Anthropological: We remember that pitching tents may be best translated as erecting temporary shelter. Their shelter may have been a lean-to as previously noted for the tents erected by those listening to Benjamin.
The fact that they camped on a hill may also have significance. In terms of protection from human enemies, a high ground allows the small party to have a better range of vision and keep a more defensible stance. While we hear little of military preparations, we may yet expect that entering the land of the Lamanites that military caution would be warranted.
Mosiah 7:6
6 And Ammon took three of his brethren, and their names were Amaleki, Helem, and Hem, and they went down into the land of Nephi.
This is a small scouting party. The attempt is to quickly reconnoiter.
Mosiah 7:7
7 And behold, they met the king of the people who were in the land of Nephi, and in the land of Shilom; and they were surrounded by the king’s guard, and were taken, and were bound, and were committed to prison.
This verse would appear to indicate that this small party had some way of recognizing that they had reached the people they sought, otherwise they would not be so willing to approach a royal excursion which would certainly have been heavily armed.
If they did not know where they were going, as indicated in verse 4, then how did they know that they had found the correct people? Mormon chooses not to tell us. There are really only two possibilities. The first is that there was something so completely distinctive about the appearance of the Nephites that they would recognize them on sight. This is not a satisfying assumption, however.
One way to recognize the Lamanites from their appearance would be to invoke the “white”/“skin of darkness” contrast. We would presume that if we were searching for a very fair skinned, red-headed, Irishman in the middle of a Japanese village, one might notice a physical difference rather quickly. If Nephite/Lamanite appearance could be as easily distinguished as Caucasian/Asian, then we would expect that Limhi’s people would have recognized Ammon and his companions as Nephites just as easily as Ammon would have recognized Limhi as Nephite. That racial recognition most certainly did not happen as Ammon was taken as a dangerous intruder, not an obvious kinsman. To be certain, there is a possibility that such physical differences did exist, but that Ammon was seen as an enemy related to the genetic Nephites who had remained in Nephi rather than one who came from Zarahemla. Even were that the case, however, Ammon would not have known that he had found the remnants of Zeniff’s people rather than those Nephites who did not leave with Mosiah.
The crucial point is that whether or not there were any visible racial characteristics, they were unusable as political recognition. By this time in the Book of Mormon, there is no indication that the term Nephite can be exclusively associated with race, and indeed many indications such as the Limhi/Ammon encounter that suggest strongly that there is no association between race and Nephite.
The second possibility for recognition by appearance would be cultural. When an Arab wears traditional robes in a meeting in any society were Western dress is the norm shows himself to be different because of the choice of dress. This extends further than the color of shirt and tie but to a completely different style of clothing. In modern Guatemala the elaborate needlework on women’s huipiles (a length of cloth with a hole in the middle to go over the head, tied at the waist with cloth belt) can be used to distinguish the home village of the wearer. Using this analogy it is possible that Ammon would recognize Limhi by a distinctive clothing style, but this would presume that Limhi followed a style from Zarahemla that Ammon would recognize after two generations, and that Ammon would not be wearing clothing distinctive to Zarahemla. The lack of recognition of Ammon by Limhi again argues against this similarity.
It is equally unlikely that this meeting was pure luck. As noted before, Ammon would not have approached a well armed contingent in the open (even if a city might have had a “welcome to the city of Nephi” sign, Limhi’s traveling entourage would not) if he had not had some understanding that he had found the people for whom he searched. Given the information that Ammon didn’t really know where he was going, it would be absolutely amazing if the very first people he happened to meet were the people he hoped to find.
A more likely possibility is that they asked for the people of Zeniff when they came to small villages. The smaller villages would not have standing armies and rules of hospitality would require them to assist needy travelers. Just as Ammon approached Limhi with only four instead of all sixteen, it is probable that he would have approached a village with a small number. If they were carrying military style weapons, they would have left those weapons with the others. They were certainly carrying some form of weapon as such would be required to hunt for food. However, there was likely a culturally known difference between a hunting weapon and a war weapon. Since the people of Zeniff were now tributary to the Lamanites, there would be no reason to prevent a small group from visiting them.
Social: Though our information allowing us to interpret the rule of Limhi is still in the future, it is worth noting that Limhi is considered both a king and a king over two lands. The first land is the land of Nephi and the second land is Shilom, which lies south and slightly east of Nephi. Both of these lands were part of the original grant from the Lamanite king (Mosiah 9:6) and are retained through Noah to Limhi, in spite of the contentions and wars with the Lamanites. We will examine the implications of this grant later in the story of Zeniff.