By Jack H. West, 1954.
We find that these Jaredites lived on the American continent for a long period of time. The closing year of their history is a little vague, but there seems to be, as near as we can tell, an overlap with the history of the second group of people. Some men from Zarahemla (people of the second group), accidently found Coriantumr, a surviving Jaredite. Coriantumr lived with the people of Zarahemla “for the space of nine moons,” or nine months as the Indian’s moon terminology would be. (See Omni, verse 21.) Thus we see that there must have been an overlap in the histories of these two groups of people.
Now, let’s assume a figure of approximately 500 BC as the closing of Jaredite history. That figure may be adjustable one way or the other. They had, in other words, approximately 1,700 or 1,800 years of history on this continent. They had a marvelous people, a great nation. Now, this people became the greatest nation of any nation up to its time on the face of the earth, according, again, to the testimony of Jesus Christ, given in the Book of Mormon. That would put the Jaredites ahead of the civilization of Egypt, ahead of Rome, ahead of Greece.
The second group of people came from Jerusalem in the year 600 B.C. They crossed the ocean we now call the Pacific, landing as nearly as we can tell from the records, somewhere on the west coast of the South American continent.
Do you know how fantastic these statements sounded in the year 1830? Do you remember the charge of the prosecution that the book could not be true because it made so many ridiculous statements? Since the prosecution brought up the point, we could take all the time we wanted in defense, so we gave them evidence upon evidence in answer to the charge. The book is filled with countless statements which sounded fantastic in the year 1830, but today they have been proven to be completely true.
There were no scientists in the year 1830 who claimed that two main groups of people came by migration to this land in early times. There were no scientists who claimed that the great migrations in both cases came by sea voyage. There were no scientists who claimed that the great majority of the inhabitants of this continent in early times had been other than native to this land. The scientists thought that what migrations had come had come across the top of the continent over the Siberian area (by which name we know it now), the Aleutians, Alaska, Canada, and down through that territory. Some are still claiming migrations came in this way and undoubtedly some did, but not the two great ones.
We will follow the presentation organized by Dewey Farnsworth in The Americas before Columbus, a book in which have been compiled many interesting facts from authoritative sources. The bibliography in this publication will give reference sources. If you have a copy of the book, follow along as the pages are mentioned.
First of all we will turn to page 4 which quotes an ethnological report by Lowry wherein he offers a “reply to official inquiries respecting the aborigines of America.” He concludes “That the first settlement was made shortly after the confusion of the building of the Tower of Babel.” That is the same time the Book of Mormon stated that the Jaredites landed in America.
On page 10 we read, “Professor Waterman if Boston says of the progenitors of the American Indian: ‘When and whence did they come? Albert Galatin, one of the profoundest philologists of the age, concluded that, so far as the language afforded any clue, the time of their arrival could not have been long after the dispersion of the human family.’“ Again, we read a scientific reference to early American settlers near the time of the Tower of Babel.
On this same page there is a quote from Herbert Howe Bancroft, the greatest historian of our time, particularly regarding the history of these nations and people on this continent. “Toltecs claim to have come to America at the time of confusion of tongues… The Yucatans have a tradition that they came originally from the far east passing through the sea.” One of the seemingly fantastic statements in the Book of Mormon was that the first great group of people, the Jaredites, came to this continent in ships, which are described somewhat as we would today describe submarines. I think I can almost hear the word an expert ship builder would have said in the year 1830, as he read the Book of Mormon: “Well now, there are lots of things I can believe, lots of things that make wonderful sense to me in this book, but when you come to this story about ships, you are talking about my specialized field, and everyone knows that a ship can’t be built that can travel under water.” And since Jared and the brother of Jared stated many times that God was directing the construction of these ships, surely HE knew enough to show them how to build ships which a common ordinary man could build today.
All right, so the legend now as to the first people only, was that they came from the Far East. That would mean then that they would come across what we now know as the Atlantic Ocean, coming through the sea.
“The Olmec traditions” Bancroft goes on to say, “relate that they came by sea from the East. The Algonquins preserve a tradition of a foreign origin and sea voyage. They offered an annual thank offering for a long time in honor of their safe arrival in America.
Now let us go to page 6 of The Americas Before Columbus. D. G. Brinton tells us here, “The Mayas…claimed that their ancestors came from distant regions in two bands. The largest and most ancient immigration from the East, across, or rather, through the ocean—and the second band less in number and later in time, came from the West…” Is that tying in with the Book of Mormon? It certainly is!
Also on page 6, Emil Leopold Jordan tells us, “The best authorities agree that no human race is indigenous to the new world.” Then he explains what he means. “Every human being that has ever lived in America has been an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant.”
Now let us discuss the second great group of people. And for this purpose, let’s read a statement by Dr. Spinden of Peabody Institute, perhaps the greatest authority on the chronology of these ancient people that we have had on this continent. He, together with Dr. Morley of Carnegie Institute, claimed to have found on a stone, about a third of which they were able to decipher as hieroglyphic writing. They believe that it tells the story of the first landing of the second great group of people, and through the chronology of Dr. Spinden, he thinks he has been able to establish the date they arrived. His testimony is on page 12.
With records cut in imperishable stone, the Mayas suddenly made their appearance upon the historical scene on August 6, 613 B.C. Why on August 6, 613 B.C.? Where were the Mayas on August 5th? Nobody knows… They might as well have dropped down from Mars or some other planet on the 6th day of August.” (Quoted from Popular Science.)
Someone should tell Dr. Spinden that somebody does know –somebody does know where they were, who they were, where they came from and what finally happened to them—because somebody has the religious history of these people on this continent and the source of their origin. Researchers find no land migration marks of these people.
With this discussion, we can accept the possibility then that there were two major groups. It has been stated by eminent students of American archaeology that two distinct classes of mankind inhabited this continent in early times. I would like to be even more definite in the assertion that that one of these ancient races spread from the north portion of the continent [the Jaredites], and the other from the south portion. This second group was no doubt the Nephites (the white skinned brothers) and the Lamanites (the dark skinned brothers.) In the conflicts between these two groups, the darker people constantly pushed the white people farther and farther north until they came to the land called Desolation.
They did not want to go into that land because there were great mountains of human bones. Another people had fought a war so fierce and so rapid apparently they did not even have time to bury their dead. And the land burned. There were no trees in the area to speak of, so when the Nephites were finally pushed into this area by their dark skinned apostate brothers, they had to turn to building material other than wood, and that brings up another point which is very interesting—the matter of cement which we will discuss a little later.
In the area of Mexico and Central America alone, researchers generally agree that there are 2,000 sites of ancient people known to science today. I have been in much of this country. I have tramped the jungle trails; I have taken over 1,500 pictures of many of the ancient ruins of the South American area, the Central American area, and the North American Area. I have thrilled as I have gone into the cities of these ancient people. We read that science as yet has not been able to translate any place name or personal name among all these ruins. I want you to remember that, because when we get to some of these names later, we will find that there is much controversy as to how these names should be pronounced. Some are Indian names, some Spanish, some were dreamed up by obscure people. Farnsworth tells us that since scientific researchers have not even been able to translate any place or personal names, “consequently, all names of cities used in modern treatises on the Mayan civilization have been coined by moderns.”
In the meantime, authorities generally agree to this extent—here comes our point—“there were at least two separate and distinct migrations from Asia to the New World… one known as Archaic, about 4,000 years ago. “ If we subtract 4,000 years from our current year of 1954, we come to 2,046 B.C. – the time of the Tower of Babel or Confusion of Tongues. That pretty well pinpoints it. Do you know that if scientists could translate the names of these immigrant people, oh whom they speak, they would call them Jaredites?
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