Amaleki’s brother is named only as the brother of Amaleki, the last writer on the small plates of Nephi; his own name is not given. He joined a company that left Zarahemla to return to the land of Nephi, the land of their fathers’ first inheritance (Omni 1:29-30). Amaleki records that an earlier company had gone up for the same purpose under a strong, headstrong leader whose contention left all but fifty slain before the survivors returned to Zarahemla; a second, larger party then set out, and Amaleki’s brother went with them. Amaleki never afterward learned what became of them, and he closed his record, with the plates full, without reporting their outcome (Omni 1:29-30).
This migration is the same venture Zeniff recounts. Zeniff had been sent to spy out the Lamanites so the Nephite army could attack, but seeing good among them he argued instead for a treaty; the ruler, an austere and bloodthirsty man, ordered him killed, and in the resulting fight—father against father, brother against brother—the greater part of the army was destroyed before the survivors returned to Zarahemla. Zeniff then gathered others and set out again, only to be struck by famine and affliction in the wilderness (Mosiah 9:1-3).