No Man Knows My History (Arkosh History)

by Fawn M. Brodie

As they entered the Nauvoo Museum, Joseph introduced Lucy Smith: “This is my mother, gentlemen. The curiosities we shall see belong to her. They were purchased with her own money at a cost of six thousand dollars.” Opening pine presses along the wall, he disclosed four black, shrunken bodies. “These are mummies,” he said. “I want you to look at that little runt of a fellow over there. He was a great man in his day. Why that was Pharaoh Necho, King of Egypt!” He pointed to various hieroglyphs on the papyri, which were preserved under glass. “That is the handwriting of Abraham, the Father of the Faithful; this is the autograph of Moses, and these lines were written by his brother Aaron. Here we have the earliest accounts of the Creation, from which Moses composed the first Book of Genesis.” When Quincy questioned him about a drawing of a serpent walking about on a pair of legs, he expanded heartily: “Why that’s as plain as a pikestaff. Before the Fall snakes always went about on legs, just like chickens. They were deprived of them in punishment for their agency in the ruin of man.”