And assuredly it was great, for they
had undertaken to preach the word of God to a wild and a hardened and a
ferocious people; a people who delighted in murdering the Nephites, and robbing
and plundering them; and their hearts were set upon riches, or upon gold and
silver, and precious stones; yet they sought to obtain these things by
murdering and plundering, that they might not labor for them with their own
hands. (Alma 17:14)
Calling them “a people who delighted
in murdering the Nephites” suggests a continuation of the historical antipathy
between Lamanite and Nephite that assumes all Lamanites would like to “murder”
the Nephites. The text does, in fact, report increasing frequency and intensity
in Lamanite-Nephite wars. In the cultural context of Mesoamerica, this time
period saw the concept of war as a religious duty developing. In the Aztec
religion, a warrior who died in battle went straight to heaven. Mormon
obviously needed no further evidence that his own autobiography to understand
the intensity of the wars.
Calling the Lamanites “murderers,” however, seems odd in the context. Murderers are unjustified deaths with intentional causes. Accidents are not murders because there is no intention. Deaths in battle are intentional, but they are (presumably) justified by the circumstances. Mormon, as a military man, would almost certainly not apply “murder” to simple death in battle. I argue that he is using “murder” to refer to the Mesoamerican practice of human sacrifice, an important religious rite. One of warfare’s major functions was to supply prisoners for sacrifice. Certainly the Nephites did not practice or condone human sacrifice, and human sacrifice occurred during Mormon’s time (Morm. 4:14-15). Thus, that aspect of “Lamanite” religion of Alma’s time could easily have been on his mind. Interestingly, but somewhat anomalously, Ammon’s converted Lamanites (Anti-Lehi-Nephies) called the deaths they had caused in war “murders” (Alma 24:9). (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 4:266)