The plan of Joseph’s book was to come directly out of popular theory concerning the Moundbuilders. His “Book of Mormon” was basically the history of two warring races, one “a fair and delightsome people,” farmers, stock-raisers, temple- builders, and workers in copper, iron, and steel; the other a “wild and ferocious, and a bloodthirsty people; full of idolatry and filthiness; feeding upon beasts of prey, dwelling in tents, and wandering about in the wilderness, with a short skin girded about their loins, and their heads shaven; and their skill . . . in the bow, and the cimeter and the axe.”
