By Jeff Downs

Our good friend and fellow Heartlander Jeff Downs, has shared a most important point about the mounds. Some of us may be aware of Jeff’s information, but he shares it in a very well written manner. There is a HUGE spiritual side to the Mounds and Jeff has nailed it.

You have hit on a very important part of the purpose of the mounds. You described it very well and I would love to make it part of a blog if you would like me to quote you. Jonathan made a great observation below.

“Dr. Roger Kennedy, the former director of the Smithsonian’s American History Museum, addressed a misconception about earth mounds, noting that earth mounds are actually buildings. Build and building are also very old words, often used in this text [his book] as they were when the English language was being invented, to denote earthen structures. About 1150, when the word build was first employed in English, it referred to the construction of an earthen grave. Three hundred and fifty years later, an early use of the term to build up was the description of the process by which King Priam of Troy constructed a “big town of bare earth.” So when we refer to the earthworks of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys as buildings no one should be surprised.” Jonathan Neville Mounds and Mormons

—–Original Message—–
From: Jeff Downs <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]; Rian Nelson <[email protected]>; Jonathan Neville <[email protected]>
Sent: Sat, Jun 6, 2020 1:19 pm
Subject: I just wanted to share my “ah ha” moment

“Dear Rod, Rian, and Jonathan,
I’ve written to each of you individually in the past, but I wanted to share with you this thought after having watched Rod’s latest podcast with Rian.  I enjoyed hearing Rian describe the thrill it was to stumble on Rod and Jonathan and all their research.  It reminded me of an ah-ha moment I had last month.  I wanted to share it with all three of you.
All the best, Jeff

I stumbled across a fascinating lecture by Bruce Porter. In it he discusses how the Egyptian religion ties in incredibly with what we have in our current temple today. What it did for me was provide the missing link I’ve been looking for and I thought I would pass it along.

In the beginning of his lecture Bruce explains a concept that now answers, for me at least, WHY the Nephite culture (given the gospel knowledge they had) would construct mounds. That has always been a sticking point for me. I love EVERYTHING the Heartland model has presented, but the mounds and how they relate to the GOSPEL just didn’t seem to have a “bridge” for me.  I’m not talking about mounds for defense. I am talking about why they would take the time to construct these massive mounds for burial. It just seemed, in my mind at least, to put a bit of distance between the Hopewell people and a Nephite people ( a people who had the gospel and were adamant in their practice of the Law of Moses).  I am well aware of statements that have been made in the past that hint that much of that information (concerning the mounds) might have been contained in the book of Lehi which was part of the manuscript portion that was lost by Martin Harris. But Bruce has helped explain WHY it is that these mounds would have been constructed by Nephites (the Hopewell).  If you’ve heard all this before, I apologize.  I was just excited to make this connection and thought I would share it.

Bruce’s connection in a nutshell:  We read in scripture, during the creation, about the dry land that rises from the water. This dry land, when it appears, puts borders and boundaries to chaos. Before the land appears, everything is in chaos–underwater. When the land appears, order is now established in that environment. The land that appears is known as the primordial mound. This primordial mound concept is found all throughout the world in many different cultures. In other words, this concept has been preserved and passed down through the ages and it’s the reason why you see religious buildings built upon higher elevations. This primordial mound anciently represents the high point or the connection between heaven and earth. It, therefore, becomes a sacred spot where alters can be built and covenants can be made. Mountains, mounds, pyramids, temples all symbolize this primordial mound concept. Think about all of the times in scripture when we read about prophets being taken up onto a high mountain or the prophecies of people coming up into the mountains to the mountain of the Lord in the last days. 

The mound, therefore, is associated with the creation and the connection between the world of the Gods, the world of the living, and the world of the dead. People were buried in mounds because you wanted to be buried in the closest point between heaven and earth. The bigger the primordial mound, the closer to heaven you will be (of course really enormous mounds and pyramids could simply be the result of some taking this concept too far and to the extreme—that’s human nature). Anciently in Egypt, they were buried underneath the mound which of course would symbolize the world of the dead. False traditions, and a falling away from the genuine meaning, explains why some would later be placed into the mound or pyramid structure itself.

FINALLY, these burial mounds have a purpose for being.  They DO in fact have a connection to the gospel: they were a symbolic connection between heaven and earth and their roots go back millennia. And the ceremonial/temple mounds they built make sense because, when you think about it, we still build mounds in our church today! As Bruce points out, the temple building in and of itself is a type of raised mound (a primordial mound symbol) in/on which an altar has been placed for the purpose of making covenants with the Lord.

Burial mounds and temple/ceremonial mounds DO have a connection with the gospel and that connection is hinted at and scattered all throughout scripture; the evidence has been there the whole time just as the physical mounds lie right beneath the noses of those living in the heartland of America.  How ironic is that?  Don’t knock the Mound Builders.  As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we are building “mounds” too!

Here is a link to his lecture (I’m sure Rod and Rian were present for it).’

Awesome Jeff. Thanks so much for your contribution and we appreciate your support.