Coriantumr obviously led his troops, since he was wounded in battle. Although he “retires” for two years while healing, nevertheless it is not a time of peace. Verse 25 had described separate battles among kin-groups over the whole land. This type of fighting continues even though Coriantumr is not officially involved.
Text: There is no chapter break at this point in the 1830 edition.
1. Literary analogies such as the one Moroni creates often ignore aspects of the two events that are not parallel. In this case, Moroni ignores the fact that Joseph’s brethren joined him in Egypt. He also ignores that, in both cases, the land which they occupied after the “separation” was their divinely bestowed promised land.
2. Karen Bassie-Sweet, From the Mouth of the Dark Cave: Commemorative Sculpture of the Late Classic Maya (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 77, comments: “The rites associated with caves were initiations related to social incorporation, such as baptisms or the entrance to adolescence or adulthood, and sociopolitical ceremonies, such as investitures and ascensions. Other rites involving exorcism and the cure of illness were also carried out in caves. As well, many mythological events were thought to have occurred at caves. A cave was the location of the birth of gods and races. The sun and moon were said to be born from a cave. The Aztec believed they originated from Chicomostoc (Seven Caves). A womb/vagina is represented in many Mesoamerican birth metaphors by a cave.”
3. Ross Hassig, Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), 104–5, notes that Aztecs withdrew from the field of battle at night.
4. This is the weapon that is known by its Aztec name, the macuahuitl. See commentary accompanying Enos 1:20–21.
5. Ignacio Bernal, The Olmec World, translated by Doris Heyden and Fernando Horcasitas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 88.
6. Susan Toby Evans, Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004), 186, caption to the illustration.
7. Susan D. Gillespie, The Aztec Kings: The Construction of Rulership in Mexica History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989), 11–12.
8. Evans, Ancient Mexico and Central America, 200–204.
9. Richard A. Diehl, The Olmecs: America’s First Civilization (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004), 24–25.
10. Ibid., 29.
11. Ibid., 31–33.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 60.
14. Ibid., 82.
15. Ibid., 181.
Ether 14