Mosiah 23:30-35 (about 121 B.C.)

While attempting to return along a different route to the land of Nephi, after being lost, the Lamanite army “found [the] priests of king Noah” hidden in a land “they called Amulon; and they had begun to possess the land of Amulon and had begun to till the ground” (Mosiah 23:31). Both the Lamanite army and the priests of king Noah would have been surprised to see each other. It appears the Lamanite army would have destroyed this group of Nephites had it not been for the wives of these priests of Noah who were Lamanite women kidnapped from the land of Shemlon. These wives, to protect their families, pleaded “with their brethren, that they should not destroy their husbands,” even though their husbands were Nephite men and not Lamanites (Mosiah 23: 33).

After negotiating with the Lamanites for their lives and their wives, “Amulon and his brethren did join the Lamanites,” and agreed to lead the “lost” Lamanite army through “the wilderness in search of the land of Nephi” (Mosiah 23:35). The route they followed, however, appears not to have been the normal route traveled by the priest’s of king Noah when returning to the land of Nephi to kidnap the Lamanite daughters and pillage food from the people of Limhi, because they were “searching” for the land of Nephi (Mosiah 23:35).

We suspect that Amulon, the leader of the priests of Noah, forged an unknown, but intentionally alternate route, in hopes that he might find an opportunity to escape from the Lamanite army. Remember, the people of Amulon had kidnapped the daughters of the Lamanites and probably feared for their lives if they returned to the land of Nephi and faced the king of the Lamanites. We believe this unfamiliar route would have been in a southward direction because the Lamanite army would have most likely known they were north of the land of Nephi when they became “lost.”