Culture: Mormon specifically notes the day on which this execution took place. This is quite unusual. Mormon typically notes the events and rarely gives much indication of their timing except for perhaps the year in which they occurred. Nevertheless, for this event we are told the very day. Mormon probably indicates the day because it was particularly important.
Lynn V. Foster, former research scholar and adjunct faculty member at the Hispanic Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, notes that “all Maya regulated their lives by the sacred calendar and the prognostications of diviners.” These divinations similarly governed warfare:
The Maya fought their wars under the protection of the gods. Even the strategies for battle were formulated by officers, called nacoms in the Yucatán, who were imbued with the magical spirit of the gods. The Quiché claimed these special war captains were shamans, not mere soldiers. War was not hastily decided upon. Sculptured panels at Yaxchilán depict rulers performing acts of autosacrifice in order to conjure the advice of founding ancestors before entering into war. Priestly diviners checked their astronomical charts to see if the time was propitious for war. When it was time for battle, the Maya carried their sacred banners and wooden idols of their patron deities into war for protection. Before the beginning of a battle, the gods were called forth with dances, accompanied by the cacophonous music of giant turtle-shell drums struck with deer antlers, conch-shell horns, and shrill stone whistles. The gods were present everywhere in the Maya world and especially on the battlefield.
Teancum assassinated Amalickiah on the last day of the year according to the calendar that both the Nephites and the Lamanites were using. Thus, the Lamanites woke on the “first morning of the first month” to find their leader dead. The day gave the event increased ominousness. Sorenson notes:
Amalickiah had almost gained victory over the Nephites on the east seashore when Teancum, a Nephite captain, stole at night into Amalickiah’s camp “and put a javelin to his heart,” then slipped away without awakening anybody. This was the last night of their year (in that area war would be likely to occur between October and February, when rains and floods did not block movement; since Amalickiah was already well into his campaign at this time, it seems likely that this year end/beginning was at or near the winter solstice). “And now, it came to pass in the twenty and sixth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, behold, when the Lamanites awoke on the first morning of the first month [of the year], behold, they found Amalickiah was dead in his own tent.… And now, when the Lamanites saw this they were affrighted; and they abandoned their design,… and retreated with all their army into the city of Mulek, and sought protection in their fortifications” (Alma 52:1–2). Throughout later Mesoamerican societies immense effort was expended to determine whether a period of time was lucky or unlucky for some endeavor. Omens were regularly sought and frequently were tied to events of the last, or first, day. It would be highly characteristic of Mesoamericans to act as the Lamanites did upon the death of Amalickiah. To awaken on the first day of a new year to find their leader dead would have been far more unnerving to their omen-conscious feelings than we moderns may appreciate.
Chronology: The twenty-sixth year of the reign of the judges correlates to approximately 68 B.C.