nemextended
THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL (THE LAMANITE)
Chapter 0
Premium narration
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I, Samuel the Lamanite — yet first a Nem and a youth dedicated to the Lord — open this record in my own homeland before the Spirit drives me southward to Zarahemla. Before I prophesy upon foreign walls, I set down the origin of my people, that those who hereafter read may know whence the True People came and by what Spirit they were gathered. This book traces the founding of the Nem, that company of twelve Lamanite households who sailed northward with Hagoth in the days of Shiblon.
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Its central figures are my grandparents: Hemen the Healer and his twin Cumeni, both former warriors who had taken the Ammonite covenant; Hementim, Hemen's daughter, a prophetess unmatched in scripture and in healing; and Shi-Tugo, the converted Lamanite captain whose counsels shaped the colony's governance. Their wanderings carry them at last to Corianton, the lost brother of Shiblon, reigning in the far north with his wife Isabel. The recurring themes are agency uncompelled, the elevation of mothers in the choosing of rulers, the holding of all things common, the gift of healing, and the danger of Gadianton corruption seeping into any people who imitate Nephite rule.
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The narrative culminates in the naming of the Nemen — People of Truth — and the merging of Corianton's nation with the Nem, founding the True People whose name endures yet among the tongues of the Land Northward.
