In addition to the formal plea from the judges that Nephi end the famine, the people also manifest their repentance in sackcloth and ashes. Traditional Nephite beliefs had lost their long-standing dominance, to be replaced by a new philosophy and “reforms” that Mormon pejoratively terms the Gadianton robbers. This movement definitely had popular support from the sixty-second year, when the voice of the people apparently removed Nephi as the chief judge, replacing him with Gadianton (Hel. 4:17, 5:1). The conflict between the two groups broke into civil war for eleven years, until Nephi called for a drought. After two years of cruel famine, the desperate people returned to their former beliefs, accepted Nephi as a prophet, and reinstated him as their leader. Thus, the voice of the people removed (made “extinct”) the Gadiantons and returned to the gospel.
However, Mormon stresses that the Gadiantons “concealed their secret plans in the earth,” waiting a more propitious moment for revival. Mesoamerica has a long tradition of burying sacred items or of thus making items an offering to the gods. (See commentary accompanying Alma 24:15–16.) This custom may have been part of what the Gadiantons borrowed from the larger culture. However, Mormon sees the action as highly symbolic, for the Gadianton movement will soon be resurrected (v. 26).
Although Nephi used the word “extinct,” the Gadiantons next appear in the hills. The next Gadianton revival stems from the influence of these now-deposed Gadiantons. The descriptions of these mountain-based Gadiantons will suggest a much larger population than the remnants fleeing from the Nephites would justify. Because Mormon specifically indicates that the Gadiantons who imprisoned Nephi are “extinct,” he appears to be telling us that the mountain-based group is different and new. Nevertheless, they will be called Gadiantons through Mormon’s literary expedient of the buried “secret plans.”