Item Detail
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27519
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13
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21
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English
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"As Ugly as Evil" and "As Wicked as Hell" : Gadianton Robbers and the Legend Process among the Mormons
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Between Pulpit and Pew : The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore
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Logan, UT
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Utah State University Press
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40-65
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Reeve's chapter chronicles Latter-day Saint encounters with demonic possessions. He specifically explores how the possession experiences intersected with, and gave rise to, doctrinal ideas about disembodies evil spirits. Those theological notions of evil, preached from the pulpit, in turn spawned a corresponding array of folk beliefs centered upon "Gadianton robbers," a nefarious band of murderers from Mormon scripture. According to Reeve, the robber legends served important anxiety-relieving functions for Mormon settlers attempting to colonize the inhospitable, semiarid expanses of the Great Basin. Robber stories suggested that in some locations, luckless Mormons founded their towns upon ancient Gadianton burial grounds filled with evil spirits. Early Mormon pioneers could therefore blame their settlement failures on these supernatural forces. The robber legends consequently offered Mormon colonizers and otherworldly excuse for abandoning already troublesome community-building efforts. [Editors' summary]
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A Mormon Bigfoot : David Patten's Cain and The Concept of Evil in LDS Folklore
Between Pulpit and Pew : The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore
Indians, Mestizos, and Parley P. Pratt's Chilean Mission
In Harmony? Perceptions of Mormonism in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania
Making Space on the Western Frontier : Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes
Mormons in the Piazza : History of the Latter-Day Saints in Italy
Narrative Doubling and the Structure of Helaman
Religion of a Different Color : Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness
Saints or Sinners? The Evolving Perceptions of Mormon-Indian Relations in Utah Historiography
Terrible Revolution : Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse
The Cold War and the Invention of Free Agency
The Cold War and the Invention of Free Agency
Vernacular Mormonism : The Development of Latter-Day Saint Apocalyptic (1830-1930) -
'A Little Oasis in the Desert' : Community Building in Hurricane, Utah, 1860-1930
Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt (Classics in Mormon Literature)
Awakenings in the Burned-Over District : New Light on the Historical Setting of the First Vision
Cattle, Cotton, and Conflict : The Possession and Dispossion of Hebron, Utah
Early Mormonism and the Magic World View
Evangelical America and Early Mormonism
Health and Medicine among the Latter-day Saints : Science, Sense, and Scripture
Life of Heber C. Kimball, an Apostle; the Father and Founder of the British Mission
Literary Form and Historical Understanding : Joseph Smith's First Vision
Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes : Making Space On The Nineteenth-Century Western Frontier
Of Papers and Perception : Utes and Navajos in Journalistic Media, 1900-1930
Parting the Veil : The Visions of Joseph Smith
Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from Utah
Quicksand and Cactus : A Memoir of The Southern Mormon Frontier
Some May Call It Folklore
The Persisting Idea of American Treasure Hunting
The Refiner's Fire : The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844
The Stability Ratio : An Index of Community Cohesiveness in Nineteenth-Century Mormon Towns
The Study of Mormon Folklore : An Uncertain Mirror for Truth
The Visionary World of Joseph Smith
Utah's Black Hawk War