Henderson’s description of the developing Maya kingdoms contains the same undercurrents that we have just analyzed in the Book of Mormon. What he adds is the missing piece in Jacob’s discourse: the acquisition of wealth through trade of the “jewelry and other goods made from exotic raw materials.” The wealth occurs not because of the possession of unworked and undervalued ore, but because the ore could be worked into exotic goods that could be exchanged with other communities. While Jacob does not state it, the economic situation he describes cannot be explained without understanding its context of trade with other communities.
Trade provides the foundation for understanding the development of the social differences among Jacob’s people—differences that were beginning to be displayed in other Mesoamerican communities at this very time. This parallels the Near East and Palestine in particular during the fourteenth century B.C. The influence of Hellenistic culture increased with the increase in trade.
In addition to the effect of trade, the value system of Mesoamerican trade tells us why Jacob’s discourse specifically denounces costly apparel. Schele and Peter Mathews (an associate professor of archaeology at the University of Calgary) describe the way Mesoamerican elite proclaimed their wealth of exotic trade goods: “The Maya used commodities both in their raw state and as worked objects for money.… People throughout Mesoamerica wore these currencies as jewelry and clothing to display the wealth and enterprise of their families.” Clothing served a similar function in the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age. Bettany Hughes, a cultural and social historian, describes the Mycenaean world: “The finds from the Mycenaean citadels and graves illustrate the centrality of visual signals in pre-history. Before writing was employed as a tool of propaganda, appearance and experience are all-important. Images have to speak louder than words.”
Not surprisingly, in a non-monetized economy, an item’s value lay in its trade value. One displayed wealth by wearing it—precisely Jacob’s complaint about some of his people. This visual display of wealth highlighted differences among individual access to the exotic trade goods and led to the social inequality that lies behind Jacob’s condemnation. In the Book of Mormon, the unstated contact with other communities is obvious in both the economic descriptions and the obvious importation of foreign ideas along with the foreign goods. Costly apparel becomes, in the Book of Mormon, a marker that the Nephites are adopting the culture and values of their Mesoamerican neighbors, including social stratification and status. In the Mesoamerican world around the Nephites, social class was maintained by visually displaying one’s wealth and by the leisure of elites who did not need to labor with their own hands for food. When these traits begin to appear in Nephite society, the prophets condemn them.