A frequent complaint about the Book of Mormon's claimed antiquity is that it mentions "horses" while the pictorial and other evidence we have indicates that modern horses were not in the Americas until the Spaniards brought them 500 years ago.
I found out recently that it is common to call jaguars (large jungle cats of the Americas) "tigre", the Spanish word for tiger.* There are no tigers in the Americas. Real tigers have distinctive stripes and typically have shaggy, orange fur. Jaguars are short-haired and have distinctive yellow-brown spotted patterns. To confuse the two animals is a ridiculous thing to do once a person has actually seen images of both tigers and jaguars.
Yet, to this day, throughout northern South America, the indigenous people tell stories of "Tio Tigre" (Uncle Tiger) and other "Tio" (Uncle) animals, including Tio Conejo (Uncle Rabbit) and Tio Caiman (Uncle Caiman).** The storytellers are using Spanish, and Spanish has a word for jaguar ("jaguar"), but they just keep using the word "tigre". Why?
I don't know why. But they do.
I also note that the Book of Mormon does not contain the word "deer", and Mesoamerica was full of them. (Due to the mentions of concrete and large human-made structures in the Book of Mormon, as well as a complete absence of any mention of cold weather, I consider a Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon to be required by the text.) Excavations of bones indicate that the prehispanic people of Mesoamerica ate two different species of deer, one large and one smaller.*** I also know that deer, while apparently not good for riding due to their bone structure, can be used to pull loads (remember reindeer/caribou?).
The Mesoamericans had sizeable networks of raised, packed-earth roads.**** Roads like that are unnecessary if people and their animals are merely walking on them. I think it likely that the Mesoamericans were using deer to pull travois ***** on the roads. Native Americans used dragged sleds for a very long time, possibly as long as 20,000 years ago (https://www.marfapublicradio.org/show/nature-notes/2025-03-07/at-white-sands-researchers-find-tracks-from-ice-age-transportation).
The Book of Mormon never mentions "horses" as being ridden. Never. Joseph Smith, the translator of the Book of Mormon, lived in a setting where horseback riding was a routine way to travel, so this omission is notable. The Book of Mormon does mention "horses" being used to pull some type of "chariot" that could carry at least one person.
Wouldn't it make sense for the people to call their deer "horses" when they were used similarly to horses and the people didn't have any real horses to distinguish the deer from? "Horse" is already such a flexible word. Did you know that "hippopotamus" means "river horse"? "Walrus" means "whale horse." And "sea horses" aren't even mammals!
So, I don't get bothered by mentions of horses in the Book of Mormon. I envision large deer pulling travois-type loads, both human and otherwise.****** And then I move on to the valuable doctrines it contains, such as telling parents to care temporally for their children and not let them hurt each other. It also teaches that Jesus Christ really did die and was resurrected; he wasn't an early alchemist faking miracles, like some believe. I hope people don't let a trivial confusion concerning the word "horse" keep them from reading the Book of Mormon and benefitting from it.
* https://www.portalguarani.com/540_hugo_rodriguez_alcala__/13967_la_doma_del_jaguar__cuentos_de_hugo_rodriguez_alcala.html
** https://www.amazon.com/-/es/El-Tigre-Rayo-Lightning-Spanish/dp/9802570087; https://leeryescribirenlaeducacionvenezolana.blogspot.com/2019/02/tio-tigre-y-tio-conejo.html; https://nypl.overdrive.com/media/3768371; https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuentos_del_T%C3%ADo_Conejo; https://eldienteroto.org/wp49/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Tio-conejo.pdf; https://acc-2.blogspot.com/2017/02/los-cuentos-de-t-i-o-tigre-y-t-i-o.html
*** "Abstract: This paper presents archeological evidence for animal use at Mayapán, the largest capital city of the Postclassic period Maya lowlands. The most commonly consumed species were white-tailed deer, turkey, and iguana, and other important but less frequent animals in the assemblage were dog, peccary, and brocket deer. A wide variety of local and non-local fauna were also recovered. Our analysis of 97,416 faunal bones is based on two distinct samples that are compared in this study—the site's monumental center buildings (temples, halls, shrines, and nearby houses) and the outlying domestic settlement zones. Four arguments are presented regarding Mayapán's animal use in this paper. First, certain rare mammals and marine species were likely obtained through trade. Second, evidence suggests that white-tailed deer were either raised in captivity or were carefully managed in habitats surrounding the city. Surplus deer meat and skeletal elements were major commodities for exchange and local consumption. Third, dog, exotic animals, and specific deer elements were preferentially utilized for monumental center activities. Fourth, culturally prescribed methods of ritually discarding deer skulls were practiced at Mayapán. Mayapán's faunal exploitation patterns were embedded in important ways within the city's larger regional, coastal-inland economic system. Key similarities and differences with other Maya sites are identified." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618208000232
**** "Now, researchers have uncovered another feat of Maya innovation: an extensive network of causeways deep in the jungles of Guatemala. The causeways, Rossella Lorenzi reports for Seeker, stretch more than 150 miles through the Mirador Basin. The area was home to El Mirador, the capital of a sweeping city complex (also known as the Kan Kingdom), where as many as 200,000 people once lived. Upwards of one million people may have resided throughout the Mirador Basin communities that surrounded the ancient city. Researchers believe that the causeways, which linked these communities, were the lifeblood of the city-state, acting as a conduit for armies, food and other essentials...So far, the LiDAR scans have covered 430 square miles of jungle, and the detailed aerial images reveal a remarkably ambitious transportation network consisting of 17 roads. The earliest dates back to 600 B.C, and the latest can be traced to 100 C.E. Project leader Richard D. Hansen, an archaeologist and anthropologist at the University of Utah, tells Lorenzi that the causeways were '130 feet wide, up to 20 feet high and in some cases they extend as far as 25 miles.' The transportation network wasn’t the only discovery that the LiDAR scans revealed. The topographical maps also showed a sophisticated system of corrals, or animal pens, suggesting that the Maya people were producing meat at an industrial level and transporting it along the causeways." https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/lidar-scans-maya-network-roads-180961995/
White Roads of the Yucatan: Changing Social Landscapes of the Yucatec Maya by Justine M. Shaw:
"sacbe. Translated as ‘‘white road,’’ the term is usually applied to Maya roads built of stone that are elevated above the surrounding terrain; as discussed in this work, their dimensions and form may be highly variable, however.
"sascab. Powdered limestone that is mined from softer, ‘‘decayed’’ deposits present throughout the Yucatán; commonly forming the top layer of floors, platforms, and roads, it may be packed into a relatively hard surface using water and pressure."
***** A travois is a "drag sled" and could be a sled carrying an upright human chair (see a Mespotamian version at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364327902_Speeding_up_Prehistoric_animal_traction_and_the_revolute_joint, Figure 4) or a flat load, as in the "travois ambulance" photo found at https://picryl.com/media/travois-or-indian-ambulance-us-army.
****** "Kiowa Travois," a 1939 woodcarving of a travois being used to carry children in a playpen-like dome on a travois, can be found at the Las Animas, Colorado post office. I recommend viewing it to get a better understanding of how a travois can be viewed as a "chariot." https://www.flickr.com/photos/auvet/4718390039/
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