Mentinah

The Mentinah Archives are that portion of the Nemenhah Sacred Records which chronicle the history of the family and descendants of Hagohtl down to the era of United States history characterized by treaty breach, the Indian Wars, and the effective political extinguishment of the Wellamotkin-Wallowa Indigenous People, and many other related Indigenous Peoples in the Pacific Northwest, as well as in many other places in the continent.  Through it, a direct line of descent is established from the present-day Nemenhah who, constituting the mixed-blood, and spiritually adopted descendents of the ancient People of the same name, have exercised the Right of Self-Determination guaranteed to Indigenous Peoples by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and have restored themselves as a Nomadic Indigenous People. 

These records trace the Sacred History of certain of the Ancient Nemenhah, beginning with the journey of Hahgohtl, whom the Pueblo called “Hagothah”, into the Land Northward (North America) up to the father of Wellmotkin, the first Treaty-Signer of the Band known by the U.S. Federal Government by the same name. They were written upon plates of various metals and alloys of metals, stone cylinders, stones, velum, paper, and ultimately on variously processed animal hides. The records were archived in several locations in North and Central America anciently, but the only surviving copies of the histories of the Nemenhah, of which this Translation Council has anything to do, derive from the original library which had been strictly guarded in mountains of what is now called Sanpete County, Utah.

When the people, who were to become known as “Mormons” came into the Sanpete valley, they were met by Indigenous Americans who had been forewarned in dreams and visions of their coming and of their complete conquest of the region. After converting to the new religion, certain of the Chiefs of these Americans met with Brigham Young to give into his keeping a copy of the libraries hidden in the hills of the Wasatch Front, as part of their consecration to the United Order, and because of their belief in similarly translated histories which had been abridged and compiled by a Pre-Conquest Native American. They were pleased that the men of prophecy had come because this meant that their responsibility for the keeping of the ancient records had been fulfilled.  President Young informed them, however, that they would have to remain in their stewardship for a little while longer. His words to them, “for we have not wherewith to translate these records,” are still repeated today by certain of their descendents. Shortly thereafter, the caretakers sealed the libraries up and no one was allowed to visit them except their brethren who came up periodically from the south. 

Over time, and as the indigenous population in the region was effectively extinguished, the records lay hidden and forgotten, but also unguarded.  Because of the encroachment and desecration of parts of the library by treasure hunters and the like, the records and other notable artifacts connected with them, have been successfully removed and are now secure in safe places out of harm’s way.

For generations, some of the Councils of Mayan Elders have sent emissaries to the libraries to make copies for translation purposes. In 1957, one such Council requested that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints translate and publish the books of the library. They report that the Brethren of the Church with whom they met responded just as President Young had to the Chiefs of the Indians in Sanpete County – “We have no way of translating these things. No one speaks this language anymore.”

From that day certain members of that Council undertook the task of making a translation of the works from Nemenhah into dialects of their own tongue, a sort of “Rosetta Stone” having already been provided by one of the ancient authors of the records, and there being similarities in the languages. Several translators have been involved in the project, including those for whom the records constitute family history.

On November 11, 2004, the first release of the English translations was made available to members of the Numi’Pu Tsu’Peli Chopunish (now known as the Nemenhah Band and Native American Traditional Organization), under the direction of the Hereditary Medicine Chief and the Council of Mothers.  The Members of the Nemenhah Band are not required to believe and follow the “doctrines” represented by the Ancestors, any more than modern Europeans actually believe and follow the teachings of their ancestors, but many of them do.  Notwithstanding this seeming disunity, all Members of the Nemenhah recognize the importance of the records of the  Nemenhah in the restoration of the Nemenhah Indigenous People in these modern times, regardless of whether they believe them to be truth or merely meaningful myth.  The Nemenhah have no desire to create a Popular Cult around the records of their ancestors.  They do understand, however, the importance of a shared history, traditional territory, language, culture, traditions and institutions in the present political landscape which has been carefully crafted in UNDRIP in order to restore and preserve Indigenous Peoples and their Belief Systems. 

In the first English translation, proper nouns that would be familiar to English-speakers were used whenever the original seemed to be similar.  Therefore, “Ayahshuway” was rendered “Jesus”, “Hagotl” was rendered “Hagoth”, and so forth.  With the growing interest in restoring the original language into common use, however, the Translation Council has recommended the revision of the texts so that original proper nouns are used in as close to the original phonetic pronunciation as is possible in the English alphabet.  We consider this an appropriate “first step” in that restoration process. 

Also in that translation, grammatical structure was often altered to make the sentence more comfortable in English.  Regrettably, many important nuances of the ancient language which tend to associate it more closely with its Middle-Eastern connections were lost or altered.  This translation hopes to correct as many of those errors in editing as possible, with the intention of preserving the rich, cultural heritage of the documents, as well as retaining its readability.  It is an unavoidable literary fact of life that some things simply cannot be translated into English, but we hope that such incidences are as few as possible in this translation.

The Translation Council

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