A Small Smattering of Native American Book of Mormon Prophecies (2 or 3)
FYI - I said small smattering on purpose. It’s
because of the sm… sm… sound.
My Native American tangent continues –
and this one is just as cool/neat-o/ground-shakingly-awesome as that last one.
This entry is about three different Indian prophecies of a book that would come
– a book that was important enough that, in at least two of the cases, it was
desperately sought out by the tribes to whom the prophecy was given. It was
specifically the Book of Mormon in those cases. In the third – you be the
judge.
This first one is from the Cree Indians up in frozen Canada.
It involves a great near-death experience that really mirrors Lamoni's in the Book of Mormon:
Alma 18:
But he wasn't dead. He was learning. I tried to whittle this one down, but
the whole thing together really paints a picture. Maybe grab a snack before you
start it…
1) The Cree Indians
“About the year 1910, a very fine looking
Indian, calling himself Yellow Face, called in Cardeton, and said he had with
him 20 families of the Cree nation from Eastern Canada, and that they were
wandering over the country to find a good trapping country. As they liked the
look of this corner of Alberta, they requested permission to camp on some of
the vacant lands in our vicinity.
“Yellow Face had fairly well educated young men
in his company who could talk pretty good English. These acted as interpreters…
“We directed him and his company to the west
section where there were lands with many lakes and plenty of grass for their
horses. In a few days, Yellow Face sent word to me that they preferred the
upper parts of the Cochrane Ranch lands, and that his company had encamped on
the Belly River near the bridge, waiting to hear from me as to their trapping
on our Church lands. I sent word that if they would go on the hay lands and do
some work in grubbing out a lot of low willows, they might earn a little money
that way and also earn the right to do sonic trapping; to which proposal they
willingly assented…
“While in Mountain View, they seemed very
curious about our meetings and asked to attend public services, and also ward
reunions of any kind; but while in attendance they would talk very little.
When the season was about over for trapping, they came and very politely said
Goodbye, and seemed to appreciate our allowing them to use the Church lands.
“They came back the next year, and again the
third year, and traded and acted much as they did before and never seemed to
wish to get acquainted with us, until one day near the close of the season,
Yellow Face and his Council of Chiefs, comprising the head of each family,
making 20 Chiefs, sent to Mountain View for the Church Chief Bishop to come at
once to their camp and meet with their Council.
“The Bishop went and found them all seated
around the edge of the tent, and wondered what they might desire of him. When
the Bishop entered, Yellow Face stood up and asked the Bishop to stand in the
center of the circle and address them. The Bishop hardly knew what to say, but
tried to explain, through their interpreter, the first principles of the
Gospel, and other truths he thought they would understand about our revealed
Gospel. He spoke over half an hour, and realized they did not seem much
interested, so he sat down and talked briefly on local matters, invited them to
come to Mountain View to the meetings, and left feeling he had not made much of
an impression.
“About a week after, they sent for him to come
among them again and talk to them once more. He wondered more than ever at
their inviting him to talk to them so soon for he knew he had done very little
good before. But as he entered the tent he noticed a fine looking Indian woman,
whom Yellow Face introduced as his daughter.
“The Bishop states that as soon as he saw this
woman, the feeling came upon him to talk on the Book of Mormon. Before he began
to speak to the assembled Indians, Yellow Face asked him if he had anything new
to tell them, saying that they did not care to hear again what he had told them
before. When he said he would tell the[m] about a book, every eye was on him
and the young woman seemed very nearly white. They all paid marked attention as
he spoke and interrupted so frequently through the interpreter, that it was
difficult for him to finish. They were much enthused, and pointed for him to be
seated where Yellow Face had been sitting, then Yellow Face in his dignified
way said he would now tell his story. As he did so every eye was upon him:
““The year before our tribe first came here, I
was taken very sick. Some of my Indian friends who had been dead for many years
came and told me that I would soon be better, but would get sick again someday,
and that I would die, but my family must not think I was dead and bury me, for
I was not to be buried until my body was cold all over.
“When I woke up, I called my family together and
also the Counsel of Five Chiefs (of which I was a member) for our tribe that
then lived in Manitoba was large, and I told them of my dream, and they laughed
at me and did not believe it. But, nevertheless, I feared my dream was true.
“Time went on, and one day sometime afterward, I
was taken very sick, and I at once feared my dream would come true, so I warned
my family not to be in a hurry to bury me, even though I died, until they were
sure that I was cold all over.
“I got weaker and weaker until I left my body,
and I went away among a lot of Indians that I knew were dead, some I knew and
some I did not know, as they had been dead so long. But they were not dead at
all, and told me to die was only to leave the body for your people to take care
of, and to come where they were.
“As for me, they said that I had to go back and
use my body again for several years. THEY SAID I WAS TO GO AMONG THE WHITE
PEOPLE UNTIL I FOUND A BOOK THAT TOLD OP
THE HISTORYOF THESE DEAD INDIANS WHO WERE NOT DEAD.
“I asked them how I would know the people who
had the book that would tell my live Indian friends all about who they were and
about their dead relatives; and they gave me these five keys:
1. They will
let you camp on their own lands, and trap and hunt.
2. They will
treat you like one of them in your business dealings with them.
3. They will
invite you to their meetings and ask you to speak.
4. They will
invite you to sit with them at their tables to eat.
5. They will visit
you in your camp, and their men will not bother your women nor molest any of
you.
“When you find this kind of people, have them
meet in your Council, and have them tell you what they believe, and they will tell you about this book.
“I then woke up and found my wife and my friends
had about decided to bury me as I had been dead several days and was cold all
over, except a small place over my heart, but when I came back to life and told
them where I had been and that our Indian relatives were not dead at all, they
wondered at me. And when I told them that I would pick about 20 families and
travel until I found the Book, they again wondered, but as they all believed in
a God, they said they would follow me.
“So in due time we formed our company and
started. We made many camps, and traveled many seasons. But there are not many
people who are true friends of the Indian; and it was hard to find a people who
answered to the five keys until we landed among you…”
“He then took the Book of Mormon, calling it
their long lost Book, and wrapped it among their valuables, which they always
carry in a separate buckskin sack, and hang it apart from any other belongings
on a tripod in front of the head Chief’s lodge…” (http://emp.byui.edu/davisr/121/Dream%20of%20Yellow%20Face.htm)
Now imagine for a second, that you are Yellow Face. How exactly
would you feel when you got to the part of Lamoni and his father both appearing
dead during their conversion process.
You’d feel like you could directly relate, says I.
But that story is related by a Mormon. This next one is too – but
it’s a Native American Mormon talking about his ancestors joining way back in
the Church’s early days. It’s from a Youtube video. I used science to make a
transcript, but I had to go back and add the punctuation myself. So sorry to
any English teacher I ever had:
2) The Cheyenne Indians
“Well the actual Book of Mormon was
prophesied among our people. It's not just the Book of Mormon - there was
prophesied to be one that would come. His Cheyenne name among us was
All-Sewn-Up-Man, and because one of our, I guess you would call it prophets or
Seers among the Cheyenne people, saw him and he was sewn up in some kind of
clothing. They didn't understand textile material. They understood woven
material but [the fibers Native Americans used were] real big, so this was
really fine so they didn't know how to describe it. They just said he was all
sewn up into something. [He] was wearing a kind of a modern-day suit. It was
Joseph Smith, he was the All-Sewn-Up-Man that would bring forth the little book
that was based upon our ancient records of our people and they looked for him.
And when they finally found him they said ‘this is the church for us.’
“So even though they couldn't
understand [because] the little books were printed in English, and some of them
could barely speak any English words at all, much less read or write it, they
knew it was the church. They didn't understand the book other than it was part
of our records, so they asked to be baptized as soon as possible and many
people were baptized all at once… There was a whole band that got baptized in
the beginning, and they told the missionaries “We don't know you. We can't
understand your lessons. We can't understand your book, but we know it's true.
We know it's been prophesied. They just wanted him to take them down to the
river and baptize
them, so that's what the missionaries did, and though they were the first
generation and then subsequent generations we weren't kind of in the church
like normal church members. We would just seek the church out [to] be baptized,
and then up until my grandfather's day, on both sides my grandmother and
grandfather, they barely spoke any English, so up until two generations ago
they couldn't read the Book of Mormon. They could have it read to them, and
they understood a lot of it and they became members, but they weren't what you
call just regular church members where they were baptized at eight years old.
So yeah, throughout the generations we knew it was true. I know my aunts, my
mom, my grandparents, they were buried holding their book of Mormons.
“They were church members even if, you
know, they couldn't make it to church. They weren't regular, you know, what we
call dyed-in-the-wool Mormons. They all believed in it, they knew it was true
and they became members.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L3FvGc3XKY&t=0s)
If you’d like to watch that video – it’s not
too long:
Here’s #3. It was dropped originally in 1841,
as it states, and it is an Indian man’s recollection of a volcanic eruption he
witnessed in childhood. The prophecy slips in right at the end:
3) The Spokane Indians
“Perhaps predictably, the most
interesting and expressive Indian text concerning the mountain and it’s
eruptions went unnoticed. It was recorded in 1841 from an elder of the Spokane
tribe, whose Christian name was Cornelius, by the naval officer and explorer
Charles Wilkes, and published by Wilkes during a period of intermittent
volcanic activity in the 1850s. Cornelius recalled an eruption from his
boyhood; that is, long before the coming of the whites (probably in the 1790s):
“Cornelius, when about ten years of
age, was sleeping in a lodge with a great many people, and was suddenly
awakened by his mother, who called out to him that the world was falling to
pieces. He then heard a great noise of thunder overhead, and all the people
crying out in terror. Something was falling very thick, which they at first
took for snow, but on going out they found it to be dirt: it proved to be
ashes, which fell to the depth of six inches, and increased their fears, by
causing them to suppose that the end of the world was actually at hand. The
medicine-man arose, and told them to stop their fear and crying, for the world
was not about to fall to pieces. “Soon,”
said he, “there will come from the rising sun a different kind of men from any
you have yet seen, who will bring with them a book, and will teach you
everything, and after that the world will fall to pieces.” (https://books.google.com/books?id=1dXSwoHlcScC&pg=PA195&lpg=PA195&dq=%E2%80%9CThere+will+come+from+the+rising+sun+a+different+kind+of+men+from+any+you+have+yet+seen+who+will+bring+with+them+a+book,+and+will+teach+you+everything,+and+after+that+the+world+will+fall+to+pieces.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=7zywPeKZyu&sig=M0E6hET72aiMwxoVcH-ojgC4Q1k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj51bLhmcPbAhWFh1QKHTwKDvIQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CThere%20will%20come%20from%20the%20rising%20sun%20a%20different%20kind%20of%20men%20from%20any%20you%20have%20yet%20seen%20who%20will%20bring%20with%20them%20a%20book%2C%20and%20will%20teach%20you%20everything%2C%20and%20after%20that%20the%20world%20will%20fall%20to%20pieces.%E2%80%9D&f=false)
The thought there, according to the source-book’s author, is
that the book mentioned here is probably the Bible. To be fair, I haven’t found
any Mormon-fulfillment of this specific prophecy. Cornelius’ native American
name is Chief Big Head. I did find a Mormon reference to a Chief Big Head in Brigham Young’s time, but the location doesn’t seem to match up. Must be
another man with head size as a predominant feature.
Still, when you think of the first two citations up there being
so clearly BOM, so clearly a book involving Indian ancestry – what do you think is getting mentioned here in this last one?
My second guess, should I need it, is something by Tolkien.
But I don't think I'll need it.
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