Dissecting the Nemenhah Band

Someone named Wheat-Dogg has done a good job of dissecting the Nemenhah Band's fraudulent claims:

A sad, curious tale of rampant duplicity and stupidityThe Nemenhah are not a true Native American tribe, nation or group. They are wannabe Natives—white folks who adopt Native-sounding names and steal adopt Native American ways. This behavior has recently become a trend among New Agers in the USA, who have pretty much milked Eastern medicine and philosophy for ideas to peddle to the ignorant here. Now they are robbing Native American culture for fresh ideas to sell.

The Nemenhah’s websites claim, however, that the people known as the Nemenhah came to North America from the Middle East before the Christian era, and settled in the Four Corners area. Records (the Mentinah Archives) of their history and beliefs were preserved there, and only were recently (2004) translated into English. If this history sounds awfully like what is in the Book of Mormon, then it may interest you to know that the Nemenhah supposedly joined Hagoth, a figure in the BoM, when he left his homeland.

The LDS church, however, does not recognize the Mentinah Archives as authentic. The irony there is so thick you could cut it with a knife.And:The presumed head of the organization, known formally as the Nemenhah Band and Native American Traditional Organization (Oklevueha Native American Church of Sanpete), is Phillip R. Landis, who goes by the pseudo-Native name of “Cloudpiler.” Landis is a naturopath by profession.

Landis, coincidentally, wrote the foreword to the “translation” of the Mentinah Archives and published the English translation. The original texts are supposedly locked away in a safe location, while five unnamed translators voluntarily work on the translation.

Someone on a Mormon forum site challenged the authenticity of the Mentinah Archives. Landis, under the unlikely name of Ea-lea Powitz Peopeo, responded with a lengthy diatribe providing arcane details about the Nemenhah and the archives, all couched in language to appeal to a Mormon readership.Comment:  Why am I not surprised to find the Nemenhah Band has a Mormon connection? I suspect Landis is a Mormon or former Mormon who decided to invent a Mormon/Native hybrid to swindle both populations.

Here's more on the origin of "Nemenhah":

Records of the NemenhahThe Mentinah Archives are alleged to be the recorded histories of the people known anciently as the "Nemenhah" (people of the truth) who trace their history from the journey of Hagoth into the Land Northward into what is now known as the "four corners" area.I was wondering where the word "Nemenhah" came from. I was pretty sure it wasn't Native in origin. At one point the Nemenhah Band's website lists "Nemenhah" as a synonym for "Cahokia," which is flatly false.

So I gather the Nemenhah Band is an offshoot of the lost tribe of Israel that gave rise to Native Americans. Which is odd since the Nemenhah Band has claimed its "Native" status comes from association with the Native American Church, not from biological ties to Indians.

Obviously they're trying to have it both ways. If you're a law enforcement agent investigating them, they haven't claimed to be Indians by blood quantum. But if you're a gullible Mormon, the language suggests the band is descended from the long-lost Lamanites.

For more on the subject, see Indians Think They're Lamanites and Mormons Modify Indian Origin.

Below:  Christ visits the Book of Mormon people. You know, the white men from Israel who came to the Americas and built the Maya temples because the Indians were too primitive and superstitious to have done it themselves? Those Book of Mormon people.