Other LDS members are listening. Newcomb will share her perspective in August at a workshop hosted by the University of Utah titled “Indigenous Perspectives on the Meanings of Lamanite.” One of the workshop’s organizers, Farina King, a professor of history at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and a citizen of the Navajo Nation, says it is intended to raise up Indigenous voices in a historically white-dominated church and to highlight the diversity of perspectives even among Indigenous members of the faith.
“We have to acknowledge each other’s story. Sit with it. Face it,” King said. “I want us to talk together … if we truly believe even in common humanity, of recognizing our human nature of who we are as human beings in this earth, in this shared space.”
The LDS church has said that “the primary purpose of the Book of Mormon is more spiritual than historical.” However, many LDS church members believe their scriptures to be based in history, telling the stories of an ancient people who migrated to America from the Middle East around 600 BC.
The Book of Mormon holds that the members of one of these groups, the Lamanites, were marked with a “skin of blackness” so that they could be distinguished from the more righteous Nephites. For most of church history, dark skin was seen as a sign of the curse, although the church’s official curriculum now states that “the nature and appearance of this mark are not fully understood” and that skin color later “became irrelevant as an indicator of the Lamanites’ standing before God.”
In 2013, church leaders released a statement saying they “unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form,” and that dark skin today is no longer considered a sign of “divine disfavor or a curse.”
But for Newcomb, the church’s associations with skin color go beyond morality. The Book of Mormon teaches that because the Lamanites turned away from God, they were cursed to lose their lands and become “scattered and smitten,” although their lands would be restored if they accepted Christianity.
Church manuals also maintain that Christopher Columbus was inspired by God to “make his famous voyage to the Americas.” In Newcomb’s view, this framing excuses the genocide of Indigenous people that followed Columbus’ voyage.
“It’s like laying that genocide at their own feet. Like it’s your own fault,” Newcomb said.
Anthropologists and archaeologists have found no evidence of the civilizations or battles described in the Book of Mormon, and DNA studies show that most Native Americans’ ancestors migrated from Asia during the last ice age, and not from the Middle East.
The LDS church has responded by revising its position to say that Lamanites are “among” the Native Americans’ ancestors, rather than the “principal” ancestors. The church released a statement in January 2014 explaining that Lamanites could have lived at the same time as other tribes, but that their DNA may have been diluted over time, and that “DNA studies cannot be used decisively to either affirm or reject the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon.”
A man walks past the Salt Lake Temple at Temple Square in Salt Lake City on Sept. 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)