Cureloms and Cumoms Explained!…? Or, Some Fun Mormon Folklore
While reading through material on the Mexican Mission, I came across a unique document describing the famously mysterious Cureloms and Cumoms of the Book of Mormon.
While visiting the Mexican Mission, Apostle Erastus Snow toured the National Museum. In perusing its collection of giant bones and animal specimens, Snow “related what was shown in vision to the Prophet Joseph Smith concerning the large animals the ancients on this continent had. Besides the elephant they had two others that were larger named the Curran [sic] and the Cumman [sic] of which the Book of Mormon speaks. They were herbiferous [sic] and domestic, and one of them was large enough and was used to carry a whole family on its back during their travels. It also furnished sufficient milk to support them. It would lie down, get up, or travel at the bidding of its owner being trained when young to do so.”
Whether or not his attribution of these ideas to Joseph Smith is accurate, this statement is truly remarkable in its detail. Whatever the case, Snow gives us a glimpse into the type of folkloric discussions that have unfolded in sundry places from the beginning–pieces of lore that were [almost] never committed to paper and [almost always] slipped away out of collective memory (if they had ever been there at all).
One resource for accessing, recovering, and preserving Mormon folklore is the William A. Wilson Folklore Archive at BYU. This page describes the collection and links provide information about how to contribute.
So cool. I’m thinking banthas in Star Wars though…
Comment by Tod Robbins — April 4, 2010 @ 2:43 am
Ha, I hadn’t thought of Banthas, but that would fit the bill
So much for the theories about them being llamas or deer or something.
Comment by Jared T — April 4, 2010 @ 8:42 am
I think the milk production statement is one of the strangest, personally.
Comment by Tod Robbins — April 4, 2010 @ 12:17 pm
Giant land sloths?
Comment by Floyd the Wonderdog — April 5, 2010 @ 5:48 am
Thanks for sharing this, Jared. I really enjoy Mormon folklore. And thanks for passing along the link to the BYU archive – I hadn’t heard about it before.
I hope that there are cureloms in heaven.
Comment by Ardis S — April 5, 2010 @ 6:27 pm
The first wooley mammoths were described in this continent around 1743, with more work being sponsored (By Thomas Jefferson no less) around 1806. A vision of an animal that was known to exist is not exactly startling, as i tried to inicate in my earlier email. Oh well.
Comment by marmot — May 14, 2010 @ 5:28 am
In retrospect, I’m sorry if my comment seems mean spirited. My earlier email comment (thank you very much for your grace in answering) was somewhat of a murkey warning. I suppose this post is further enough down that no one will read it at this point, but i do have archaeological knowledge in this field, and it sometimes gets the better of me. Please forgive, or at least remember poorly,
yours,
Comment by marmot — May 14, 2010 @ 5:48 am
Marmot, what you don’t seen to be understanding is that this post is not meant to advocate the interpretations in the source or argue for their veracity, merely to illustrate the passage of (and I DID use this word) folklore.
Sorry that wasn’t clear to you.
Comment by Jared T. — May 14, 2010 @ 10:19 am
Marmot just destroyed my testimony.
Comment by Christopher — May 14, 2010 @ 11:20 am
Quite interesting, thanks Jared! Do you happen to have the details of the document, and who wrote it, that refers to the cureloms? Thanks again!
Comment by Scott — May 16, 2010 @ 7:02 am
Where is the reference for this quote? How come there is no reference cited other than “unique document?”
How can you quote the document directly without having a citation?
This is how folklore persists, by folks who care little for the source other than, “I trust Brother so-and-so, he’s a good man and wouldn’t pass on false information.”
Comment by Mantaraya — September 5, 2010 @ 10:56 am
Mantaraya, this is a blog post, not an academic journal article, so the standards are different. It is common for historians (check out Jared’s bio on the sidebar if you want more info on him) to guard closely their sources prior to discussing them in print, so I think your reasoning for why Jared chose not to share the source is way off base. I’m sure that if you’re really antsy to go look at the source yourself, you could email Jared and he’d share it with you.
Comment by David G. — September 5, 2010 @ 1:56 pm
Mantaraya, get bent.
And no, I won’t be sharing the source with you.
Comment by Jared T. — September 5, 2010 @ 9:18 pm
I trust Brother T, he’s a good man and wouldn’t pass on false information.
Comment by Ardis E. Parshall — September 5, 2010 @ 9:35 pm
I dunno. That seems like a pretty harsh response to someone whose instincts–don’t trust something just because someone on the Internet said so–are in the right place. So it’s clearly someone without a lot of experience in history (how can you quote a document without a citation indeed), but if you want to talk about the duty of a historian, this is the kind of situation where the rubber hits the road.
If it were my post, and I wasn’t willing to identify the document publicly for whatever reason, I wouldn’t hold anyone’s skepticism against them.
Comment by Jonathan Green — September 5, 2010 @ 10:00 pm
Thanks, Ardis.
Jonathan, this has nothing to do with valuing skepticism or not, it’s purely that some no-name drive-by commenter questioned my use of sources and mine is purely a personal reaction. And along those lines, you can kindly join him/her/it if you don’t like my tone.
Comment by Jared T — September 6, 2010 @ 1:22 pm
Jared, the sad truth is that dealing with aggravating anonymous comments about your research, and dealing with annoying questions from the underinformed, are part of the job description in your chosen career, with which I wish you all the best.
Comment by Jonathan Green — September 6, 2010 @ 9:35 pm
Jonathan, nice try.
I’m happy to put up with such “in my career.” Good thing blogging is not “my career.” Here I feel no such need to put up with that kind of nonsense.
Regards.
Comment by Jared T — September 6, 2010 @ 9:51 pm