Another Reason For Book of Mormon/Lamanite Change

[_Ray A]

Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYFTbVI3sOA

Thanks, Charity, that is the new Zealand Maori haka. I also noticed that there appeared to be some new Zealanders in the team. The haka was used by the Maori before battle, to intimidate opponents. I served with several NZ Maori missionaries who did the haka. These days, however, it is only symbolic.

[_krose]

The BYU footbal team does a haka dance before each game. At the "firendly" team meeting before a bowl game (I think this years') a couple of guys on the opposing team were getting ugly about BYU doing that (saying it was disrespectulf to the culture), until a couple of guys with the Y team, with every right to perform it, stepped forward. The other team backed down really quickly.

Your account of this confrontation, which happened in Las Vegas in December of 2006, doesn't match the account by the sportscasters (who were there) the next day. I sense some faith-promoting embellishment. Bryce Mahuika, the BYU player who started the practice and taught them the dance, actually admitted afterward that they should not have done it at that time and place. Incidentally, the Oregon players who objected and responded to the challenge were also Polynesian.

[_charity]

The BYU footbal team does a haka dance before each game. At the "firendly" team meeting before a bowl game (I think this years') a couple of guys on the opposing team were getting ugly about BYU doing that (saying it was disrespectulf to the culture), until a couple of guys with the Y team, with every right to perform it, stepped forward. The other team backed down really quickly.

Your account of this confrontation, which happened in Las Vegas in December of 2006, doesn't match the account by the sportscasters (who were there) the next day. I sense some faith-promoting embellishment. Bryce Mahuika, the BYU player who started the practice and taught them the dance, actually admitted afterward that they should not have done it at that time and place. Incidentally, the Oregon players who objected and responded to the challenge were also Polynesian.

I saw it happen. On TV, not in person. I am from Oregon and we had extremely minute coverage of practically every minute on our local stations. That confrontation had been filmed, and what I saw was this: The teams were in what looked like a lobby of a hotel, separated by a rope, such as you see in theaters. One U of O player looked like he was going to jump over the rope and he was yelling. He looked Polynesian. Then a couple of also evidently Polynesians from BYU pushed through the other players to get to the front, and when he saw them, he calmed down.

I don't call it "faith promoting." I call it college football. Too much testosterone in one room.

[_moksha]

Eventually, the older generations of Polynesian Mormons will fade away and apologists will encourage their children to think that the stories about Hagoth and Lamanite heritage were just lovably kooky ideas that the older generation hatched themselves and that it was never doctrine or offical teaching of the LDS Church itself.

That "lovably kooky ideas" suggestion could well be the way many of the scriptures will be viewed.

[_Henry Jacobs]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/world/asia/18islands.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=science_&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

Don't you just hate it when your Cult teaches you for decades, and then suddenly one day retracts their statement with a brush off like it is no big deal? Suddenly decades of lessons you were taught to believe are wiped away and you are just expected to go along with it - no questions asked.


Now, it's all an embarrassment for the Church. There will be no official retraction. There will be no official correction of incorrect doctrine.

And will there be any consolation for all those (thinking)members who twisted their brains into knots trying to make the Hagoth story account for the real Pacific Island inhabitants? There will be no acknowledgement whatsoever that the church at any time was mistaken or wrong for pressuring members into creating a fabricated mental place for themselves where they could justify calling the Islanders lamanites, in the name of a testimony of the Book of Mormon.

You know, I wouldn't care what doctrines, beliefs or practices got changed over time. If they'd only preface current conference, talks, magazines etc. with "The information contained herein is not guaranteed to be correct. Parts of it may be found inaccurate in the future."

Shyaaahhh, right!

[_guy sajer]

Interesting article.
Is anyone familiar with the Polynesian Cultural Center?
Do they suggest the Polynesians are indeed Lamanites?
What is the current teaching/apologetic on this topic?

I was there this New Year's Eve, feasting on roast pig and pineapple at their luau.

The presentations stick with the cultural aspects of dancing, cooking and costume. We didn't talk with any missionaries, so I can't vouch for what they might say about Lamanites. What I did notice was that everything was 'mormonized,' by which I mean that the outfits were much more modest than what I would consider to be authentic, and all references to ancient gods were left out of the explanations. (I assume that the fire dances probably had something to do with the volcano gods.) But they did have plenty of... tattoos (scandalous)!

On a side note, one thing I thought was really bizarre was that in the New Zealand pavilion, the guy asked soldiers and their families to stand, and dedicated the Haka dance to them and to the "hope for peace." Two things struck me about this: One was that NZ is very anti-war, to the point of not allowing US nuclear vessels in their waters, so honoring US soldiers seems odd. The other was the part about associating an intimidating war dance with "peace."

New Zealand forces fought in the South West Pacific theatre in WW II participating in some horrorific campaigns and battles as well as in WW I, such as in the battle of Gallipoli. Though perhaps anti-war currently, New Zealand has earned its respect for its role in wars past.