Few Book of Mormon readers have not seen the painting by Arnold Friberg in which an intrepid Ammon, armed with a metal sword, confronts hoodlums armed with clubs while a herd of sheep scurry past his bronzed legs. Consequently, we “know” that Ammon guarded sheep at the waters of Sebus. However, the text never mentions what kind of animals these flocks are. (See commentary accompanying 2 Nephi 5:11.) The text confirms only two things: first, they require water; and second, they can easily be scattered in all directions. A similar animal is described in Mosiah 8:20–21. (See commentary accompanying those verses.) The second concept actually could be considered evidence that they are not sheep, since sheep, although they are easily alarmed and will quickly flee, tend to stick together. Ammon’s flock seems to lack a herding instinct and could move fast enough that, when scattered, they could not easily be rounded up again.
Mormon intends us to read this story as manifesting Yahweh’s power—and we do. However, we should also read it for what it tells of us Lamanite society, because otherwise, parts of it make little sense.
First, we must understand the basic scene. The waters of Sebus is clearly in Lamoni’s territory, as whatever animal making up the flocks would need water twice a day, most logically in the morning and the evening. Obviously their pasturage lacks water, or they would not need to be brought to Sebus. Marauders appear regularly at this watering place and have done so for some time.
Mormon assumes that the marauders are Lamanite thieves, apparently for no other reason than his underlying assumption that theft is customary among the Lamanites: “Now it was the practice of these Lamanites to stand by the waters of Sebus to scatter the flocks of the people, that thereby they might drive away many that were scattered unto their own land, it being a practice of plunder among them” (Alma 18:7). While I do so with some trepidation, I suggest that Mormon has misinterpreted this event. Plunder may have been a familiar “practice” from Mormon’s later perspective. (See commentary accompanying Alma 17:14, 50:21, and Hel. 6:17 for a cultural view of the form that plundering might take.) But it is not an adequate explanation for this situation, especially not for the fact that those who scatter the flocks reside in the same city as the flocks’ defenders. John L. Sorenson reads Alma 18:7 (the thieves took the stolen animals “unto their own land”) to mean that the thieves were not part of Lamoni’s people. I suggest that Mormon added this detail long after the fact because it provided support for his own assumptions that the thieves both captured the animals and took them away. But some of these same thieves appear in the king’s bedchamber (Alma 19:21), strong evidence against Mormon’s view that they were foreigners. Furthermore, in Alma 18:20, Lamoni calls them “my brethren,” a virtually inconceivable term to apply to common brigands or even to anyone from another city. It also seems extremely unusual that the kin of known thieves would be so close to the king that they are among the first to respond when Abish gathers people. In short, the thieves’ family lives in the royal compound. The situation is much more complicated than a simple livestock raid.
Furthermore, the fact that the flocks are “scattered” implies that the thieves are rather inefficient, since tracking down the scattered animals guarantees a low yield. If the flocks were flighty and quick enough that they would get away from those who were taking them to water, why would they be easier to find and steal for those who scattered them? Also, at Ammon’s suggestion, he and his fellows round up the flocks successfully, thus confirming that the thieves got little or nothing for their trouble. The description of this event does not make sense if we accept Mormon’s assumption that the marauders were scattering the flocks with the intent to steal.
If the thieves live physically near, perhaps in, the palace and appear when a witness testifies that something important has happened to the king, they are obviously among the city’s nobility. Maya culture has several examples of frequently competing factions among the nobles, with different groups vying for power. Historian David Drew describes the problem for Maya kings:
Increasingly recognized today… is the likelihood of a constant, dynamic tension between the ruler, along with the family group, the royal lineage that surrounded him, and other powerful and long-established lineages within a city state. The centralizing success of royal dynasties almost certainly obscures the extent to which kings depended upon and negotiated with other political factions. For each dynasty of the Classic period had in earlier centuries been merely one among many such patrilineages or kin-groups. It is impossible to know with any precision how ruling lines established themselves at the end of the Preclassic period—as war-leaders, perhaps, or as mediators in local disputes. However they came by their authority, they could only have maintained it through consent and co-operation, despite the impression of absolute power that their monuments create. From the eighth century, at Copán in particular, there is now some evidence of the negotiation that must have gone on behind the scenes. There is little reason to believe that this kind of jostling was not seen in earlier centuries too.
In this context, then, the incident at the waters of Sebus stops being a cowboys-and-rustlers story and instead becomes a sophisticated and subtle political contest. If nobles are scattering the king’s flocks, Lamoni may be restricted in his ability to respond with direct action against them. While the putative thieves do not get many animals, they do get what they want: They embarrass the king and weaken his perceived control over his territory. Since scattering the flocks is an affront to the king, some action is required to save his honor. Unable to act against the true culprits (if, as I hypothesize, they were a powerful rival lineage), the king’s action is the execution of the hapless servants, pawns in this high-level game. Even this action played into the hands of Lamoni’s rivals. He could not ignore the action, since that would be an advertisement of his weakness; but slaying his servants inevitably reduces the number of his servants, which also weakens his strength. As more and more servants are executed, would not the loyalty of those that remain be increasingly strained? Either way, the rival is winning.
In a Mesoamerican context, these events have a logical explanation; without that cultural background, they are near nonsense.