4. Question. What was the nature of the Mulekite - Nephite relationship prior to the mass migration under Mosiah I? See the article "
Asking the Right Questions" in this blog.
4. Answer. They had no relationship - zero communication for centuries.
--
4. Exhibits A. We will use the ancient highland Guatemala site of Kaminaljuyu as our surrogate for the city of Nephi. Most Mesoamericanist Book of Mormon scholars are comfortable with this correlation (see the article "
The Book of Mormon Map as of September, 2011" in this blog for an image of the current consensus map). We will use the ancient Central Depression of Chiapas site of Santa Rosa as our surrogate for the city of Zarahemla on the Mezcalapa-Grijalva. First suggested by John L. Sorenson, Santa Rosa is the most frequently cited candidate for Zarahemla in the Mezcalapa-Grijalva/Sidon correlation. The straight-line distance from Kaminaljuyu to Santa Rosa is 258 kilometers.
 |
| Kaminaljuyu to Santa Rosa. |
So how would you have traveled from the Guatemala City area to the Central Depression of Chiapas in Book of Mormon times? You would have done it in stages, stopping at some of the many way points along the route. The toughest part would have been the climb up the Cuchumatanes Masif to Huehuetenango. Once on top, though, it would have been a straight shot down the Selegua River to the Central Depression or up to Comitan. This was a well-traveled route in antiquity.
 |
| Kaminaljuyu to Santa Rosa with possible way points. |
It is also a well-traveled route today. Central America 1, the famous Pan-American Highway, runs from Guatemala City to Huehuetenango, down the Selegua, and then up to Comitan, San Cristobal de las Casas, and beyond. In the following image from Google Maps, the Pan American Highway is highlighted in red. Note the switchbacks on the climb up to Huehuetenango.
 |
| Route of the Pan American Highway from Guatemala City to Comitan. |
Dozens of ancient villages, towns and cities dotted the hypothetical route from Kaminaljuyu to Santa Rosa shown below in red. Here we superimpose
EAAMS data on top of our map to show the many sites ancient travelers would have passed along their journey.
 |
Known archaeological sites on a typical route from Kaminaljuyu
to Santa Rosa along the Mezcalapa-Grijalva. |
4. Conclusion A. The Mezcalapa-Grijalva cannot be the Book of Mormon river Sidon. People in Book of Mormon times knew how to get from Kaminaljuyu to Huehuetenango. Frequent trade and communication passed along this mountain corridor. They also knew how to get from Huehuetenango to the Central Depression of Chiapas following either the Selegua or the Cuilco. Regular trade and communication passed along this river corridor. So, the likelihood of the Nephites in highland Guatemala and the Mulekites in the Central Depression of Chiapas (both numerous enough to have fought many battles, even wars with the locals
Omni 1:10,
Omni 1:17) co-existing for at least 350 years without knowing of each other's existence approaches zero.
--
4. Exhibits B. We will use the unexplored middle Usumacinta site Nueva Esperanza II as our surrogate for the city of Zarahemla on the Usumacinta. First suggested by V. Garth Norman, this Google Earth view from an eye altitude of 1.35 kilometers clearly shows dozens of large mounds. See the article "
Water Fight on the River - Round Two" in this blog for a surface photo.
 |
Nueva Esperanza II, Chiapas, Mexico, just downstream
from the town of Emiliano Zapata in Tabasco. |
The straight-line distance from Kaminaljuyu to Nueva Esperanza II is 374 kilometers.
 |
| Kaminaljuyu to Nueva Esperanza II. |
And how would you have traveled from the Guatemala City area to the middle Usumacinta in Book of Mormon times? With a machete in hand and a dugout canoe. You would have passed through dense tropical jungle where trails disappeared from overgrowth after a big rainstorm, rivers were the principal highways, and there were many long gaps between population centers. The areas of modern-day Rabinal or Salama in Baja Verapaz and Coban in Alta Verapaz would have been likely way points. Extrapolating from known classic and post-classic Maya trade routes, one way from Kaminaljuyu to Nueva Esperanza II is shown in red below. This route goes overland from highland Guatemala to Salama, then follows the Salama River to the Chixoy which becomes the Salinas and then the Usumacinta at the confluence with the Pasion near the noted Maya site Altar de Sacrificios. Even though this route only covers 374 air kilometers, it is 933 kilometers long with all of its twists and turns.
 |
One of the possible travel routes from highland Guatemala
to the middle Usumacinta. |
Even today, it is a long, arduous trek to travel by surface from highland Guatemala to the middle Usumacinta. Modern travelers before the 1990's would typically go to Comitan first - that part was easy up the Pan- American Highway - then make their way through the Chiapas jungle (aka Selva Maya) to Ocosingo and Palenque. The following Google Maps image shows a likely route in red. Total travel distance over modern paved roads is about 650 kilometers.
 |
| Typical modern route from highland Guatemala to the middle Usumacinta. |
4. Conclusion B. The Usumacinta River fits this Book of Mormon criterion very well. It is difficult to travel by surface from highland Guatemala to the middle Usumacinta even today. Until Mexico built Federal Highway 307 in the 1990's there was no direct all weather route. Along the Usumacinta one enters a whole new tropical world, vastly different from the more predictable sub-tropical Guatemala - Chiapas highlands. Trade and communication between the mountainous highlands and the middle Usumacinta lowlands did occur, but it was tough and relatively infrequent in the Nephite - Mulekite era prior to 200 BC. It is easy to envision the Nephites in their mountain citadel and the Mulekites in their coastal plain savanna completely unaware of each other for 350+ years. A famous incident from Spanish colonial history reinforces the stark difference in transport logistics between the Guatemala - Chiapas highlands and the jungle. Tenochtitlan fell to Hernan Cortes in 1521. By 1524, Pedro de Alvarado, second in command to Cortes, had conquered most of the Maya states in highland Guatemala. In 1525, Cortes and his Mexican allies were in the Guatemalan Peten on their way to subdue the rest of Central America, but Spanish influence quickly waned in that remote region. With the fall of the Kaqchikel in 1530 and the Qeqchi in 1548, the Spanish dominated all of mountainous and coastal Guatemala as they did most of modern Chiapas. The Itza Maya, though, in the area around modern-day Flores, remained proud and independent of Spanish control until 1697. The Usumacinta River basin was simply that formidable.
--
4. Running Score. Mezcalapa-Grijalva 0. Usumacinta 4.
