The Mulekites—Who Were They? Part III

As stated in the last post, the Mulekites landed about the 13º South Latitude along the Peruvian coast where the ancient ruins of Pachacamac now rest. "Pacha Kamaq" means the "Creator God" or “Earth-Maker” and was considered the supreme god by the peoples who lived in ancient Peru. Pachacamac is a Quechua name which also means: "that which gives life to the world." In the Nephite language, we do not know the word they used for God, but in the translation, it is God, the Father, or the Lord, Jesus Christ.

More than a thousand years later, when the Inca arrived, they took Pachacamac into their pantheon of gods, and relegated the name to a lesser and confusing position. This area today called Pachacamac, overlooks the Pacific Ocean and was the area in which the Mulekites landed. Coming ashore, they moved less than a mile inland onto higher ground where they settled. Eventually, they built a city, which they called Zarahemla at the time Mosiah discovered them around 200 B.C. In the preceding four centuries, “they had had many wars and serious contentions, and had fallen by the sword from time to time,” though they were still “exceedingly numerous” (Omni 1:17).

This impressive early Peruvian sanctuary, along with Sacsahuaman in Cuzco, are the two main places of worship in ancient Peru. Situated about 30 miles outside Lima, Pachacamac is a large expansive and impressive adobe brick-structure surrounded by various monuments, with temples, a great pyramid, small palaces and numerous "residential" houses of the ancient city.

Considered the preeminent religious center of coastal Peru, pilgrims flocked there from far and wide to worship Pachacamac, believed to be the Creator of the World and all of its creatures, coming from all over the coastal, inland and highland areas. The ancient city is at the top of a hill next to the fertile valley of Lurin and faces the ocean from which its earliest inhabitants came.

The impressive temple is built with four platforms with a trapezoidal shape, forming another pyramid. This city of Pachacamac, known as Zarahemla in the Book of Mormon, was built by the Mulekites. The lesser construction of the site, using mud brick in most cases, a common building material found in Peru, rather than stone as in Sacsahuaman, was not built by the Nephites that were taught by Nephi in distinct and exact construction methods as seen in Cuzco, the city of Nephi. Still, the site of Pachacamac is impressive, having expanded over the early centuries as the capital city of the entire region.

These early inhabitants, the people of Zarahemla, “came out from Jerusalem at the time that Zedekiah, King of Judah was carried away captive into Babylon. And they journeyed in the wilderness, and were brought by the hand of the Lord across the great waters into the land where Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth” (Omni 1:15-16).

The impressive ruins of Pachacamac (Zarahemla) a little southwest of Lima, Peru:



(See next post “The Mulekites—Who Were They? Part IV,” regarding the reason the people of Zarahemla were excited about the Nephites entering their city)