Seven tribes are described in the Book of Mormon as having evolved from the families who came from the land of Jerusalem to the New World. The first mention of these lineage groups is circa 544 B.C., when the individual tribes were designated as Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites.

Almost 700 years later, these patriarchal tribal divisions were mentioned again, indicating the enduring nature of this tradition. Over time, the order of the names remained the same; the last reference appears in Mormon 1:8 , shortly before the demise of the Nephite nation as a result of war.

Early traditions, passed orally from one generation to the next, spoke of seven primordial tribes who were the ancestors of some Mesoamerican cultures. These legends were recorded on murals, stelae, monuments, and codices, and, fortuitously, were recited to Spanish clergy who made a written record of the various accounts.

Bernardo de Sahagún equated the cave symbolism of the seven tribes with that of boats, and suggested that these tribes crossed the waters in search of a terrestrial paradise. He wrote:

Are the Hopi related to the Maya? According to Frank Waters, the "Hopis first lived in seven puesivi, or caves." From there they migrated northward, establishing their people and villages in accordance with the names of the "caves or womb-cavems."

These events may refer to the Late Classic Period in Mesoamerica when many peoples were on the move as war, disease, and famine plagued much of Mesoamerica. But by the same token, the myth may be coupled with earlier times, with events going back to myths of man's first arrival in the New World.

Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico, has many beautiful and interesting stelae, Stela 67 at this site is interesting because it appears to portray a bearded man in a boat, riding an inverted ocean wave. The upside down wave gives the understanding of the watery Underworld where the dead enter and rebirth takes place.

According to Garth Norman, author of Izapa Sculpture, Stela 67 may allude to a migration of people from a land beyond the sea. He suggests that the aforementioned traditions of the Quiché Maya traveling in darkness may refer to the voyage through the watery Underworld on their way to this land.

It would not be far-fetched to compare the vast sea on which a boat travels, to the Underworld; and the boat, to the portal from which one leaves that foreboding realm to come into the light of the present world. Debarkation onto unfamiliar soil may be conceived as birth into a new world/new age, and thus fall under the category of a creation myth, the beginning of lineages, the emergence of primordial man, and so on.

The numeral classifier for caves in Yucatec is ak, which forms part of the word aktun "cave." The classifier ak is also used for words such as canoes boats "houses," and containers." All these words are associated with things that hold people and objects in safe enclosures.

Stelae 3 and 6 at Izapa give representations of boats illustrated as U shaped elements. In each case the boat is in the air, possibly signifying the vehicle that transports the souls of men to the heavenly paradise, not unlike the solar bark in Egyptian mythology. In any case, the boat is in the U-shaped symbol of the womb.

Although the legend of the seven caves comes primarily from Mexican Nahuatl speaking peoples, there was a widespread adoption of this myth among other peoples, as is evidenced by the Quiché Maya. Tulan Zuyua, or vukub pek, vukub zivan "seven caves, seven canyons" is referred to in The Popol Vuh.

The High Priest's Grave at Chichen Itza in the Yucatan also supports a belief in this origin myth in an area of non-Nahuatl speaking peoples. Similar to the Quiché place of origin, the original name for Chichen Itza may have been Ucil-Abnal, "Seven Bush Places or Hollows."

The Annals of the Cakchiquels, a Maya history, refers again and again to the seven primordial tribes as the original colonizers who came from across the sea.

Does this account of the seven tribes, as well as the others mentioned here, refer to the same long-held concept of seven lineages in the Book of Mormon? We can only speculate that this is the case. What we do know is that this legend was part of oral tradition among the natives of Mesoamerica for more than a thousand years.

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See AAF website  www.ancientamerica.org under AAF Notes #183 for Diane Worth's complete article.

Hunter and Ferguson,

The Totonicapan record (of Guatemalan Indians) refers to the division into Seven Tribes:  "The Xahila family, one of the royal lines of the Quiches of the highlands of Guatemala, left an account in the Maya tongue entitled Annals of Xahila.  It is stated therein: "We were brought forth, coming we were begotten by our mothers and our father, as they say ... They say that the seven tribes arrived first at Tullan."  It is observed that the Xahila record likewise indicates a departure from an Old World Tulan (Bountiful) and the settlement of seven tribes in a principal homeland, Tullan (Bountiful), in the New World.  [Milton R. Hunter and Thomas S. Ferguson, Ancient America and the Book of Mormon, p. 87] 

Clate Mast:

According to a Mexican tradition, "Here is the beginning of the accounts of the arrival of the Mexicans from the place named Aztlan ("tlan" means "Bountiful").  It was through the midst of the water that they made their way to this locality, being four tribes. 

According to the history of the Quiche Maya people written in the book Title of the Lords of Totonicapan, there were four great leaders who brought their people from the other side of the sea, from Pa-Tulan ("Tulan" means "Bountiful").  [Clate Mask, "And They Called the Place Tulan," p. 4]

Joy Osborn:

In the Popol Vuh , the Quiche Mayas say: "There were many priests and sacrificers; there were not only four, but those four were the Forefathers of us, the people of the Quiche."  According to Ximenez, the god of the Mayan people of Yucatan was worshipped under the name of "Ek-Balam or Equebalam, black jaguar."  He also identified the names of the four ancestors or Forefathers of the Quiche with the jaguar.  He stated that Balam-Quitze meant "jaguar of sweet laughter, or much laughter, or fatal laughter, like poison."  Balam-Acab meant "jaguar of the night."  Mahucutah meant, "not brushed," and lqui-Balam was "jaguar of moon or of chile, black jaguar."

Did Nephi, a descendant of Joseph in the Book of Mormon, become Balam-Quitze, the great Forefather of the Quitze Mayans, and Mango Ccapac, the great Forefather, or ancestor, of the Incas of Peru?  Was Nephi's brother, Jacob, the Balam-Acab, of these same forefathers?  There is sufficient evidence to make the necessary connections.  

According to the Popol Vuh , these four great Forefathers, and their "truly beautiful" and "distinguished" wives, "conceived the men, of the small tribes and of the large tribes, and were the origin of us, the people of Quiche." ... "There were many priests and sacrificers: there were not only four, but those four were the Forefathers of us, the people of the Quiche.  The names of each one were different when they multiplied there in the East."

With a little effort we can trace those called "priests and sacrificers" in the Popol Vuh , to the Nephites priesthood and those who lived the law of Moses and offered up sacrifices, as did ancient Israel, in anticipation of the sacrificial Lamb of God who was to come.  In the Popol Vuh , the name Balam meant "sorcerer," and it can be traced further to meaning magician and magic - in a religious sense.  The final and accurate identity is "prophet."  In this way, it is possible to trace the name of Balam Quitze to that of "the prophet Nephi.   [Joy M. Osborn, The Book of Mormon — The Stick of Joseph, p. 196]  

Alan C Miner:

Because Jacob distinctly comments, "I shall call them Lamanites that seek to destroy the people of Nephi" (Jacob 1:14), the reader should be cautioned from this point forward in the story not to view all "Lamanites" as always coming from the lineage of Laman or a single geographical area, or being controlled from a single geographical capital.  A better approach might be to look for the role of Nephite dissenters in stirring up Lamanites in localized areas. In the Book of Mormon believers in Christ are called Nephites. Unbelievers in Christ are called Lamanites. 

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