Gideon’s knowledge of Lamanite drunkenness tells us that Gideon has some system of espionage. The fact that the Lamanites seem to have frequently, or even habitually, gotten drunk is interesting and may have been interpreted, even among the Lamanites, as a moral failing. Jacques Soustelle, who analyzed the Mexica (Aztec) laws from the time of the Conquest concerning drunkenness, observed:
When one studies the literature upon the subject, one has the feeling that the Indians were very clearly aware of their strong natural inclination to alcoholism, and that they were quite determined to work against this evil, and to control themselves, by practising an extraordinarily severe policy of repression. “Nobody drank wine (oct1i) excepting only those who were already aged, and they drank a little in secret, without becoming drunk. If a drunk man showed himself in public, or if he were caught drinking, or if he were found speechless in the street, or if he wandered about singing or in the company of other drunkards, he was punished, if he were a plebeian, by being beaten to death, or else he was strangled before the young men (of the district) by way of an example and to make them shun drunkenness. If the drunkard were noble, he was strangled in private.”
There were ferocious laws against public drunkenness. The statutes of Nezaualcoyotl punished the priest taken in drunkenness with death; and death was the punishment for the drunken dignitary, official or ambassador if he were found in the palace: the dignitary who had got drunk without scandal was still punished, but only by the loss of his office and his titles. The drunken plebeian got off the first time with no more than having his head shaved in public, while the crowd jeered at him; but the backslider was punished with death, as the nobles were for their first offence.
Here we have an exceedingly violent case of socially defensive reaction against an equally violent tendency, whose existence has been historically proved, for when the conquest had destroyed the moral and judicial underpinning of Mexican civilisation, alcoholism spread among the Indians to an extraordinary degree.
While this example comes over a thousand years later than the Book of Mormon and from an entirely different culture, there is no reason to suppose that the potential problem with alcohol was much less in earlier times and different cultures. The severe laws against public drunkenness demonstrate a known disposition to drink (similar to virtually all societies which have discovered alcohol). The laws don’t tell us that the drinking stopped, but that it was considered a widespread problem.
As Gideon describes the situation, the Lamanites responsible for guarding “the back gate” get drunk nightly. Gideon does not mention that any other group of guards had this problem—although, since he was interested only in the back gate as an escape route, there would have been no reason for him to comment on Lamanite guards in general. I hypothesize that the comparative isolation of this group allowed them to escape the rigorous injunction against drunkenness (admittedly also hypothetical). Because Gideon also speaks of a secret pass (v. 7), the region may have been generally considered impassible, except perhaps at the one location guarded by the Lamanites. Therefore, these negligent guards apparently anticipated no efforts that their captives would escape, and especially not at night. This Lamanite complacency would be increased by the lack of probable trouble as well as the lack of recent troubles. When combined with their relative isolation, it would appear that they literally let their guard down.