Mormonism Exposed (Hancock)/Chapter 16

The ancient Mayas were the sole occupants of a portion of Central America, and the most civilized of any of the ancient inhabitants of that country. They lived there during the period that the Book of Mormon claims to be the prosperous period of the Nephites. In addition to their stone and stucco records they had a written language, and had many books. Short, Antiquities, p. 420, says, "In addition to these stone and stucco records, the Mayas had books, which Bishop Landa (a Catholic Bishop of 300 years ago), describes as written on a leaf doubled in folds, and enclosed between two boards, which they ornamented. They wrote on both sides of the paper, in columns accommodated to the folds. The paper they made from the roots of trees and coated with a white varnish on which one could write well. Bishop Landa confesses to having burned a great number of the Maya books because they contained nothing in which were not superstitions and falsities of the devil . . . Three of the Maya manuscripts are known to have escaped the vandalism of the early fathers."

One of these Maya books, called the Troano manuscript, is described by Bancroft, as quoted by Short, p. 422. He says: "The original is written on a strip of Maguey paper about fourteen feet long and nine inches wide, the surface of which is covered with a whitish varnish, on which the figures are painted in black, red, blue and brown. It is folded fan like in thirty-five folds presenting when shut much the appearance of a modern large octavo volume. The hieroglyphics cover both sides the paper, and the writing is consequently divided into seventy columns, each about five by nine inches, having been apparently executed after it was folded, so that the folding does not interfere with the written matter . . . The regular lines ​of written characters are uniformly in black, while the pictoral portions of what may perhaps be considered representative signs, are in red and blue, chiefly the former, and the blue appears for the most part as a back ground in some of the pages." From these testimonies we learn two facts, namely, The Mayas of Central America had a written language, and, they did not keep their records on Metal plates. The next question that demands attention is, Was the alphabet of the Mayas such as Joseph Smith represents? This question we answer with an emphatic, No. We can show the Maya alphabet and we defy any man to show a particle of resemblance between those characters and Mr. Smith's so-called Egyptian! No resemblance whatever can be shown between the two sets of characters. In order to see, hence, the utter falsity of the Book of Mormon we only need to remember the fact that the Maya alphabet was in use by the inhabitants of Central America at the very time and place where the Book of Mormon says the Nephites lived. And further, we need to remember that this Maya alphabet was the only written alphabet used by the ancient inhabitants of Central America. This being true a ten year old child can see that the Book of Mormon is a miserable fraud. The testimony of scholars and antiquarians is unanimous that no evidence exists of any written language except the Maya on either continent.

Short, page 419, says: "No well authenticated mound builder's hieroglyphics have as yet come to light. The "Grove Creek mound tablet" we believe is now shown unquestionably to be an archaeological fraud." Of Peru, from Baldwin's Ancient America, pp. 254, 255, and Bancroft, vol. 4, p. 792, we learn, "The art of writing in alphabetical characters, so far as appears, was unknown to the Peruvians in the time of the Incas. No Peruvian books existed at that time, and no inscriptions have been found in any of the ruins. They had a method of recording events, keeping accounts, and making reports to the government by means of the Quippu. This was ​made of cords of twisted wool fastened to a base prepared for the purpose. These cords were of various sizes and colors, and every size and color had its meaning. The record was made by means of an elaborate system of knots and artificial intertwinings." The ancient Mexicans had no alphabet nor anything that approached a written language, but a kind of picture writing, combined with symbolical representations.

5. The fifth and next question is, Did any of the aborigines of America have as money gold or silver coins?

The Nahuas or Toltecs occupied a part of Central America and Mexico at the time the Book of Mormon claims to have been written. Of their monetary system Bancroft, vol. 2, p. 381, says: "Although no regular coined money was used, yet several more or less convenient substitutes furnished a medium of circulation. Chief among these were nibs or grains of cacao, of a species somewhat different from that employed in making favored drink, chocolate. This money, known as patlachte, passed current everywhere, and payments of it would be made by count up to 8,000 which constituted a xiquipilli. In large transactions sacks containing three xiquipilli were used to save labor in counting. Patolquachtli were small pieces of cotton cloth used as money in purchase of articles of immediate necessity or of little value. Another circulating medium was gold dust kept in translucent quills, that the quantity might be readily seen. Copper was also cut into small pieces shaped like a T, which constituted, perhaps, the nearest approach to coined money." The Mayas, as we have seen, were the most enlightened of all the ancient inhabitants of Central America, being the only people of that country that had a written language, and living as they did at the very time and place where the Book of Mormon claims to have been compiled, we would expect them to have money in the shape of gold and silver coins, if such had ever been used by any of the aborigines of America. Of their monetary system Bancroft, vol. 2, pp. 736, 737, says: "The ordinary mercantile transactions were effected

​by exchange of or barter of one commodity for. another. But where this was inconvenient. cacao passed current as money among all the nations . . . According to Cogoludo copper bells and rattles of different sizes, red shells in strings, precious stones and copper hatchets often served as money, especially in foreign trade." It is thus seen that the Book of Mormon is false in every particular.

The next question that demands our attention is, Did any of the ancient inhabitants of Central America ever enjoy a Christian civilization? The Mayas being the most enlightened of all the ancient inhabitants of Central America and living at the time and place where it is claimed that the Nephites enjoyed such advanced Christian civilization, we would expect, if the Book of Mormon be true, that the antiquarians would find evidences of such civilization. Unfortunately, however, for the cause of Mormonism, those ancient Mayas were the veriest idolaters! There is not a vestige of anything Christian in any part of their history. Bancroft, "Native races of America," vol. 2, p. 704, says, "The gods of the Yucatecs (the ancient Mayas of Yucatan) required far fewer human lives at the hands of their worshipers than those of the Nahuas. The pages of Yucatec history are not marred by the constant blood blots that obscure the Nahua record. Nevertheless the Yucatec religion was not free from human sacrifice; and although captives taken in war were used for this purpose, yet it is said that such was their devotion that should a victim be wanting they would dedicate their children to the altar rather than let the gods be deprived of their due." Again vol. 2, p. 725. "The custom of eating the flesh of human victims who were sacrificed to the gods was probably practiced more or less in all the Maya regions, but neither this cannibalism nor the sacrifices that gave rise to it were so extensively indulged in as by the Mexicans.

Of a certain ruler named Quilzokoatl, who undertook various reforms in ancient Mexico, Bancroft, Vol. 5, p. 261, says: "Most prominent among his peculiar reforms, and the one that ​is reported to have contibuted the most to his downfall, was his unvarying opposition to human sacrifice. This sacrifice had prevailed from pre Toltec times."

In "Vestiges of the Mayas," by Dr. Augustus Le Plongen, p. 51, we are told, "The sun was worshipped by the ancient Mayas, and the Indians of today preserve the dance as used by their forefathers among the rites of the adoration of that luminary." Again, p. 52, he says, "The blue color had exactly the same significance in Maya, according to Landa Cogolludo, who tell us that even at the time of the Spanish Conquest the bodies of those who were to be sacrificed to the gods were painted blue. The mural paintings in the funeral chamber of Chaacmal at Chichen confirm this assertion. There we see the figures of men and women painted blue, some marching to the sacrifice with their hands tied behind their backs." Again, p. 70, "We are told, and the bas reliefs of Chaacmal's Mausoleum prove it, that the Mayas devoured the hearts of their fallen enemies. It is said that on certain grand occasions, after offering the hearts of their victims to the idols, they abandoned the bodies to the people who feasted upon them. But it must be noticed that these last mentioned customs seem to have been introduced in the country by the Nahauts and Aztecs, since as yet we have found nothing in the mural paintings to cause us to believe that the Mayas indulged in such barbaric repasts beyond the eating of their enemies' hearts."

The ancient Mayas were idolatrous cannibals, with a history extending back to a remote period, even antedating the call of Abraham. Bancroft, vol. 5, p. 205, says: "So far as the other so called primitive nations of New Spain are concerned little can be said, except that they claim and have always been credited with a very ancient residence in this land, dating back far beyond the beginning of the historic period. Of the Nahuas, Short, p. 240, says, "The date of the emigration to Hue hue Tlapan cannot be approximated from available ​data, but it is evident that Ixtlilxochitl fixes it at 520 years after the flood, or 2236 after the creation—a period which must have antedated the Christian Era by a score of centuries or more." Baldwin's Ancient America, p. 204, says, "Its method (of computing time) was to count by equal periods of years, as we count by centuries, and their chronology presents a series of periods which carries back their history to a very remote time in the past."

Of the Maya's Short p. 519, says, "The venerable civilization of the Mayas, whose forest grown cities and crumbling temples hold entombed a history of vanished glory, no doubt belongs to the remotest period of North American antiquity. It was old when the Nahuas, then a comparatively rude people first came in contact with it, adopted many of its features and grafted upon it new life," Again, p. 475, "I must speak of that language which has survived unaltered through the vicissitudes of the nations that spake it thousands of years ago, and is yet the general tongue in Yucatan, the Maya. There can be no doubt that this is one of the most ancient languages on earth. It was used by a people that lived at least 6,000 years ago, as proved by the Katuns, to record the history of their rulers, the dogmas of their religion, on the walls of their palaces or the facades of their temples." Thus we prove the Book of Mormon to be false, just as much so as the father of lies.