ANCIENT AMERICA FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER New Series No. 7 March 1996 A tax-exempt Research Corporation Since 1985

8.1 In the last newsletter, it was reported that Dr. Alan C. Miner had two volumes of a four-volume series

8.2 Recently, V. Garth Norman returned from a visit to Mainland China.

8.3 The Seven Primordial Tribes: A Mesoamerican Tradition, by Diane E. Wirth.

Endnotes

8.4.1 Question: IS LAGO DE IZ4BAL IN GUATEMALA A NATIVE MAYA NAME

The Book Review

S.E.H.A. Division News

8.1 In the last newsletter, it was reported that Dr. Alan C. Miner had two volumes of a four-volume series ready for purchase in LDS bookstores. This series is titled Step by Step Through the Book of Mormon. The third volume is nearly ready for publication. However, these volumes are being printed in small numbers at first to get "feedback" on the contents. When this "feedback" process is completed for all four projected volumes, then they will be released for purchase by the public at large. We will notify our readers when these volumes can be purchased and where.

Research Division News

8.2 Recently, V. Garth Norman returned from a visit to Mainland China. Garth accompanied his wife Cheryl and other pianists on a musical tour to three areas of China. Garth was able to get some orientation information on several archaeological sites. He found the sites were oriented to the four cardinal directions and to sacred mountains. The parallel to Mesoamerican sites in Mexico and Guatemala was striking and very rewarding for Garth. We will undoubtedly hear more of this from Garth at a later date.

Guest Article

8.3 The Seven Primordial Tribes: A Mesoamerican Tradition, by Diane E. Wirth.

In 1979, I read a paper, "The Seven Primordial Tribes of Ancient America," at the 28th Annual Symposium of the S.E.H.A. The following is an updated version of that paper, with additional evidence to support the widespread tradition in Mesoamerica of an origin

myth of seven tribes, which myth extended north to the American southwest and south to Colombia.

Seven tribes are described in the Book of Mormon as having evolved from the families who came from the land of Jerusalem to the New World. The first mention of these lineage groups is circa 544 B.C., when the individual tribes were designated as Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites.1 Almost 700 years later, these patriarchal tribal divisions were mentioned again, indicating the enduring nature of this tradition.2 Over time, the order of the names remained the same; the last reference appears in Mormon 1:8 shortly before the demise of the Nephite nation as a result of war.

Early traditions, passed orally from one generation to the next, spoke of seven primordial tribes who were the ancestors of some Mesoamerican cultures. These legends. were recorded on murals, stelae, monuments, and codices, and, fortuitously, were recited to Spanish clergy who made a written record of the various accounts.

After studying the iconography and printed material associated with this myth, one cannot give a definitive answer as to whether there is a positive association with Book of Mormon peoples. Evidence of this tradition is presented here to illustrate the importance of this myth in Mesoamerica and to suggest a plausible connection between the Mesoamerican tradition of seven tribes with that contained in the Book of Mormon.

In Mesoamerica, artistic expression played an important role in the interpretation of historical events. Art associated with the seven primordial tribes is, therefore, steeped in symbolism. Some accounts claim they emerged into a new world from another land, while others refer to their arrival in the world at the time of our present creation. From a variety of artwork, we know that this process of emergence was comparable to deliverance from the womb and that the womb was often pictured as a cave.

Coming out of seven caves, boats, the' underworld (womb of mother), etc. are metaphors used in myths of the "emergence," which legend is still reenacted among several Indian peoples. For example, there is a cave system underneath the temple of quetzalcóatl at Utatlan, the ancient Quiché capital near the present Guatemalan town of Santa Cruz del Quiché. The cave under this site has seven chapels that shoot off from the main tunnel. Rituals are performed at this location to this day and no doubt have a connection with ancient traditions surrounding the myth of the seven caves. Let us examine the meaning of the seven caves in legend as well as in art.

We will first turn to The Popol Vuh, the sacred, historical record of the Quiché Maya, who spoke of their origins from the east. The Quiché world was dark while they lived in seven caves; but during that time, they received guidance from the gods. They crossed the sea, using stepping stones (perhaps islands), and finally arrived in a new land.3

Caves are of great significance in Meso-American symbology and must be understood in order to fully comprehend the tales told regarding the seven tribes. From remotest

antiquity in Mesoamerica, caves were closely associated with birth and creation. To a native's way of thinking, the darkness of a cave was similar to the womb-the place of emergence; and waters seeping from caves were comparable to life-sustaining waters flowing from the maternal womb. Boats were also considered womb-like enclosures, and this aspect of the myth, especially as it relates to The Popol Vuh account and the Book of Mormon, will not be neglected in this discussion.

Figure 1

Measoamerican U-shaped element (redrawn after Zelia Nuttall, The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations, Vol.II, Peabody Museum, Cambridge, MA., 1901, Fig. 31, p 536)

In dealing with a symbol of birth (the womb or uterus from which these tribes sprang), reference may be made to the womb as a U-shaped element. In Figure 1, a child rests naturally in the U-shaped womb of its mother. This is the basic design seen in Mesoamerican "birth" and "portal" (entrance "into" and exit "our of") iconography, with variations of the motif retaining the U-shape. Page 16 in The Codex Nuttall shows a woman in the process of giving birth to a child; and to the left are many U-shaped elements designating cave portals within a mountain (Fig. 2). A larger U-shaped cave opening delivers the same child as in the realistic portrait to the right.

Figure 2

Birth of child (redrawn after p. 16, Codex Nuttall).

There may be a connection with this U-shaped birth element and similar iconography in the Middle East. An Omega, or U-shaped design, was a symbol of the goddess of childbirth, Ninhursag, in Mesopotamia.4 In Egypt, the goddess Hathor wears a headdress (or sometimes her hair is coifed) in a U-shaped pattern (Fig. 3).

Figure 3

Egyptian goddess Hathor with typical U-shaped coiffure (redrawn after tomb ceiling, Thebes).

In addition, Isis sometimes takes on aspects of Hathor, and wears this symbolic headdress. In this role Isis presides over the conception and birth of human beings into this world and the next realm after. death. In fact in the New Empire it became fashionable for women to wear their hair styled to represent this birth emblem. Lehi's descendants were knowledgeable of Egyptian writing and symbolism, and these concepts may have been brought to the New World by them. No doubt other sea voyagers from the Middle East, perhaps Mulek's rescue party, would also have been familiar with this motif.

The Mesoamerican U-shaped opening is also often equated with a mouth/portal, even the mouth of a monster with intimidating teeth. This was the entrance way to the interior womb-like cavity where men are born, where the beginnings of culture took place. Numerous pre- and post Conquest illustrations demonstrate this point, one in the Codex Duran being a realistic representation of this theme (Fig. 4).

Figure 4

Monster mouth cave entrance, (redrawn after Duran Codex)

After the Spanish Conquest, town officials continued to keep a record of their people, as they had previously done in the codices (most of which were destroyed). No longer accordion-like books, lienzos were now created on large pieces of cotton or linen. These lienzos recorded genealogy, history, and the geography of districts, depicting oral traditions going back to pre-Columbian times. The Lienzo of Tlapiltepec in Oaxaca, Mexico, is of particular interest with regard to the myth of the seven caves. (Fig. 5)

Figure 5

Monster mouth of cave on Lienzo of Tlapiltepec (redrawn after Ross Parmenter, Four Lenzos of Coixahuaca Valley, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., 1982 Fig. 7).

The open mouth of a monster represents the mouth of a cave in a mountain, and within the mountain are, seven individual portals to caves in the "periphery of the Earth Monster hill.5 This stylized design is commonly known as Chicomoztoc, "The Place of the Seven Caves." Chicomoztoc literally means "womb," and in this sense Chicomoztoc referred to the womb of tribal history. Legends throughout Mesoamerica explain that this is the place from which the first ancestors started their wanderings. Another fine example of this theme can be found in the Codex Duran, where seven individual caves containing the forebears of seven tribes are clearly portrayed (Fig. 6).

Eigure 6

Seven seperate caves of emergence (redrawn after the Codex Duran).

As has been de monstrated, sometimes the cave of emergence is portrayed with seven small caves within a mountain/hill, some, times as seven separate caves, and at other times with just one cave. The meaning is the same. The Lienzo Tequixtepec from Oaxaca shows the birth of the first ancestors from one cave- essentially referring to the emergence of the first couple of their lineage from the mountain of creation (Fig. 7). The presence of the World Tree adds to the genealogical aspect of the theme.

Figure 7

The first couple emerge from a U-shaped element at the top of the mountain of creation, Lienzo Tequixtepec (redrawn after Parmenter, OP. Cit., Fig 34).

One of the earliest representations of a group of people emerging from the primordial mountain can be seen in the Tepantitla murals of Teotihuacãn (Fig. 8). Actually, this illustration is a replication of the cave under the Pyramid of the Sun, while in turn the pyramid duplicates the natural mountain behind it, Cerro Gordo. 6 Today the mural is badly worn and one cannot determine exactly how many caves within the cave system are portrayed; nevertheless, the theme is the same. Men emerge from many wombs within the larger womb-like cave of the primordial mountain. With regard to myths of first ancestors at the time of creation, and the emergence of seven tribes from seven caves, it must be kept in mind that creation myths had a tendency to amalgamate from time to time.

Figure 8

Reonstruced drawing of creation mountain in mural at Tepantitla, Teotihuacanc (darkend areas added to emphasize shape of cave/womb, redrawn after Esther Pastory, the Murals of Tepantitla, Teotihuacan, Garland Publishing, Inc. NY, 1976).

Figure 9

General outline of painted chambers from Terradentro, Columbia (redrawn after Gordon Brotherston, Image of the New World, Thames & Hudson, NY, 1979, Fig. 13

The myth of the seven caves exists as far South as Columbia, where seven chambers or caves were used for second burials at Tierradentro (Fig. 9).7 American Southwest, seven hills can be seen in the third sandpainting of the Navajo Emergence Way (Fig. 10). The nearby Hopi Indians refer to the aforementioned U-shaped element as the mother earth symbol. It can be viewed in their labyrinth designs which are symbolic of man's emergence. But even more significant is that both the Quiché Maya of Guatemala and the Hopi Indians of the American Southwest, have a tradition that claims their ancestors crossed the sea on stones which were placed in a row; and that is not where the similarity ends. Both cultures believe their people evolved from seven tribes that emerged from seven caves. For the Hopi and the Quiché this General incident was viewed as Hills a new cycle of time, an arrival for man in a new world.

Figure 10

General outline of Seven Hills in the third sand painting of the Navajo Emergence Way (redrawn after Brotherston, Ibid.)

Are the Hopi related to the Maya? According to Frank Waters, the "Hopis first lived in seven puesivi, or caves." From there they migrated northward, establishing their people and villages in accordance with the names of the "caves or womb-cavems."8 These events may refer to the Late Classic Period in Mesoamerica when many peoples were on the move as war, disease, and famine plagued much of Mesoamerica. But by the same token, the myth may be coupled with earlier times, with events going back to myths of man's first arrival in the New World.

Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico, has many beautiful and interesting stelae, Stela 5 with the Tree of Life pictorial narrative being the most important to Latter-day Saints. Stela 67 at this site is interesting to this study because it appears to portray a bearded man in a boat, riding an inverted ocean wave. The upside down wave gives the understanding of the watery Underworld where the dead enter and rebirth takes place. According to Garth Norman, author of Izapa Sculpture, Stela 67 may allude to a migration of people from a land beyond the sea.9 He suggests that the aforementioned traditions of the Quiché Maya traveling in darkness may refer to the voyage through the watery Underworld on their way to this land. It would not be far-fetched to compare the vast sea on which a boat travels, to the Underworld; and the boat, to the portal from which one leaves that foreboding realm to come into the light of the present world. Debarkation onto unfamiliar soil may be conceived as birth into a new world/new age, and thus fall under the category of a creation myth, the beginning of lineages, the emergence of primordial man, and so on.

Bernardo de Sahagún equated the cave symbolism of the seven tribes with that of boats, and suggested that these tribes crossed the waters in search of a terrestrial paradise. He wrote:

Concerning the origin of these peoples, the report that old men give is that they came by sea from the north, and true it is that they came in some wooden boats but it is not known how they were hewn, but it is conjectured by a report found among all these natives that they came from seven caves, and that these seven caves are the seven ships or galleys in which the first settlers of this land came, as gathered from likely conjectures.10

The numeral classifier for caves in Yucatec is ak, which forms part of the word aktun "cave." The classifier ak is also used for words such as canoes boats "houses," and containers."11All these words are associated with things that hold people and objects in safe enclosures. Stelae 3 and 6 at Izapa give representations of boats illustrated as U shaped elements. 12 In each case the boat is in the air, possibly signifying the vehicle which transports the souls of men to the heavenly paradise, not unlike the solar bark in Egyptian mythology. In any case, the boat is in the U-shaped symbol of the womb.

Figure 11

Chicomoztoc, or seven caves (redrawn after The Historia Tolteca-Chicimeca, Anales de Quauhtinchan, Paul Kirchhoff, O. Güemes, and L. Reyes Garcia, eds. INAH/CISINAH, Mexico, 1976).

One of the more explicit representations of the seven cave is in a post-Conquest document called The Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca (Fig. 11). Enclosed within a mountain is a cave system with seven lobes, each containing a tribe of people. Viewed as a whole, the individual caves compose the petals of a flower. Another illustration of a mountain in

this same document shows the cave entrance at the bottom (an elongated U-shape), with seven flowers drawn on the upper side of the mountain (Fig. 12).13 The connotation of the seven-flowered illustration may have the same meaning as the more obvious seven-lobed cave. This line of reasoning is in accordance with one of the meanings of a flower in Mesoamerican syntax. According to Doris Heyden, xochill "flower," represents the womb, origin, and paradise; and in Mexican Tlalxicteco cosmology, Xochiocan is identified as a place of origin.14 The names Cochiocan, Tamoanchan, Tiallapan, Tula, Tollan, and Chicomoztoc, have all been identified as the location where first man was created. These places of creation are often associated with a "field of reeds" and a World Tree. This complex of ideas is especially clear in Figure 12, where all these elements are exhibited.

Figure 12

Tlachihualtepetl, with seven flowers for seven caves (redrawn after Historia Tolteca-Chicimeca, Ibid.).

Although the legend of the seven caves comes primarily from Mexican Nahuatl speaking peoples, there was a widespread adoption of this myth among other peoples, as is evidenced by the Quiché Maya. Tulan Zuyua, or vukub pek, vukub zivan "seven caves, seven canyons" is referred to in The Popol Vuh.15 The High Priest's Grave at Chichen Itza in the Yucatan also supports a belief in this origin myth in an area of non-Nahuatl speaking peoples. Similar to the Quiché place of origin, the original name for Chichen Itza may have been Ucil-Abnal, "Seven Bush Places or Hollows." 16

The High Priest's Grave at Chichen Itza is of particular interest. Regarding this pyramid, Eric Thompson recorded a total of seven clearly marked graves in the shaft leading to the cave below, apparently one grave for every branch of the ancestral tribes.17 The Itza at the site, and it has not yet been determined whether they were Mexican foreigners or Maya, were no doubt tapping into a very ancient and widespread origin mythology.

Figure 13

Monument 21, Bilbao, Guatemala

One of the more interesting historical narrative-style monuments found in Central America is Monument 21 at Bilbao, Guatemala, the area referred to as Santa Lucia Cotzumalhuapa (Fig. 13). The entire monument is covered with decorative designs of plants and animals, indicating a land of bounty. A close look at the central figure is particularly remarkable for his features are very non-Maya. To the left (our right) of this man dressed as a ball player, is a U-shaped enclosure containing seven heads (Fig. 14).

Figure 14

The protagonist is a ball player with serpent-umbilicus tied to ancestor within U-shaped enclosure.

Tied to his left knee is a serpent, which extends to one of the heads in the enclosure. In Meso-American art, the left leg is associated with lineage and fertility; and it is widely accepted that a serpent often represents an umbilicus. In this case the umbilical cord goes directly to an ancestral figure within the womb-like enclosure that may represent a boat, but above all, a womb of emergence. This line of reasoning is justified when considering

the opinion of Donald Makenzie who wrote: "The boat of the sun god is sometimes depicted as a U with a dot inside it. The mother goddess was the boat, and the boat was, apparently, her womb." 18 The figure directly over the boat/womb symbol on Monument 21, is none other than Ix Chel, the goddess of childbirth. Her sign of the twisted serpent atop her head identifies her as this mother goddess (Fig. 15 a & b). Vegetation sprouts from her head, which is another sign of fertility.

Figure 15a

Ix Chel on Monument 21

Figure 15 b

Ix Chel (redrawn after Dresden Codex).

The side of the U shaped enclosure housing the seven tribes has water issuing from it, which would again suggest the womb from which the seven tribes emerged. Turning our attention to page 53 of the Codex Nuttall (Fig. 16), water is seen gushing from a hole the same kind of aperture found in the U-shaped womb element from Bilbao. Moreover, the spongy-looking texture from which the water spouts in both the Nuttall example and Monument 21, are identical with raw fleshy parts of severed bodies in other illustrations. In central Mexican codices the U-shaped cave is Figure 16 often represented by a fleshy-like scalloped or wavy-lined opening, which Susan Milbrath finds characteristic "of female reproductive anatomy, such as the vagina and umbilical cord." 19 The U-shaped element on the Bilbao carving also has a notched, scalloped-like edge, giving additional support that it is indeed a womb. The same scalloping can be seen in Figure 11 in The Historia Tolteca Chichimeca. Each cave contains this fleshy edging within its interior.

Figure 16

Water gushes from fleshy aperature (redrawn after Codex Nuttall).

The story in stone at Bilbao identifies the protagonist as descending from one of the seven lineages, within the womb-like enclosure. Some of the heads may represent tribal names. The ballplayer's ancestor appears to have no special features that are out of the ordinary, except for a possible shell headdress. Another head has been identified as a personified flint knife." According to Zelia Nuttall, the flint knife 20, the Tecpatl, was the symbol used to represent the supreme pontiff of one of the seven tribes.21 Nuttall explained that the word for flint knife is a bilingual rebus, expressing a sense of governing, ruling, regulating, etc.22

Another head, or tribe, appears to be that of a butterfly, or a bat. If it is a butterfly it may represent the immortal soul of an ancestor, possibly a warrior.23 The other option is a bat.

Several groups of people are associated with the emblem of this creature, including Copan. More importantly, the Cakchiquel Maya claim their ancestry from the tribe of the bat; it was their tribal totem from ancient times.24 This tribal emblem is also known to exist in Mexico. Ixtlilxochitl, a Chichimec king of Texoco, claimed he was descended from the Cave of the at so the bat may very well be a valid tribal emblem for one of the seven tribes (Fig. 17).25 As for the other heads, one appears to be a doll, and the others are apparently deified cacao pods.26

Figure 17

A child is born in the lineage of the Cave of the Bat (redrawn after Mapa Tlotzin, in Di Peso, Op. Cit., Fig 59-1).

The Annals of the Cakchiquels, a Maya history, refers again and again to the seven primordial tribes as the original colonizers who came from across the sea.27 Does this account of the seven tribes, as well as the others mentioned here, refer to the same long-held concept of seven lineages in the Book of Mormon? We can only speculate that this is the case. What we do know is that this legend was part of oral tradition among the natives of Mesoamerica for more than a thousand years.

Endnotes

1. Jacob 1: 13

2. 4 Nephi 38.

3. The Popol Vuh, translated by Delia Goetz and Sylvanus G. Morley, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1950, Intro. pp. 63, 64, and Popol Vuh, third chapter.

4. E. Douglas Van Buren, "Symbols of the Gods in Mesopotamian Art, in Analecta Orientalia, 23, Pontificium Instituturn Biblicum, Roma, 1945, pp. 106-108.

5. Ross Parmenter, Four Lienzos of the Coix1ahuaca Valley. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., 1982, p. 20.

6. The cave under the Pyramid of the Sun is in part natural, and partially enlarged by man. This was done perhaps to emphasize the seven cave theme. Four lobes are at the end of the tunnel, two halfway up the tunnel, and the tunnel itself would constitute the seventh cave.

7. Gordon Brotherston, Image of the New World. Thames and Hudson, London, 1979, p. 196.

8. Frank Waters, Mexico Mystique. The Swallow Press, Chicago, 1975, pp. 168-170.

9. V. Garth Norman, Izapa Art, Part 2. New World Archaeological Foundation, Brigham Young University, Provo, 1976, pp. 154-158.

10. Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Espana, Introducción al Primer Libro, 1946.

11. Andrea J. Stone, Images from the Underworld Naj Tunich and the Tradition of Maya Cave Painting. University of Texas Press, Austin, 1995, p. 35.

12. See Norman, Op. Cit., pp. 95, 10 1.

13. Even though an almost identical picture of this mountain is included in the document, but having six flowers, a frog at the top of the mountain has a foot where the seventh flower would have rested.

14. Doris Heyden, Mitología y simbolismo de la flora en el Mexico prehispánico. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, 1983.

15. Dennis Tedlock, Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1985, p. 360.

16. Ralph L. Roys, "Native Empires in Yucatan," in Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicos 20:153-177.

17. Edward H. Thompson and J. Eric S. Thompson, 7he High Priest's Grave, chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico. Field Museum of Natural History Anthropological Series, Vol. 27, No. 1, Chicago, 1938.

18. Donald Alexander Makenzie, Myths of Pre-Columbian America. The Gresham Publishing Co., London, p. 201.

19. Susan Milbrath, "Birth Images in Mexteca-Puebla Art," in The Role of Gender in Precolumbian Art and Architecture. Virginia E. Miller, Ed., University Press of America, Lanham, 1987.

20. Lee A. Parsons, Bilbao, Guatemala: An Archaeological Study of the Pacific Coast Cotzumalhuapa Region, Vol. 2. Publications in Anthropology, 12, Milwaukee Public Museum,1969, p. 102.

21. Zelia Nuttall, The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations, Vol. II, Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, March, 1901, p. 184.

22. Ibid., p. 183.

23. Mary Miller and Karl Taube, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. Thames and Hudson, NY, 1993, p. 48.

24. 7he Annals of the Cakchiquels, translated from the Cakchiquel Maya by Adrian Recinos and Delia Goetz, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1953, p. 59, n. 59.

25. See Charles C. Di Peso, Casas Grandes a Fallen Trading Center of the Grand Chichimeca, The Amerind Foundation, Inc., Dragoon Northland Press, Flagstaff, 1974, Fig. 59-1.

26. Parsons, Op Cit.

27. Annals of the Cakchiquels, Op Cit., p. 48.

S.E.H.A. Question & Answer,

8.4.1 Question: IS LAGO DE IZ4BAL IN GUATEMALA A NATIVE MAYA NAME, OR SPANISH FROM QUEEN ISABELLA OF SPAIN, OR POSSIBLY FROM THE BOOK OF MORMON NAME OF ISABEL?

8.4.2 Answer: By V. Garth Norman.

To examine these three possible name origins we will consider historic, linguistic, and geographical data.It was in the land of Siron that Alma's son Corianton went after the notorious Lamanite harlot Isabel, which would have been in the southeastern Zarahelma-Nephi border region (Alma 39:3).

The beautiful Lago de Izabal is on the northern edge of the lower Motagua Valley's eastern fertile lowlands. It is the largest lake in Guatemala, four times the size of Lake Atitlan in the western highlands. This lake was a major connecting overland and sea trade route of the Maya that the Spanish disrupted by building a fort, Castillo de San Felipe, at its eastern end by the narrow river crossing and head of the navigable Rio Dulce that connects to the Caribbean. R I c k Hauck and Garth Norman inspected an unexcavated Pre-Colombian ruin at San Felipe in 1990, and others are located around the lake shore. Dulce means "pleasant" in Spanish, descriptive of this pleasant tropical region.

Both Spanish and native Maya place names are scattered throughout this region, but Spanish names predominate today. A major landmark like Lake Isabal would be more apt to retain its native name. A pueblo named Izabal located on the south central shore of Lake Izabal could have provided a Maya port 65 kilometers inland from Puerto Barrios on the east coast. Just over the hills due south is the famous Maya ruin of Quirigua with an early occupation that dates well back into Book of Mormon times.

This location is an ideal prospect for the origin of the name Izabal based on an Usumacinta River identity for the River Sidon. The low Las Minas range running east-west between Izabal and the Quirigua is part of the "narrow strip of wilderness" border between Nephi and Zarahemla, in my judgment (see Alma 22:27).

The location fits well for the general territory where Corianton would have gone south of Antionum for his encounter with Isabel in the land of Siron among the borders of the Lamanites. If the name survives from Isabel she would have resided in the Land of Sidon in this locale. "Issbl' is the Phoenician form of the name Jezebel, who became the patroness of Phoenician Baal and Asherah cults in Israel, and doubtless from whom Isabel adopted her name and plied her trade (I Kgs 16:3 1, 11 Kgs 9: 7,22; Illustrated Dictionary & Concordance of the Bible. G.G. The Jerusalem Publishing House Ltd. 1986. p. 538).

Those who might argue that Lago de Izabal got its name from Queen Isabella of Spain, who financed Columbus' discovery voyages to America, have a problem. Isabel is the name's modem form as translated by Joseph Smith, and Isabella is the Spanish form. The original Book of Mormon form would have been "Izbl." How and why would the modem Spanish version of the name evolve back into its ancient Phoenician form, "Izabal"? Also, Maya roots are evident as can be seen in such words as Izalco, Lzapa, Ralam, and Zibalba.

Izabal is doubtless a Maya name and not Spanish. Both linguistic and geographic data favor a possible Book of Mormon origin for this isolated Maya proper name. This identity may be strengthened if it proves to be consistent with a broader Book of Mormon geography construction in progress.

The Book Review

8.5 American Discovery.- Our Multicultural Heritage, by Gunnar Thompson. Argonauts Misty Isles Press, Seattle, Washington: 1994.

Mr. Thompson points out that he was involved in a Ph.D anthropology program until he came, to basic disagreements with his instructors over what was "proper" anthropology. The conflicts were un-resolvable, and he shortly pursued another education track. Fortunately for migrationists/diffusionists and to the chagrin of mainstream American Prehistorians, he retained his deep interests in American prehistory. He continued to research and write his divergent views, broadening and deepening his diffusionist approach. His material is bold, sometimes rash for its lack of source criticism and hasty

conclusions, but it is also impressively far-ranging, and enlightening to those unfamiliar with the diffusionists' position. as methods can get too fast and loose for me, but nonetheless, American Discovery is an important alternative history focused on this hemisphere. It contains many important, useful, and corrective ideas ' along with some conclusions that sound off the wall.

This book runs almost four hundred pages including endnotes, bibliography, and index, even though the print is medium sized. Within the book are many hand-drawn illustrations. The illustrations are useful, serving to present the author's point, helping the readers grasp the many artifacts, featuring Old World-New World correspondences, etc., but unfortunately, they are drawn and not actual photos of the items under discussions. We cannot assess the likeness ourselves but, like some of the text, are forced to settle for the author's opinions. The likenesses are important evidences for the diffusionists' case, and Thompson's illustrations do not qualify as real evidences. They merely raise the issues. Of course, this is not an institutional, mainline book, so we can't expect expensive visuals. This is a revisionist paperback that cost me less than $20. But I still think it was worth that because you won't find stuff like this in the mainline, academic books. A lot of people who raise issues like these and then persist in researching are "asked" to leave their academic programs.

The book may not make the splash that Barry Fell's America B.C did, but it is similarly significant. It has chapters on America's first inhabitants, Japanese voyagers, Egyptians, Chinese merchants, Minoans & Phoenicians, Greco-Roman traders, Welsh & Irish rovers, Hindu seafarers, Pacific island voyages, Norse seafarers, traveling Arabian merchants, and the European discoverers. It covers the peoples that are believe to be oceanically capable. One has to be impressed with the range of transoceanic issues that are mentioned in these chapters. Rama Bay chart, African metallurgy, Chinese maps, Norse sagas, Egyptian cranial surgery, Asian/American rice, Roman coins, Indonesian blowguns. It mentions most of the isolationist's headaches. In fact, this book is probably the kind of thing we academic prehistorians were taught to avoid by most of the professors we studied under. No wonder Thompson was asked to leave his program. He seems to be inclined to draw the wrong conclusions, to study the wrong things, and now, like Barry Fell, to write the wrong kind of books in the wrong way.

This author tried my patience more than once. The lack of depth and counter argument considerations often irritated me. The frequently bold statements advancing some revisionist positions with insufficient proof regularly annoyed me. For instance, Thompson writes "Chinese brought the horses to North America" (p. 130) and claims that the rise of the Izapan art tradition is the result of Chinese traders (p. 128). The occasional lack of some references and the listing of multiple references at once are problems for those of us who pursue these issues. When you write a controversial book and argue a minority point of view and want to be taken seriously by other people in the field, you have to present specific arguments, in detail, with lots of references, weighing the evidence to reach a logical conclusion. The book isn't like that. Rather, this is like a narrative compendium that presents a particular point of view. Thompson isn't writing to mainline anthropology, nor fellow scholars, as much as he is fanning the growing ground

swell of transoceanic revisionism. This is done through a quick treatment of many controversial issues and a quick review of significant diffusionist evidence. The very impressive breadth of treatment he gives the subject shows his years of experience with it. However, that treatment would be better served if the book had a much larger index. It could have been a good reference tool but suffers for the want of a detailed index. I suspect the publisher also wreaked havoc with Thompson's original approach to a bibliography. It seems to resemble an American Antiquity format that was reworked. I found myself noting a reference number in the text, looking it up to get an author and date in one appendix, only to go to another list to get the rest of the citation. The publisher and Thompson seem not to have foreseen the usefulness of this work as a reference tool. This broad and occasionally deep coverage readily recommends it as such.

This work is a survey wider than it is deep, but that also reflects the state of many transoceanic contact issues. Like Barry Fell's work, it makes lots of claims and connections, raises lots of issues, and advances an interpretation in a manner academics will consider hasty. Diffusionists lack the specialized, in-depth treatment of the isolationists. By nature, diffusionist subject matter tends to be broader and more difficult to deal with. In fact, I suspect that one of the reasons American prehistory has not been understood better before now is that it is sprinkled with so many transoceanic contact events that they will be very difficult to unravel by teams of experts. Difflusionism is still a movement composed of a lot of amateurs, paraprofessionals, and relatively few professionals (such as George Carter). One cannot expect too much hard science from diffusionism-yet. Importantly, the diffusionist counter movement seems to be having an affect. The acknowledgment of the pre-Columbian transoceanic contact is slowly growing, especially among amateur and paraprofessionals audiences as the evidences of that contact are either discovered first hand or are being taken out of the academic closet by people with enough nerve and perseverance to do so.

The covers of American Discovery are carefully crafted and convey to the visually astute the thematic intention of the work. The attractive blue front cover has what might well be one of Christopher Columbus's vessels moving over the waves set upon a rosette and map of the western hemisphere. Over the map is "American Discovery." It is the way we were all taught to think of American history. The similarly blue background rear cover is at first little different, but as one notices the detail, he or she discovers the flip side. An Oriental ship and a Norse longboat glide the waves. The map in the rosette is of the Old World and the word-age over this map is "The Real Story," with "Norse," "Asians," "African," "Britons," "Hebrews," "Arabians," "Romans," "Irish" laid into the folds of the accompanying ribbon.

This book is an interesting general survey of transoceanic issues but is actually oriented to be a revisionist history. Thompson evidences to his readers that some basic changes need to be made in how the human history of this hemisphere has typically been written. He shows errors, alludes to academic agendas, mentions cultural bias, and impacts the reader with new information. I especially liked his treatment of Christopher Columbus-the man's time, his motivations, and what happened to the Columbus legacy in European and American societies. This little story is emblematic of the sometimes tortuous currents

of history-currents that most people never see or consciously feel but that are very much affected by, if not captured within. Thompson articulates a significantly different interpretation of Western

Hemisphere history than most people, will have ever read. That historical coverage stretches from the Americas' first peopling through the European conquest period. Casual readers will enjoy the reading but should remember that the scholars not only are arguing the issues but also are battling over the diffusion/migration concept. More importantly, readers will repeated y encounter evidences of migration/diffusionism that have not been part of the historical interpretations they have been most familiar with. Go ahead and expand yourself Read it. (Reviewed by T. Michael Smith)