Anti-Nephi-Lehi Swords

One of the most impactful scenes in this week's reading is found in Alma 24 when the new Lamanite converts make a covenant to never again wield a weapon against another human. They talk about how their swords were "stained" with the blood of their brethren (v. 12) but that they had become bright by the blood of Christ (v. 13). They feared if they took them up again they would never be able to make them clean again. A couple of the podcasters talked about the question, how could a metal sword become stained with blood? Metal washes right off. 

I had never been concerned with this question. I always just figured that it was metaphorical, like Lady MacBeth's spotted hands. But one of the podcasters, Bryce Dunford, mentioned that the Mayans did use wooden swords, which could, conceivably, become stained with blood. They are called a "macuahuitl" and they are like a cricket bat but with pieces of obsidian,or shark teeth embedded along the shaft.  At the time of Cortés' invasion of Central America one of the Spaniards saw a man sever a horse's head off with one of these weapons.

Of course, the Mayan civilization was hundreds of years later than the time of Alma. Still, I had never seen a weapon like this, and I thought it was cool.  Maybe this kind of weapon had been in use for centuries and was the kind that the Lamanites used. If it is, it supports another idea that I have had that I blogged about before. I think there is a lot of evidence that the Nephites were an iron age culture and understood metalworking, but the people of the New World were more primitive and didn't have the metallurgy skills Nephi used to make tools to make his boats. (1 Nephi 17). There is a Wikipedia Article about Metallurgy in Pre-Columbians America  that suggests the pre-Columbians did have some metalworking skills, but they didn't use them to make weapons. If the Nephites retained their ability to make metal swords, (Nephi said he used the Sword of Laban as a model to make many swords 2 Nephi 4:14) it would help explain why, as a smaller group, they were able to escape conquest from the Lamanites for so long. 

The important thing about this story is not what kind of sword the Lamanites used.  It is that they were willing to give up their past life style, their past sins, and even their lives because of their faith in Christ. The slaughter of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people is a brutal scene but it reminds us all, in times of trial, to take the long view. Whatever trials we endure in this life, if we endure them well, we will be blessed, even if it is in the next life.