Lamanite Visual Contributions to Mormon Culture: Redface and Read Facing Me

this essay will give an overview of the impact of images and performed visual representations related to both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Indigenous peoples. The first section deals with selected Book of Mormon paintings well-known in Latter-day Saint circles appearing in manuals; taught in homes, in Sunday School and primaries, and in seminaries for young adults; and used as recruitment tools in Latter-day Saint mission work. The second section analyzes and navigates the complicated nature of Latter-day Saint members reenacting what they consider a historical play in redface costume and portraying unrealistic and fictional representations of Indigenous peoples of the Americas in the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, New York, and the Miracle Pageant in Manti, Utah, throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.1Though different in delivery and style, these representations are incredibly powerful and compelling tools for indoctrinating countless members of the LDS Church worldwide. The practice of redface was used repeatedly in LDS pageants, which are no longer in existence. Nevertheless, despite its association with genocide, removal, and historical trauma, visual representations still illustrate White people as Indigenous in a purported literal history of Book of Mormon teachings. Redface harkens back to a time of settler-colonial violence where White people took clothing and regalia off the dead at massacre sites and evokes the “redskin” collection of scalps that settlers pulled off of mutilated and bloody corpses.2As a Latter-day Saint Native American who spent his youth growing up in the culture of the church and is still on the rolls as a member, I hope to demonstrate how these visual representations can be viewed from a critical Indigenous scholarship perspective. Specifically, my Diné and Hopi cultural backgrounds inform my view on these representations. Placing these images within the context of broader discussions concerning Indigenous communities reveals further lessons regarding their meanings for Mormons and Native American people.The Book of Mormon, as one of the Latter-day Saint books of scripture, is fundamental to the faith. Artistic depictions of its contents and peoples, then, play a significant role in how believers encounter the sacred. Ever since the book appeared, Mormons have believed that the people discussed therein were the primary ancestors of Native Americans. By envisioning Book of Mormon peoples, then, Latter-day Saint artists and consumers alike have been connecting these images to Indigenous persons. The following are key examples of Mormon artwork attempting to depict the sacred through the representation of the Native.The arrival of Jesus Christ in the Americas was a landmark event in the Mormon sacred narrative and is captured in Jesus Christ Teaching in the Western Hemisphere (Jesus Christ Visits the Americas) by artist John Scott.3 This image, published most notably in the Book of Mormon, is iconic in Latter-day Saint culture. Scott's representation is not necessarily based on any fact, history, or science, but its iconic status speaks to the extensive power of the image as a whole—the visual cultural representation that can speak a thousand words in one instant, untouched by questions of accuracy. The image does not need to defend itself, because its statement is straightforward and does not change. An image can reify an entire belief system, organizational mission, or philosophy, often steeped in doctrine and imbued with faith-based logic. The roles that art plays in the expression of political power, group identity, and cosmological belief are long-standing concerns of art-historical work.4The painting Last Battle between the Nephites and Lamanites by Minerva Teichert shows Lamanite peoples killing Nephite people first, thus justifying the genocide of Lamanite people.5 In this way, violence against those considered Lamanites is presented not only as naturalized and necessary, but as deserved and morally justified.6 The image's message indicates a perceived religious high ground in committing genocide against those identified as Lamanites because they carried out the same atrocity first. In other words, they had it coming. The tangible impacts of this message are already expressed in Manifest Destiny tropes, the settler-colonial degradation of nature and Indigenous peoples’ sacred places since contact, and the spread of Christian religions, including Mormonism.The myth of Moroni hiding the gold plates in the Hill Cumorah is a key element in the story of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. This moment is depicted in Moroni Hides the Plates in the Hill Cumorah (Moroni Burying the Plates) by painter Tom Lovell.7 However, some things are wrong with this picture: none of the local tribes in the upper New York state area have ever claimed the dress or regalia, the plates themselves, nor are they adequately culturally represented by this depiction. One of the most famous Seneca sites, a historical Haudenosaunee village called Ganondagan located a mere thirteen miles or so away, does not affiliate itself with the Hill Cumorah in any way. There is no evidence that the Haudenosaunee are the same Lamanites described in the Book of Mormon. Therefore, these connections primarily exist in the minds and imaginations of LDS Church members, young and old alike.In direct contrast to the paintings of American Indians by White Latter-day Saints, the painting Ganondagan by Seneca artist and former Ganondagan groundskeeper G. Peter Jemison shows how bright, lively, and contemporary the grounds are and have always been.8 In what might be one of the only real and authentic representations of the Indigenous villages nearest to the Hill Cumorah, Jemison illustrates that vibrant life still exists here in relationship with nature, plants, animals, and food. He depicts crops like the Three Sisters of corn, beans, and squash, and the sentient non-human beings who are also residing there, to show the environment as part of the village itself. Jemison pours in colors that reflect the resiliency of the place in his painting. In Ganondagan, we see the village and the land through Indigenous eyes with a decolonial view, while the outside world, including the LDS Church, imagines Native Americans as dehumanized objects of the past like “Lamanites.”Another key Book of Mormon Lamanite story is about Samuel the Lamanite, a righteous man who preaches repentance to the Nephites. The story places the label Lamanite on a key figure whose dark skin represents the cursing of his forefathers. This is reflected in his portrayal in Samuel the Lamanite on the Wall (Samuel the Lamanite Prophesies) by painter Arnold Friberg.9 Samuel is the epitome of the model minority, a symbol of obedience and faith, revered and respected for such qualities reflective of the Mormon gospel.10 In the end, his purpose is to show Mormon followers who the real and truly good people are by showing how righteous he is in retaining a solid faith and practice of Mormon beliefs.This representation of the “noble savage,” or of Native Americans as “noble by nature,” is not new and often appears in popular culture as the imagined image of the “Indian” in America.11 White Americans represent Native peoples as spiritual and mystical, but also as tragic and disappearing, to show the dominant culture what it is missing. By looking at how American Indians are represented in Book of Mormon artwork as Lamanites, we see some popular tropes like the noble savage appear. These representations are mirrored in Latter-day Saint pageant performances as well with the use of redface and playing Indian in these productions.For decades during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Latter-day Saints produced pageants—outdoor theatrical productions—that dramatized various elements of their history and sacred stories. The pageants at Hill Cumorah, in Palmyra, New York, and at the temple in Manti, Utah, depicted Book of Mormon narratives involving Nephite and Lamanite characters. Latter-day Saints enthusiastically performed these roles, which they believed represented the ancestors of contemporary American Indians, engaging in a practice scholar Philip Deloria calls “playing Indian.” Rooted in the forced display of “savageness” by early Indian and Inuit visitors to Europe, the practice of “playing Indian” underwent a variety of transformations and refinements, incorporating non-Natives into the role of Indian and at the same time developing a unique vocabulary and costume. A long tradition of pageants in the United States and Canada reflects a settler-colonial impulse to depict Indians as White Americans imagined them.12 The Latter-day Saint pageants deployed costumes, sets, and dialogue that were straight out of the imagination of LDS Church members and without historical accuracy. These were shows specifically put on for followers of the LDS Church but, whether Mormon or not, audiences had to have a deep familiarity with Mormonism to fully appreciate the message and aesthetics of a pageant.13The Hill Cumorah Pageant, based in Palmyra, New York, took place from 1937 to 2019; while the COVID-19 pandemic finally eliminated the pageant, dwindling attendance was also a factor in its cancellation. Before it ended, the pageant was a spectacle of Hollywood proportions that centered on performances of imagined “Indian” characters by White Latter-day Saints. My documentary film In Laman's Terms: Looking at Lamanite Identity explores what this Hill Cumorah Pageant looked like through Native American eyes with a critical view of the LDS Church's attempt to alleviate historical trauma and guilt through its own retelling of the Book of Mormon story.14I openly took my camera around before and during the performance wherever I was allowed to record. Our film crew was received by cast members walking the aisles wearing costumes evoking ancient Israel and having conversations about the Book of Mormon with visitors. I had an opportunity to meet with the White man who played the role of Laman, and I asked him how he was chosen for the part. Perhaps because of his discomfort in this situation—a White man, playing the role of the original “Lamanite,” talking to an American Indian whom he supposed to be a descendant of the man he portrayed in the pageant—he responded flippantly, saying, “I just did.” He took no responsibility for the decision, attributing that instead to others. When asked how he felt portraying Laman, he said, “It's cool. It's all good.” This apparently casual response may have been his way of managing an uncomfortable confrontation with the fact that he was in redface—a fact he may have only realized in his conversation with me.The Manti Pageant, also known as the Mormon Miracle Pageant, was held on the green lawns of the Manti Utah Temple until 2019. For two weeks in June, this pageant drew about fifteen thousand visitors daily to view the show. It, too, was discontinued in 2020, with pandemic precautions given as the reason. The Manti production was perhaps the most dramatic in its portrayal of Indigenous peoples, going so far as to imply their wickedness and sinful existence in the dance numbers that evoked Mesoamerican culture in their tempo, costuming, and set design. Music and dance numbers were intense and uncomfortable, building up the climactic eruption of a volcano in the background, a reference to Central American geography. At the same time, dancers wearing clothing fashioned and designed to be reminiscent of a cross between Old World Israelite and Indigenous peasants wear flail about, indicating impending doom at the crescendo of the dance number when an eruption happens, and the lights go out to darkness.As at Hill Cumorah, the battle scenes at Manti are a hodgepodge of Indigenous stereotypes. The actors playing Lamanites are wearing buckskin leggings and long black hair wigs, while those playing Nephites are wearing helmets with swords and shields. In neither of these areas, archaeologically, are weapons and artifacts of the like found. Visual cues tell the audience that the group in leathers and feathers is not advanced enough to realize that they are part of the evil tribe, cursed with a dark skin, as men going to war reflecting the “ignoble savage” stereotype. White Mormon “Lamanite” men inundate the stage with war whoops. Mormon scholar Arcia Tecun asserts, “Lamanite masculinities serve as both a physical geographic and ontological category of non-men or other kinds of men who are promised redemption through annihilation, which gives meaning to White male supremacy's formations of man within the church.”15 Part of the reification of the ignoble savage is tied to old ideas of Indigenous peoples who, though noble by nature, are understood to be inferior to Christian White men and are played as such in the pageants, using Native American costumes and makeup as markers of inferiority.16The Indigenous cultures that persisted in the relevant spaces are quite different. Women's leadership in matriarchal societies in the Northeastern US, for instance, is especially common in Haudenosaunee culture. Mohawk Clan Mother Louise Herne, commenting on the authoritative status of women in her community, states, “We're not feminists, we're the law.”17In direct opposition to these images dreamed up by the dominant society of White men, Native American relationships and responsibilities to the natural world are reciprocal and deep. These relationships are often expressed by Native American people through their regalia or outfits that are derived from the local environment. As scholar Barre Toelken writes, “These images are powerful because they kinetically embody the abstract ways tribal and other ethnically intense cultures view the relationship between the individual and the environment . . . they just portray a distinctive way of seeing the world, society, and the individual.”18 The random assortment of Native American elements in the pageants is both inaccurate and offensive, an insult to the already difficult history of massacres that happened to tribal nations of the Plains in the West.The Latter-day Saint drama directors, actors, and production company stagehands failed to question Indigenous representation in their performances, nor were the communities or tribal nations contacted to produce a more culturally sensitive or accurate portrayal of Indigenous peoples. If enough tribal members of various sovereign nations were aware of the ridiculous nature of Mormon perceptions about them, these nations might have gathered to protest the productions, especially since social media would have made these representations more easily accessible very quickly. The pageants were a typical reenactment of perceived history, a narrative of erasure, all while avoiding the involvement or participation of Native American communities.The pageants thus replicated a dangerous fiction and shared it with other followers who have the wrong idea about who Indigenous peoples are and where they come from. In his book Playing Indian, Dakota scholar Philip Deloria states, “Playing Indian gave white Americans—from black-faced Tea Party Mohawks to buck-skinned Grateful Dead fans—a jolt of self-creative power.”19 Such misrepresentation removes actual history, replacing it with a false narrative. Many LDS Church members argue that these were family-oriented and community events that involved Latter-day Saints. While that may be true, the events themselves reinscribed the beliefs not written in doctrinal texts about the hierarchy of race and the power to define others. These performances might have seemed fun, but they cemented White supremacist notions about the superiority of White culture, history, and religion. The only logical remedy would be to represent ourselves, as Indigenous peoples, to counteract this damaging pageantry aesthetic. As scholar Steven Leuthold points out, “As a means of expressing identities, the aesthetic emerges as an important aspect of self-representation to the larger non-native public.”20Indigenous peoples who encounter the LDS Church and its representations of Lamanites might reasonably inquire about the definition of the term Lamanite. From my own background, I see additional questions they should explore, such as how their own cultural identity, tribal sovereignty, and self-determination (specifically in the United States) are obscured by this term. Diné historian Jennifer Nez Denetdale explains that because American historiography incorporates Native American histories into its multicultural narratives, thereby subsuming Native Americans under the categories of US citizen and people of color and racializing them, it remains difficult to articulate formulations of tribal sovereignty and self-determination that move beyond the domestic and dependent relationships that tribal nations have with the United States.21 Native American people already have our creation stories, oral traditions, and narratives of who we are and where we come from. We do not need another religious organization trying to replace our roots.More generally, in a global context, other questions arise: What do Indigenous peoples around the world think about this definition of Lamanite in the Book of Mormon? Have Indigenous people, for instance in Africa, ever thought of asking the American Indians in North America what they think about those perceptions imposed by the LDS Church? In 2006, the LDS Church revised the introduction to the Book of Mormon, changing the description of Lamanites from “the principal ancestors of the American Indians” to “among the ancestors of the American Indians.”22 Why would this change be made without the input of American Indians themselves? These questions interrogate the Book of Mormon's reliance on a construction of Lamanite identity at its foundation. They are important because of their implications for issues of race, identity, and representations of Indigenous peoples, especially if the LDS Church seeks to proselytize Indigenous peoples globally who already have their own histories, identities, and and redface of Lamanites by White people inaccurate histories of Indigenous people, but these histories are by a a Latter-day Saint about historical trauma, removal, genocide, and Native American At we for oral science, and sacred for and in the of social and where the for good and real is a Why not that for all and and members of the Why not these audiences to be on the of history and out the narratives, and real histories of Indigenous peoples all the world on those peoples’ own

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