Mormon Studies & Repatriation
Work centered on Indigenous identity within the Church of Latter Day Saints.
Publications
Science and Fiction: Kennewick Man/Ancient One in Latter-day Saint Discourse
In June of 1997 Orson Scott Card, a popular science fiction author and prominent Latter-day Saint, seized upon the news of the erosion of an ancient skeleton out of a riverbank along the Columbia River in eastern Washington during the previous summer. Card prematurely suggested to a Mormon audience that this Kennewick Man represented an ancient founding Caucasoid population displaced by ancestors of American Indians. Indigenous peoples called this ancestor the Ancient One and participated in a long and contentious struggle between a team of scientists and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over repatriation.
This article critically examines the deployment and evolution of images of Kennewick Man in Latter-day Saint discourse about Native Americans, DNA, and the Book of Mormon. Despite cautionary warnings from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Latter-day Saint scientists, the latest pseudoscientific resurrection of a Latter-day settler colonial narrative about ancient America appears as David Read’s Face of a Nephite (2020) featuring a racialized and creationist distortion of the scientific analysis and facial reconstructions of Kennewick Man. Read’s book feeds into a larger discourse advocating a Heartland setting for the Book of Mormon in North America advocated by Rodney Meldrum’s misnamed Foundation for Indigenous Research and Mormonism (FIRM). These authors anachronistically racialize both scripture and human DNA, misrepresent archaeological and genetic science, draw from fraudulent and looted materials, and disregard Indigenous perspectives on the Ancient One, now firmly established as ancestral to American Indians.
DNA and the Book of Mormon: Science, Settlers, and Scripture
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published an online essay entitled "Book of Mormon and DNA Studies" on January 31, 2014 that conceded the failure of DNA evidence to provide affirmative support for the scripture's historical claims. Yet, the essay insists on a priority of scriptural over historical claims and offers possible reasons for the lack of genetic evidence of the ancient migrations from the Near East described in the Book of Mormon.
This chapter summarizes the church's essay, the historical context behind the issues it addresses, and offers constructive and critical analysis of its claims. The chapter examines the settler colonial context out of which the Book of Mormon emerged and considers Indigenous critiques of the Book of Mormon alongside scientific analysis. The church's essay fails to engage Indigenous perspectives, ignores historical anachronisms in the Book of Mormon and avoids a discussion of oral history, archaeological, ecological, and linguistic evidence contradicting the Book of Mormon's portrayal of a white race of Nephites in ancient America. A more forthright confession of a nineteenth-century origin of the Book of Mormon and a more explicit repudiation of its racism are still needed if church leaders hope to rebuild trust with skeptical members and to establish more diplomatic and equitable relations with American Indians.
Rejecting Racism in Any Form: Latter-day Saint Rhetoric, Religion, and Repatriation
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued an online statement in February 2012 rejecting all racism, in any form. The statement followed nearly two centuries of tortured struggles with racism promulgated by church leaders, instituted in everyday practices, and integrated into Latter-day Saint scriptures. While rhetoric renouncing racism from the LDS Church is a welcome step, religions need to compliment language undoing racism with concrete actions.
This article examines ways that the LDS Church may work towards actually ending various forms of racism. It focuses attention on the role of settler colonial grave robbery, the loot from which was used in the production of Mormon scriptures advocating white privilege. These acts of violence against Native people continue into the present, as illustrated by the recent occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge by Mormon militiamen, extensive trade networks in antiquities in Mormon communities, unethical uses of Native American DNA, and ongoing efforts by Utah legislators to undermine tribal sovereignty. Current rhetoric condemning racism appears to serve as a mask for the continued imbalance of power in a land-rich institution in which the highest positions of authority remain exclusively in the hands of white men. Reciprocal acts of repatriation, initiated but never finished by early LDS Church leaders, need to be re-activated if Mormons are to effectively repudiate racism in its many forms
Porter Rockwell and Samuel the Lamanite Fistfight in Heaven: A Mormon Navajo Filmmaker’s Perspective
Decolonizing Mormonism brings together the work of 15 scholars from around the globe who critically reflect on global Mormon experiences and American-Mormon cultural imperialism. Indigenous, minority, and Global South Mormons ask in unison: what is the relationship between Mormonism and imperialism and where must the Mormon movement go in order to achieve its long-cherished dream of equality for all in Zion? Their stories are both heartbreaking and heartening and provide a rich resource for thinking about the future of Mormon missiology and the possibilities inherent in the work of Mormon contextual theology.
Podcasts
Native Americas and the Lamanite Identity - Mormon Stories #1010
In this episode we interview Angelo Baca, Sarah Newcomb, Cam Lebbon, Hyrum Joe, and Sheldon Spotted Elk about their experiences as Native Americans within Mormonism. As a framing, we utilize Angelo Baca's chapter in the new book "Decolonizing Mormonism" edited by Dr. Gina Colvin and Dr. Joanna Brooks The essay is entitled: "Porter Rockwell and Samuel the Lamanite Fistfight in Heaven."