­fore he caused a tow­er to be erect­ed, that there­by his peo­ple might hear the words which he should speak unto them.

Pro­fes­sor Carr of its once hav­ing sup­port­ed a build­ing sim­i­lar to the coun­cil-house observed by Bar­tram on a mound at the old Chero­kee town Cowe. Both were built on mounds, both were cir­cu­lar, both were built on posts set in the ground at equal dis­tances from each oth­er, and each had a cen­tral pil­lar. As tend­ing to con­firm this state­ment of Bartram’s, the fol­low­ing pas­sage may be quot­ed, where, speak­ing of Colonel Christian’s march against the Chero­kee towns in 1770, Eam­sey says that this offi­cer found in the cen­ter of each town ”a cir­cu­lar tow­er rude­ly built and cov­ered with dirt, 30 feet in diam­e­ter, and about 20 feet high. This tow­er was used as a coun­cil-house… Mr. M. C. Bead, of Hud­son, Ohio, dis­cov­ered sim­i­lar evi­dences in a mound near Chat­tanooga, and Mr. Ger­ard Fowke has quite recent­ly found the same thing in a mound at Waver­ly, Ohio.”
(Thomas 1889 pg. 32)

The Lamanite Daughters

This is a stretch, but worth the effort. It has bits and pieces of the account of the Laman­ite daugh­ters. The Chero­kee have a myth list­ed below, which I find ties to the Laman­ite daugh­ters who would go out to Shem­lon to dance and make mer­ry, but are abduct­ed by the priests of Noah and become their spous­es. The Laman­ites try to find the daugh­ters and blame the Nephites for their dis­ap­pear­ance, which caus­es a war. This war con­tin­ues until the Laman­ites are told that the Nephites did not abduct the girls. The daugh­ters stop the priests from being killed when they are found out.

Allured by the haunt­ing sound and dia­mond sparkle of a moun­tain stream, she wan­dered far up into a soli­tary glen[.] The dream pic­ture of a fairy­land was present­ly bro­ken by the soft touch of a strange hand. The spir­it of her dream occu­pied a place at her side, and, woo­ing, won her for his bride.
“Her sup­posed abduc­tion caused great excite­ment among her peo­ple, who made dili­gent search for her recov­ery in their own vil­lages. Being unsuc­cess­ful, they made war upon the neigh­bor­ing tribes in the hope of find­ing the place of her con­ceal­ment. Griev­ed because of so much blood­shed and sor­row, she besought the great chief[.] She appeared unto the chiefs in a dream (to stop the fighting).”
(Mooney 1902 pg. 478)

The Saying Bury the Hatchet

The Book of Mor­mon tells the his­to­ry of the Anti-Nephi’s, a Laman­ite peo­ple who no longer want­ed to fight or kill oth­er peo­ple. They made this covenant to God to longer fight by bury­ing their weapons in the ground, nev­er to use them again even in the case of self-defense for them­selves or for their family.

The say­ing bury the hatch­et comes from the Algo­nquin Indi­ans of the Great Lakes area who also made peace by bury­ing their weapons of war. As men­tioned before, I think the Hopewell Indi­ans are the best can­di­date to be the Nephites for numer­ous rea­sons — this is one of them.

The first men­tion of the prac­tice in Eng­lish is to an actu­al hatch­et-bury­ing ceremony.

Years before he gained noto­ri­ety for pre­sid­ing over the Salem witch tri­als, Samuel Sewall wrote in 1680, “I write to you in one [let­ter] of the Mis­chief the Mohawks did; which occa­sioned Major Pynchon’s going to Albany, where meet­ing with the Sachem the[y] came to an agree­ment and buried two Axes in the Ground; one for Eng­lish anoth­er for them­selves; which cer­e­mo­ny to them is more sig­nif­i­cant & bind­ing than all Arti­cles of Peace[,] the hatch­et being a prin­ci­pal weapon with them.”
(South Car­oli­na and the Chero­kee Nation 1785)

Treaty of Hopewell 1785, Keowee, South Car­oli­na: signed by Col. Ben­jamin Hawkins, Gen. Andrew Pick­ens and Head­man McIn­tosh, estab­lish­ing the bound­ary of the Chero­kee Nation. Use of the phrase ‘Bury the Hatch­et: “ARTICLE 13. The hatch­et shall be for­ev­er buried, and the peace giv­en by the Unit­ed States, and friend­ship re-estab­lished between the said states on the one part, and all the Chero­kees on the oth­er, shall be uni­ver­sal; and the con­tract­ing par­ties shall use their utmost endeav­ors to main­tain the peace giv­en as afore­said, and friend­ship re-established.”

Hamsa Symbol

The Jew­ish ham­sa is a sym­bol a hand with the all see­ing eye in the palm is used by Jews and Ara­bi­ans still to this day. This sym­bol is found in North Amer­i­ca specif­i­cal­ly the Mis­sis­sip­pi­an native cul­ture. The Mis­sis­sip­pi­an cul­ture is dat­ed after the Hopewell and the Book of Mor­mon but I believe that they were strong­ly influ­enced or descen­dants of the Hopewell. The Jew­ish sym­bol is shown below as well as the Mis­sis­sip­pi­an ham­sa symbol.

An exam­ple of a Jew­ish ham­sa Symbol:

image068.jpg

Native Amer­i­can rat­tlesnake disc arti­fact with ham­sa symbol:

image069.jpg

Horned Serpent

Horned Ser­pents were major com­po­nents of the South­east­ern Cer­e­mo­ni­al Com­plex of North Amer­i­can pre­his­to­ry.” I believe it can be shown that the horned ser­pents of the Mis­sis­sip­pi­an cul­ture were influ­enced by the old world cul­tures just like there is shared DNA between Native Amer­i­cans and the old world. The Assyr­i­ans believed in a horned ser­pent god, as do Native Amer­i­can cul­tures. Anoth­er is the above rat­tlesnake disc shown above. The horned ser­pent is some­times shown with sacred sym­bols such as the sun cross or ham­sa symbol.
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_Serpent)

What makes this par­tic­u­lar ser­pent inter­est­ing is not only the tie in with oth­er sacred sym­bols, but the fact that horned snakes are not found in the east­ern Unit­ed States. The clos­est snake you get with horn like pro­jec­tions is the sidewinder found in the Mohave Deseret in the South­west por­tion of the Unit­ed States. On the oth­er hand, in the desert of North Africa and the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la is the desert horned viper with dev­il like horns on top of its head as shown below.

Deseret Horned Viper found in North Africa and Ara­bi­an Peninsula:

image070.jpg

What also makes even more inter­est­ing is that in the Book of Mor­mon Nephi describes their writ­ten lan­guage as reformed Egypt­ian. The Egypt­ian hiero­glyph for viper is a snake with horns on it. Whether or not this hiero­glyph was used by Nephi and car­ried over to the New World can at this time only be speculated.

Egypt­ian Hiero­glyph for Viper prob­a­bly moti­vat­ed by the Desert Honed viper found in Egypt:

image071.jpg

Sev­er­al North Amer­i­can tribes believed in a horned ser­pent. List­ed below are tribes that believed in a horned ser­pent and the name that they called it:

Gitaskog (Abena­ki)
Hiint­cabi­it (Ara­pa­ho)
Jipijka’m (Mic­mac)
Kci-Athus­sos (Maliseet-Pas­samaquod­dy)
Mane­to (Fox)
Mehne (Cheyenne)
Mëx­axkuk (Lenape)
Misig­inebig (Anishin­abe)
Oniare (Iro­quois)
Sint-holo (Choctaw)
Ukte­na (Chero­kee)
Unhcegi­la (Lako­ta)
Weewil­lmekq (Maliseet-Pas­samaquod­dy)

Fiery Flying Serpent

Nephi ref­er­ences the Old Tes­ta­ment sto­ry of the Chil­dren of Israel being bit­ten by Fiery Fly­ing ser­pents and then hav­ing to look upon a staff with a ser­pent on it to be healed or death being the con­se­quence from its bite.

Mis­sis­sip­pi­an arti­facts and Native Amer­i­can leg­end seem to con­firm the account of such serpents.

Those who know say the Ukte­na is a great snake…with horns on its head, and a bright blaz­ing crest like a dia­mond on its fore­head, and scales glow­ing like sparks of fire.”
(Mooney, James. Myths of the Chero­kee. US Bureau of Amer­i­can Eth­nol­o­gy, 1897–8 Annu­al Report, 1902)

Mis­sis­sip­pi­an depic­tions of fly­ing serpents:

image072.jpg

This depic­tion coin­cides with the sacred Greek Cross:

image073.jpg

image074.jpg

Assyrian

Ancient Mesopotami­an Cuneiform tablets were found on Chief Joseph. Cuneiform dates back thou­sands of years to Mesopotamia, to what is now mod­ern day Iraq. Assyr­i­ans also used a form of cuneiform. When Chief Joseph was asked where he got the tablets he said he received them from his forefathers.

image075.jpg
image076.jpg

Left: Inanna, Goddess of Love and Queen of Heaven. Right: Inanna in Dimlun

Nez Per­cé Baby 1911, Assyr­i­an Woman 2500 BC:

Nez Perce baby 1911
An Assyrian woman, UR, 2650 BC

This is an ancient Assyr­i­an relief sculp­ture. The Assyr­i­an God Ash­er sits on his throne. In front of him is a four-point­ed star with a cir­cle in the cen­ter. Radi­at­ing out from between the four points of the star are rays of light. The rays of light radi­ate out in three ribbons:

image080.jpg

The Assyr­i­an Flag:

image081.jpg

Chief Joseph not only had Cuneiform tablets but his med­i­cine bag has what appears to have the Assyr­i­an Star of Ashur. The star in the mid­dle has four points and what would be the three rib­bons of light com­ing from the four point star has three points at each end.

image082.jpg
image083.jpg

The Bible and the Book of Mor­mon explain why Native Americans/Lehi have Assyr­i­an ties. Lehi was of the Tribe of Man­asseh. The tribe of Man­asseh and oth­er North­ern King­dom tribes were con­quered and tak­en over by the Assyr­i­ans in 723BC. The tra­di­tion­al lands of Man­asseh become under Assyr­i­an rule, some being deport­ed to Assyr­ia. In 2 Chron­i­cles 30:1–11 explains that the Tribe of Man­asseh was invit­ed back to Jerusalem to wor­ship back at the tem­ple. 2 Kings 17:34 states that they no longer wor­shipped the God of Israel, most like­ly influ­enced by the Assyr­i­an cul­ture and beliefs pro­vid­ed by the Assyr­i­ans. Lehi ances­tors very well could have been some of those invit­ed back to Jerusalem and recon­vert­ed back to their ances­tral beliefs. Those who rebelled against Nephi very eas­i­ly could have revert­ed back to pagan beliefs of Assyr­i­an origin.

Assyr­i­an as well as Native Amer­i­cans believed in a horned ser­pent — anoth­er obvi­ous tie. The Assyr­i­ans were tak­en over by the Chaldeans, and parts of the Old Tes­ta­ment were writ­ten in Chaldean which would explain why Mic­mac char­ac­ter have what appear to be Chaldean sim­i­lar­i­ties. (Ezra 4:8–6:18; 7:12–26; Jer. 10:11; Dan. 2:4–7:28)

This link between Native Amer­i­cans and the old world is also genet­i­cal­ly proven. It remains a mys­tery as to why Native Amer­i­cans have genet­ic ties to the Mid­dle East old world, but once again this genet­ic link is explained by the Bible and the Book of Mor­mon. An ocean voy­age from the Mid­dle East to the Amer­i­can con­ti­nent pro­vides an easy answer to anthro­pol­o­gist and geneti­cist ques­tions regard­ing the old world genet­ic ties.

Based on bib­li­cal ref­er­ences about the tribe of Man­asseh, they stopped wor­ship­ping the God of Israel. This is an expla­na­tion of why hap­logroup X is not a genet­ic DNA mark­er of mod­ern day Jews. The tribe of Man­asseh fell away from tra­di­tion­al Hebrew beliefs because of Assyr­i­an occu­pa­tion and rule.

We sur­veyed our Old World hap­logroup X mtD­NAs for the five diag­nos­tic X2a muta­tions (table 2) and found a match only for the tran­si­tion at np 12397 in a sin­gle X2* sequence from Iran. In a par­si­mo­ny tree, this Iran­ian mtD­NA would share a com­mon ances­tor with the Native Amer­i­can clade.”
(Ori­gin and Dif­fu­sion of mtD­NA hap­logroup X, http://​www​.ncbi​.nlm​.nih​.gov/​p​m​c​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​P​M​C​1​1​80497/)

Assyr­i­ans are tra­di­tion­al­ly from Iraq, but a minor­i­ty of up to 200,000 had lived in Iran as of 1979.

http://www.assyriatimes.com/assyrian/knowledge/a‑common-history-of-assyrians-and-native-americans/3401

http://​www​.assyr​i​a​times​.com/​a​s​s​y​r​i​a​n​/​k​n​o​w​l​e​d​g​e​/​c​h​i​e​f​-​j​o​s​e​p​h​-​c​a​r​r​i​e​d​-​t​h​e​-​s​t​a​r​-​o​f​-​a​s​h​u​r/3461

Assyrian Crescent Moon

This the­o­ry is spec­u­la­tive, but it is quite pos­si­ble the cres­cent shaped orna­ment worn by Native Amer­i­cans is the Assyr­i­an god­dess Sîn.

Assyr­i­an Relief to include sun and cres­cent moon and the wor­ship there of:

image084.jpg

King Mel­i­shipak I (1186–1172 B.C.E.) presents his daugh­ter. The cres­cent moon rep­re­sents Sîn, while the sun and star rep­re­sent Shamash and Ishtar:

image085.jpg

Once again the cres­cent moon god­dess Sîn, is rep­re­sent­ed:

image086.jpg

Exam­ples of cop­per cres­cent shaped objects found in graves and paint­ings of 19th cen­tu­ry Indi­ans wear­ing cres­cent objects as necklaces.
(Jones Mound North Carolina)

Hor­i­zon­tal, face up, head south­east; shell beads around the neck, a hook or cres­cent shaped piece of cop­per on the breast.
(Cyrus Thomas)

(Etowah Mound Geor­gia con­cern­ing a grave)

The two cres­cent-shaped pieces are entire­ly plain, except some slight­ly impressed lines on the por­tion con­nect­ing them with the cen­tral stem.
(Cyrus Thomas)

image087.jpg

(Davis Coun­ty Illinois)

Near the orig­i­nal sur­face, some 10 or 12 feet from the cen­ter, on the low­er side, was dis­cov­ered, lying at full length on its back, an unusu­al­ly large skele­ton….With it were three thin, cres­cent-shaped pieces of rough­ly-ham­mered native cop­per, respec­tive­ly 6, 8, and 10 inch­es in length, with some small holes along the con­vex mar­gin.
(Cyrus Thomas)

In this paint­ing a Semi­nole Indi­an is wear­ing three cres­cent shaped objects:

image088.jpg
Semi­nole Lah-Shee

image089.jpg
Semi­nole Os-ce-o-lá, the Black Drink, a War­rior of Great Dis­tinc­tion, 1838

image090.jpg
Chief Corn­planter, a Seneca war chief

image091.jpg
Thayen­da­negea Iro­quois Chief

If the cres­cent shaped object rep­re­sent the Assyr­i­an God Sîn, one would not expect to find cres­cent shaped arti­facts among Hopewell arti­facts, or at the very least in lim­it­ed quan­ti­ty com­pared to oth­er sites. This has been the case — arche­ol­o­gists were sur­prised that cres­cent shaped objects were not found at cer­tain Hopewell sites.

If the tab­u­la­tion is valid, it indi­cat­ed that sta­tis­ti­cal­ly there should have been found at least one cop­per cres­cent at Hopewell.”
(The Ade­na 1974 pg. 214)

Seasons of War and Winter

Wars men­tioned in the Book of Mor­mon were fought pri­mar­i­ly between the first and fourth months men­tioned in the Book of Mor­mon. Dur­ing Nephite and Laman­ite bat­tles the Laman­ites are described as wear­ing loin cloths. If the Nephite and Laman­ite in the area between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mex­i­co not going beyond the Rocky Moun­tains. How could the Laman­ites wear loin cloths in the mid­dle of win­ter when tem­per­a­tures can drop below freez­ing? In the Hebrew cal­en­dar the first month is between March and April. This would mean that the Major­i­ty of wars were fought between spring and sum­mer. Wear­ing loin cloths would not be a prob­lem. But I know of one occa­sion men­tioned in the Book of Mor­mon that a bat­tle was fought dur­ing the win­ter and luck­i­ly it gives us a descrip­tion of what the Laman­ites were wear­ing Alma 49:6 “very thick gar­ments to cov­er their naked­ness”. The Laman­ites known to wear loin clothes pre­pared them­selves for bat­tle with armor and thick gar­ments. In this exam­ple there is obvi­ous­ly no con­flict because of the wear­ing of thick garments.

Joseph Smith eas­i­ly could have used the cur­rent Roman cal­en­dar to use for the Book of Mor­mon if it is a work of fic­tion. John Soren­son who is a famous Mesoamer­i­can Arche­ol­o­gist espous­ing the Mesoamer­i­can Book of Mor­mon geog­ra­phy mod­el. He wrote the Mor­mon Codex con­sid­ered the bible of the Mesoamer­i­can Geog­ra­phy mod­el. He at one time had the Nephites using a cal­en­dar sim­i­lar to the Roman cal­en­dar. The one prob­lem with this is that it would mean that Christ was cru­ci­fied in Jan­u­ary instead of April. If the Hebrew cal­en­dar is used this is not an issue.

Oth­er vers­es that show that the Book of Mor­mon had sea­sons fit­ting the Heart­land mod­el are descrip­tions of migrat­ing beast that migrat­ed based on the sea­son (Mosi­ah 18:4). Mesoamer­i­ca does not have migrat­ing land mammals.

In Alma 46:40 it describes what sound like North America’s flu sea­son fevers being com­mon dur­ing the win­ter months of North Amer­i­ca “there were some who died with fevers, which at some sea­sons of the year were very fre­quent in the land.”

James Adair wrote that the Chero­kee Indi­ans keep man­ner of time same as the Hebrews. While doing research I have noticed the same sim­i­lar­i­ties with the Natchez of Mississippi.

This nation begins its year in the month of March, as was the prac­tice for a long time.”
(Swan­ton 1909 pg. 109)

The Natchez have 13 months in their cal­en­dar but that might be to account for the fact that the cycle of the Moon is longer than 365 days. The cycle of the moon is 375 days.

The Natchez also break up the day sim­i­lar to the Hebrews.

Water of Mormon

There is also a good can­di­date for the waters of Mor­mon found in Mis­souri. Based on the geog­ra­phy and fea­tures of the sug­gest­ed place and the descrip­tion giv­en by the Book of Mor­mon and D&C.

This is how Alma described the waters of Mor­mon Mosi­ah 18:5

5 Now, there was in Mor­mon a foun­tain of pure water, and Alma resort­ed thith­er, there being near the water a thick­et of small trees, where he did hide him­self in the day­time from the search­es of the king.

What sticks out is it is described as a foun­tain of pure water.

Big Springs, Mis­souri fits this descrip­tion. Big Springs is a sin­gle spring that has a dai­ly out flow of 286 mil­lion gal­lons per day. Enough that the springs cre­ates white water as it enters what appears to be glacial crys­tal clear pool of water. You can see the white water that is pro­duced from the out flow of the spring. The pool of water is sur­round­ed by a thick­et of trees.

image092.jpg

http://​www​.sci​ence​views​.com/​p​a​r​k​s​/​b​i​g​s​p​r​i​n​g.html

How do we know that the waters of Mor­mon should be in Mis­souri the Book of Mor­mon and Doc­trine and Covenants helps answer that question?

Alma says in from Mosi­ah 18:4, 31

4 And it came to pass that as many as did believe him did go forth to a place which was called Mor­mon, hav­ing received its name from the king, being in the bor­ders of the land

31 And these things were done in the bor­ders of the land, that they might not come to the knowl­edge of the king.

So from these vers­es we learn that the Waters of Mor­mon are near the bor­der of the land.

So how do we learn where the bor­ders of the land are locat­ed that is deduced from D&C 54:8 when mis­sion­ar­ies were sent out to Mis­souri. Mis­souri is stat­ed as the bor­ders of the Laman­ite lands.

8 And thus you shall take your jour­ney into the regions west­ward, unto the land of Mis­souri, unto the bor­ders of the Laman­ites.

The bor­ders of the Laman­ites is locat­ed in Mis­souri just like the Waters of Mor­mon would be locat­ed in Mis­souri. Its large out­flow of water could eas­i­ly be described as a foun­tain in its sim­plest terms.

Medicine

Alma 46:40

40 And there were some who died with fevers, which at some sea­sons of the year were very fre­quent in the land—but not so much so with fevers, because of the excel­lent qual­i­ties of the many plants and roots which God had pre­pared to remove the cause of dis­eases, to which men were sub­ject by the nature of the climate—

(Gaspesian/Micmac Indi­ans)

They have, more­over, a quan­ti­ty of roots and herbs which are unknown to us in Europe, but whose virtues and prop­er­ties the Indi­ans know won­der­ful­ly well, so that they can make use of them in time of need.”
(Cler­cq 1680, pg. 298)

Series Nav­i­ga­tion: North Amer­i­can Book of Mor­mon Geog­ra­phy — David McK­ane« Tribe of Man­asseh — Tech­nol­o­gy and Ani­malsTribe of Man­asseh — Geog­ra­phy Map and Sup­port­ing Verses »

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Angela Malene
6 years ago

amaz­ing job this was very val­i­dat­ing as well as edu­cat­ing. So ready to see his chil­dren heal the wounds between moth­er Earth and man.

Angela Malene
6 years ago

I do not dis­pute any of the won­der­ful truths pub­lished here, only want to point out we no longer need a denom­i­na­tion placed upon our selves. We are his chil­dren, his peo­ple. The names and mis­con­cep­tions form from clouds, shades of seg­re­ga­tion. Shalom

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