Now it came to pass that when the bodies of those who had been cast into the fire were consumed, and also the records which were cast in with them, the chief judge of the land came and stood before Alma and Amulek, as they were bound; and he smote them with his hand upon their cheeks, and said unto them: After what ye have seen, will ye preach again unto this people, that they shall be cast into a lake of fire and brimstone? Behold, ye see that ye had not power to save those who had been cast into the fire; neither has God saved them because they were of thy faith. And the judge smote them again upon their cheeks, and asked: What say ye for yourselves? . . . And it came to pass that they departed and went their ways, but came again on the morrow; and the judge also smote them again on their cheeks. And many came forth also, and smote them, saying: Will ye stand again and judge this people, and condemn our law? If ye have such great power why do ye not deliver yourselves? And many such things did they say unto
them, gnashing their teeth upon them, and spitting upon them, and saying: how
shall we look when we are damned? And many such things, yea, all manner of such
things did they say unto them; and thus they did mock them for many days. And
they did withholding food from them that they might hunger, and water that they
might thirst; and they also did take from them their clothes that they were
naked; and thus they were bound with strong cords, and confined in prison.
(Alma 14:14-15, 20-22)
A
polychrome Maya vase from Alter de Sacrificios (Early Classic period, A.D.
250-600) depicts a captive dancing whose face is swollen, apparently as a
result of torture. The following image comes from David Freidel, Linda Schele,
and Joy Parker, Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shama’s Path (New
York: William Morrow and Company, 1993), 266:
One
should also compare this with the Jaina captive figurine from the Late Classic
(A.D. 700-900). The following comes from Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller, The
Blood of Kings Dynasty and
Ritual Art in Maya Art (New York:
George Braziller, 1986), 240:
Schele
and Miller offer the following commentary on this figurine:
Proud and noble, this Maya captive
stands with his hands bound behind his back. Perishable hair was probably
attached to his skull, knotted around the indentations that now remain. Bloodied
and bruised and with swollen nose, the face nevertheless conveys the quality of
a portrait. The slight paunch of the belly also suggests that this figurine represents a specific person, one who was made a captive. (Ibid., 228)
Commenting on the treatment of captives among the Maya, Schele and Freidel noted that:
Prestigious captives taken in battle
were often kept alive for years on end. They were displayed in public rituals
and often participated in these rituals in gruesome, humiliating, and painful
ways. Smoking-Squirrell and Wac-Chanil-Ahau were enthusiastic practitioners of
this sacred tradition. Kinichil-Cab of Ucanal survived his capture to reappear
four years later, on May 23, 698, in an event that was in all probability a sacrificial
ritual of some sort. Later in the same year, on September 23, Shield-jaguar
suffered through the same rite in “the land of Smoking-Squirrell of Naranjo.” A
year later, on April 19, 699, it was lady Wac-Chanil’s turn. The hapless
Hinichil-Cab appeared again in a public ritual she conducted. On Naranjo Stela
24 we see her standing on the bound, nearly naked body of the unfortunate
warrior. Finally, on 9.13.10.0.0 (January 26, 702), the day Smoking-Squirrel
dedicated both Stela 22 and Stela 24, the young king displayed his famous captive,
Shield-Jaguar of Ucanal, in a public blood-letting ritual. As depicted, the
ill-fated captive is nearly naked, stripped of all his marks of rank and prestige,
holding his bound wrists up toward the magnificently dressed fourteen-year-old
king who sits high above him on a jaguar-pillow. (Linda Schele and David Freidel, A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya [New York: Quill, 1990], 189-91)
Commenting on the significance of this for the Book of Mormon, particularly the above-quoted verses from Alma 14, Brant Gardner wrote that:
Although these events are separated
from Ammonihah by more than seven hundred years, and even though Joseph Smith
would have understood the generalities but not the cultural specifics as he
translated, there still remain a remarkable number of parallels, especially the
stripping, binding, and blows to the face. (Brant A. Gardner, Second
Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6
vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 4:240)
