Joseph Smith has Alma, a judge of the Nephites who lived in the first century B.C., stating that his people were in possession of an “abundance of silk and fine twined linen, and all manner of good homely cloth.”

Smith, if he had done some research on his subject, would have discovered that silk was unknown on the American continent until the coming of the Europeans and that it has never been successfully introduced since that time. The authorities tried for over three hundred years to encourage the production of silk. Cortez, following the instructions of his Spanish overlords, tried to introduce sericulture in Mexico. The effort was made in 1522 and died out seventy-five years later.

James I of England tried, in 1609, to introduce silk culture in the colonies. Several attempts were made, but without success. Since the American Revolution several attempts have been made to encourage domestic production of silk, all without economic success. Silk still has to be imported from the Orient or the Mediterranean countries.

Smith should also have known that flax for the production of linen was unknown on the American continents before the coming of the Europeans. Flax was introduced mainly by the colonists from the British Isles who were skilled in the craft of weaving fine linen goods.

The “good homely cloth” referred to by Smith would have its counterpart in the woolen homespun so well known to the colonists and still produced on handlooms by the farmers’ wives in upper New York State in the early 1800’s. That such a fabric would be used by Smith’s Book of Mormon people would seem quite logical, especially when flocks are repeatedly mentioned. There is a dramatic episode recorded in Alma 17;25-33 in which a man named Ammon protects the flocks of King Lamoni from despoilers. Unfortunately for Smith’s record, this is all quite fictional, as there were no domestic sheep in American prior to the coming of the Spanish.

Central America and southern Mexico are not and never have been adaptable to the raising of sheep except for a few possible spots in the highlands of Guatemala. Sheep could not thrive in jungle country. The total record of the farming culture of Mid-America shows no presence of domestic animals.

While Smith erred completely in his statements regarding weaving materials used by the early Americans, he was not in error as to their weaving skills. The most common fiber used in weaving was cotton. Cotton was grown, and cotton fabric was a common item of trade in the wide area extending form what is now southern Arizona in the north to Peru in the south. Other fibers were used, such as those produced form the maguey plant, sisal, and the kapok tree.

In the weaving of cotton the artisans achieved great skill and produced some magnificent fabrics. Materials are fine as silk and as soft as velvet came from their looms.

Another fabric consisted of bark cloth, which was produced from the bark of a wild fig tree. The bark was beaten until all of the pulp was removed and only the fiber remained. This is a process known throughout southeast Asia and may have been brought across the southern Pacific to America.

Weaving of fabrics from the wool of rabbits and certain long-haired dogs is known. Until comparatively recent times the Indians of the north coast of the United States and British Columbia raised herds of wool-producing white dogs from which they wove “woolen” fabrics. Shrouds woven with a weft of rabbit hair and skin have been found on mummies as far north as the present State of Utah.

Most intriguing of all in the field of textiles was the great quantity of vestments woven form the feathers of birds. This skill, devoted largely to the production of vestments for priests and chiefs, was widespread and completely documented. It was an art that had its highest development in Mexico and Central America.

Joseph Smith could have known about all of these fabrics and the fibers used to produce them. Certainly there was a wealth of description in the writings of the Spanish conquistadores. His failure to mention them and his mention of materials totally unknown in any early American period, proves beyond doubt that the Book of Mormon was written by a completely uninformed scribe and not by ant ancient writer who supposedly lived in any period of the history of ancient America.