Did Native Americans use seer stones? What if the roots of the Book of Mormon’s narrative trace back not just to revelation, but to a classroom?

Joseph’s brother Hyrum attended Dartmouth’s Moor’s Indian Charity School, studying alongside Haudenosaunee students. Moor’s Charity School was founded specifically to educate Native American students alongside colonial settlers. How much of the cultural and spiritual knowledge exchanged in that setting might have made its way, directly or indirectly, into the Smith family’s later religious project? Dr. Thomas Murphy, author of Unsettling Scripture: Iroquois and the Book of Mormon makes a compelling case that this connection deserves more attention than it has historically received.

We also dig into the Zelph story — the supposed ancient warrior whose bones Joseph Smith claimed to identify during Zion’s Camp — and whether these practices reflect genuine Native American spiritual traditions, Mormon religious innovation, or some blend of both.

Book of Mormon & the Revolutionary War

When we talk about the relationship between early Mormonism and Native American communities, the conversation usually runs in one direction: how indigenous traditions may have influenced Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. In this next segment, we explore something far less discussed — how Haudenosaunee communities weren’t just absorbing outside religious ideas, they were producing scriptural traditions of their own.

Seneca prophet Handsome Lake, who in the early 1800s developed a body of teachings known as the Code of Handsome Lake. It blends traditional Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) spirituality with elements adapted from Christian missionaries. Murphy argues this deserves to be understood as genuine religious innovation by Native leaders, not simply a reaction to Christianity.

From there, we turn to something that surprises many: there are possible echoes of Onondaga language, geography, or tradition embedded within the Book of Mormon text itself. Murphy connects this to a period most of us know from American history class but rarely link to Mormon origins — the Revolutionary War, and the Oneida Nation’s often-overlooked alliance with the American colonists.

What do you make of these claims by Murphy?