The Founder of Ammonihah

After Alma taught in Zarahemla, Gideon, and Melek, Mormon recorded, “He departed thence, and traveled three days’ journey on the north of the land of Melek; and he came to a city which was called Ammonihah.” This is the first time in the Book of Mormon that Ammonihah was mentioned, and Mormon gave us this side note about the city: “Now it was the custom of the people of Nephi to call their lands, and their cities, and their villages, yea, even all their small villages, after the name of him who first possessed them; and thus it was with the land of Ammonihah” (Alma 8:6-7). This suggests that Ammonihah was the founded by a person named Ammonihah, and it almost seems as if Mormon expected us to know who that was. But there is no one mentioned in the Book of Mormon of that name. Perhaps knowing who that person was would have given us an understanding of why the city was so wicked at this point, for clearly Mormon had some reason for making this remark. It is possible that there was someone of this name who was mentioned by Mormon in the part of his abridgement that we do not have. In other words, in the lost 116 pages that contain Mormon’s history of the Nephites from the time of Lehi up until the end of the reign of King Benjamin may have spoken of this Ammonihah and given us insight into the founding of this city.

               I see one other possibility as to who Ammonihah might have been. About 40 years before Alma visited the city, Ammon went up from the land of Zarahemla to the land of Nephi to help the people of Limhi. He of course was a righteous man and was instrumental in helping rescue the Nephites who were under bondage of the Lamanites. He wasn’t mentioned again, though, after the story of the people of Limhi. But if he had a son, then Ammonihah would have been a likely name since “ihah” at the end of Nephite name seemed to mean “son of” (based on the fact that Moronihah was the son of Moroni as recorded in Alma 62:43). If that were the case, then it is possible that the founder of Ammonihah was the son of Ammon. It is not hard to imagine that King Mosiah may have wanted to reward Ammon for his sacrifices in helping recover the people of Limhi, and so perhaps he granted some land for a new city to his family to own and build up.  This would likely mean that the city was relatively new at the time Alma visited it, perhaps 20 or 30 years old, but certainly they would have had plenty of time to ripen in iniquity like they were in. If this hypothesis were true, then it would have been a sad irony that the city named after the son of the man who rescued the people of Limhi would have reinstituted the horrible practice of King Noah: burning the believers.

               Of course, we do not have enough detail to know for sure if either of these conjectures is true, but perhaps this comment about the city of Ammonihah’s name can at least serve as a reminder to all of us about what we leave behind. Ammonihah likely was a wicked man who played a major role in the wickedness of the city. We may not found a city, but we can still ask ourselves this question: what legacy of righteousness or wickedness will I leave behind in my family and community?