Curelom

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A curelom is an animal mentioned, together with the cumom, in the text of the Book of Mormon:

And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms. (Ether 9:19)

According to Latter-day Saint belief, Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from an ancient language. In this line of thinking, the words curelom and cumom were transliterated instead of translated, meaning that while the ancient word is roughly transmitted, the actual animal intended is ambiguous. The context may imply beasts of burden. Some Mormons have speculated about what the terms refer to, including:

• Mastodons or mammoths. Early Mormon apostle Orson Pratt identified cureloms as mammoths in the Journal of Discourses (12:339-340).
• A yet undiscovered, probably extinct species.
• Some other South/Central American animal species with which Joseph was unfamiliar such as the llama, alpaca, tapir, or jaguar. For a Mormon view on the possibility of renaming animals in the Book of Mormon, see this article on fairlds.org.

Modern paleontologists contend that mastodons and mammoths became extinct thousands of years before the time when the Book of Mormon is set.

[edit] Trivia

• Curelom references are a popular inside joke in the online ex-Mormon community.
• The entry for cumom in the 1981 edition of the Book of Mormon index is misspelled as cummom.
• Chris Heimerdinger, a popular LDS fiction novelist, chose to make cureloms mammoths in his time-traveling adventure Tennis Shoes and the Feathered Serpent.