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Mormons and the Navajos The Lamcmite Myth goloids and have never been anything else. They claim to be men of science but have failed to explain how Semites can become Mongoloids. Here are some instances of this faulty propaganda: Albert R. Lyman, in his pamphlet, A Voice Is Calling, distributed by the Navajo-Zuni Mis sion, Gallup, New Mexico, exposes himself to ridicule when he includes, in his argument that the Indians are the Lamanites, the Navajos who are of the Athapascan language family, the Pueblos who pertain to the Tano- an, Tiwan, Keres, Zuni and Ulto- Astecan language groups, and the Mayans of the Yucatan peninsula who constitute a language family of their own. True, Lyman does not mention these tribes by name—his approach is much more subtle. He uses a front cover picture showing Monument Valley, which is within the Navajo reservation, to suggest the Navajo tribe, (it is no secret that the pamph let is being used among the Navajos to convince them that they are the Lamanites). He uses a typical Pueblo landscape at the foot of each page to suggest the Pueblo tribes, and he uses a cut of the temple pyramid of Chichen Itza on the back cover to suggest Mayans. He also uses a pic ture of huge, Mayan type buildings superimposed on the mesas of Monu ment Valley, which is utterly incon gruous. Golden R. Buchanan in his pamph let, America's Scripture, makes the deceptive statement that the early colonists in the United States were perplexed because they could not fit the American Indians into the classi fications of “ the white, black, yellow, or any of the European, Asiatic or Ethiopian branches of the human family.” Buchanan is not forthright
M r . G ordon H. F raser has made a thorough study of the Mormon tribes. With his permission we repro duce his article, “ Are the Navajos Lamanites?” which may be obtained in tract form from the Utah Christian Tract Society, P.O. Box 726, La Mesa, California: The Mormon writers try to fit the Navajos, and all American Indians for that matter, into the narrative of the Book of Mormon. They insist that the Indians are the Lamanites, who exterminated the Nephites in 421 A.D., and then deteriorated into the savages that were found in America by the European explorers in the 15th century. The average Mormon has heard the story repeatedly, but since he has never studied the subject, and prob ably hasn’t read his Book of Mormon carefully enough to know its details, he accepts the story without question. We excuse him on the basis of lack of information. It isn’t his fault. He be lieves what he is told. After all, we cannot expect everyone to be a stu dent of anthropology. But when men who have majored in the sciences of anthropology and archaeology, such as Drs. M. Wells Jakeman, Milton R. Hunter and Hugh Nibley, as well as lesser writers such as Albert R. Ly man and Golden R. Buchanan, repeat edly appear in print with the same old story that the American Indians are descended from Ephraimites and Mannassehites of the 6th century B.C., in other words, Semite Jews from Jerusalem, we can only be con vinced that these men are guilty of perpetuating the Book of Mormon myth at the expense of their own con sciences. These men know, as well as we do, that the American Indians are Mon-
enough to say that the time of the colonists, or, for that matter in the days of Joseph Smith, there was no accepted science of anthropology, there had been insufficient observation of the great mass of American Indian tribes, and that Joseph Smith had probably never seen an Indian or an Asiatic at the time the Book of Mor mon was presented to the public. These colonists did not know enough to recognize that the American Indi ans were of a common race which in cluded all eastern Asiatic peoples. They were all Mongoloids. Buchanan goes on to perpetuate the Book of Mormon story that these “ unknown peoples could only be explained as the people of the Book of Mormon. He assumes that no one will question his logic. As regards Jakeman, Hunter and Nibley, we have quite a different set of values. These men are students of the sciences of anthropology, history and archaeology, and are quite aware that the Book of Mormon story can not be equated in the least degree with the known cultures, historical sequences or religions of the ancient Americans. Hugh Nibley, who obtained his doctorate in the field of ancient his tory and languages, has devoted much space in his Approach To the Book of Mormon, developing the the ory that Lehi and his family, of the Book of Mormon, could have been familiar with the Egyptian language and that it is quite logical that the scribes of the Book could have used the so - called Reformed Egyptian which, Joseph Smith insists, was the language of the golden plates. He has also spent much time establishing the credibility of the part of the Book of Mormon that has to do with epi sodes that are within the time period
claims in regard to various Indian
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