All the Lamanites would drive their flocks to a particular watering place (Alma 17:26). And when they got there, "a certain number of Lamanites, who had been with their flocks to water, stood and scattered the . . . [king's] flocks." Apparently this had been done many times. After the flocks of the king had been scattered, the servants lamented, "now the king will slay us, as he has our brethren" (Alma 17:28) and they began to weep. Hugh Nibley wonders, Is everybody crazy here? What insanity is this, the king kills his own servants for losing a contest that had been acted out before? In fact, we are told in Alma 18:7 that "it was the practice of these Lamanites to stand by the waters of Sebus to scatter the flocks of the people," keeping what they could for themselves, "it being a practice of plunder among them." It looks like it was a regular custom. So it was no secret to anyone; this was not an ambush but something to be expected. But the king's own flocks? How could they get away with that? Didn't he have enough men to protect them if this happened regularly? Well, for one thing the Lamanites played the game for sport; it was more than meat that they were after, for "they delighted in the destruction of their brethren; and for this cause they stood to scatter the flocks of the king" (Alma 17:35) They thought it was great sport. . . . This becomes apparent when a few days later, the very men "who had stood at the waters of Sebus and scattered the flocks" (Alma 19:21) mingled freely and openly with the crowd of people [Lamanites] gathered at the palace. They were the ones that scattered the king's flocks and got the king's followers executed by law, according to the game. . . . They were there to get revenge on Ammon right at the king's palace. The brother of the head man (whom Ammon had killed with his sword) drew his own sword on the spot (he had a sword, too, you see) and made at Ammon (Alma 19:22). He attacked Ammon and was going to finish him off on the spot. So the men had swords but only used clubs in their scattering of the flocks. Isn't that odd, and isn't it odd that those same wicked Lamanites not only walked around right in front of the king's palace where everybody recognized them, but nobody did anything about it? They were perfectly free to come and go. And no one held it against the winning team that they had stolen their flocks back (nothing wrong with that), but the losers were only angry with Ammon because he had thrown rocks at them and used his sword against men bearing only ceremonial clubs.
Why ceremonial? All this reminds us of those many ritual, ceremonial games in which the loser also lost his life, beginning with an Aztec duel in which one of the contestants was tethered by the ankle and bore only a wooden mace, while his heavily armored opponent wielded a weapon with sharp obsidian edges. . . . But the closest are those known to many of us here, namely the bloody fun of the famous basketball games played in the great ballcourts of the ceremonial complexes of Mesoamerica. Anyone who has been there has visited the big basketball courts there. In these games either the captain of the losing team or the whole team lost their heads. Everybody didn't get killed. One or two people did--sometimes the team and sometimes just the captain. But somebody got bumped off. You might say, "Why did they do those things?" Well, it's better than the way we do it when we go out and clean out everybody--civilians and everybody else. [Hugh W. Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 2, pp. 368-371]
Alma 17:34 He [Ammon] went forth and stood to contend with those who stood by the waters of Sebus ([Illustration]): Ammon Defends the Flocks of King Lamoni. [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gospel Art, #310]