Along the Jaredite Trail

When the Jaredite barges reached the Land of Promise, they would have been washed up on the beach or shore of whatever ocean they traveled, having no ability to be steered up a river nor buck the winds and tides of a river’s downward current. As Moroni translated: “The Lord God caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind” (Ether 6:4)—a wind that never did cease to blow toward the promised land (Ether 6:8).

The Jaredite barges were buried in the depths of the sea, then brought to the surface once again throughout their voyage to the land of promise

These barges were several times buried in the water because of the power and fierceness of the winds and waves (Ether 6:6). However, because they were both air and water tight (Ether 6:7) and could be submerged from time to time, at which times the Lord brought them up from under the water, who “did again bring them up on the top of the waters” (Ether 6:7).
    Consequently, we are dealing not with a ship or boat, but with a submarine-type barge. It might be noted that in Joseph Smith’s time, the idea of a vessel sailing or navigating under water was unknown, the word “submarine” meaning in his day only “acting or growing under water in the sea; as submarine navigators; submarine plants.” The word submarine was made of up two morphemes, “sub” and “marine.” Sub is a prefix of Latin origin that means “below” or “under,” while marine originates from the Latin “marinus” meaning “belonging or related to the sea.”
    The Lord called the Jaredite vessels “barges,” a term once used for a flat-bottomed river vessel meant to convey people and cargo. Specifically, a barge was a small boat of various sizes (depending on cargo to be carried), such as those used initially to cross “many waters” (Ether: 2:6), which may be why the Jaredite record states the length of the later barges to clarify those being different and larger than the earlier ones (Ether 2:17). These latter barges, whose length “was the length of a tree,” to differentiate the size when building the barges to take them across the great waters” to the land of promise (Ether 2:17).
    It should also be noted that the motive power of these Jaredite barges was wind (Ether 2:24; 6:5), and this “fierce wind” that “never ceased to blow towards the promised land while they were upon the waters” causing them to be “driven forth before the wind” (Ether 6:8). We find then that the barges did “land upon the shore of the promised land” (Ether 6:12).

Again, it should be noted that from their landing point on the shores of the great sea they just crossed “they bowed themselves down upon the face of the land” (Ether 6:12) and they “went forth upon the face of the land and began to till the earth” (Ether 6:13). There is no suggestion that they went anywhere else than from the point of landing along a shore of the great sea—this means they did not travel up a river by barge or by foot, but spread through their growth and labor across the face of the land (Ether 6:18).
    This alone would disqualify the North American theory, since no matter which model is considered, the Jaredites are not claimed or shown to have landed on the seashore, instead according to their theories, the Jaredites showed up in the Great Lakes area which did not border on the seashore, nor have access to the sea to capture the barges and take them upriver.
    Ether makes it clear that the Jaredites eventually settled their center of government (where the king dwelt) in the heights in a land called “Moron” (Ether 7:5), which land of Moron “was near the land which is called Desolation by the Nephites” (Ether 7:6). Three generations later, Jared’s great grandson Corihor rebelled and left Moron, moving his power to an area called Nehor, from which he later attacked the king at Moron and won the kingdom.

In Andean South America, Moron would be Riobamba and Nehor would be Manta, previously known as Jocay, a city that dates back 3000 years, long before the Inca conquest, where it served as a coastal trading site for at least seven different civilizations and cultures—today it is still a major trading center and one of the most important cities for business and tourism on the Pacific Coast of Ecuador and the country’s second largest port.
    The weather at Jocay (Nehor) was dry subtropical to humid subtropical with temperature between 76º and 90º F., and a rainy season lasting from December to May, when it was cooler and with less humidity.
    During the early initial time of the Jaredites, both Jared and his brother ruled over or led the Jaredite people, with Jared handling the temporal matters and his brother dealt with the spiritual needs. Orihah, the youngest of Jared’s sons (Ether 6:14,27), was appointed king before Jared and his brother’s deaths (Ether 6:27). Now Orihah was a righteous man who lived to a very old age, during which he had thirty-one children with twenty-three were male (Ether 7:2), the youngest being Kib, who had a son named Corihor (Ether 7:2).
    When Corihor was 32 years of age, he rebelled against his father Kib, who was the king, and left the kingdom in the Land of Moron and traveled to a land called Nehor, where he set up his own “kingdom” (Ether 7:3-4). From this point onward, there were wars among these two kingdoms with the balance of power switching back and forth according to the victors.
    Now in the Land Northward was the hill Shim, which was in the Land of Antum, which was next to the land of Jashon (Mormon 1:3; 2:16-17), and likely eastward of the city of Boaz, northward of the narrow neck, southward of the hill Ramah/hill Cumorah, and westward of Ablom. It is the location where Ammaron deposited the plates containing what was to become part of the Book of Mormon (Mormon 1:3). The Jaredite king, Omer, passed by the hill of Shim with his family on his way to Ablom (Ether 9:3). Also implied in the same verse is that the hill was near where the Nephites were destroyed.

Four passes lead out of (red circle) the Gilgal Valley (Quito), into the four corners of the Jaredite lands

From the area of the hill Cumorah, and from thence eastward, where Omer came to a place which was called Ablom, by the sea-shore, and there he pitched his tent, and also his sons and his daughters, and all his household, save it were Jared and his family.
    Later, after the Jaradite kingdom had destroyed itself, the Nephite king Mosiah’s 43-man expedition “came into the land which had been peopled and been destroyed, of whose bones we have spoken, which was discovered by the people of Zarahemla, it being the place of their first landing. And they came from there up into the south wilderness. Thus the land on the northward was called Desolation, and the land on the southward was called Bountiful” (Alma 22:30-31)

After the Jaredies reached the Land of Promise, they settled down near the coast, but later “came up from there into the South Wilderness” (Alma 22:32), which wilderness was the Wilderness of Akish; later, Omer was told to leave the city of Moron and travel northward, eventually being led to the area of Ablom, near the East Sea

The hill Shim (Cerro Hermoso) is a non-volcanic peak in the eastern cordillera within the boundaries of Llanganates National Park. It rises to 15,013 feet and is generally covered with snow. The driest months are from September to January, and according to the locals, November and December the best months to visit, with a 4-day, 26-mile trek starting at Millin river (at Pisayambo lake) and ending at El Triunfo—a rather difficult journey through the very unique paramo vegetation.
    The elevation of Mount Imbaburo, or Cumorah, is 15,190-feet, and of the 23 highest mountains in Ecuador, 19 are over 15,000 feet in height, and seven over 17,000 feet in height.