Curelom
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A curelom is an animal mentioned, together with the cumom, in the text of the Book of Mormon:
- Ether 9:19 - 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.
Mormons believe that Joseph Smith was given the Nephite derivatives "curelom" and "cumom" rather than some other word variant referring to these animals in his supposed translation of this passage from the Reformed Egyptian; or that the words are Adamic in origin. Some Mormons have speculated about what the terms refer to including:
- mastodonts or mammoths
- a yet undiscovered, probably extinct species
- some other Central American animal species with which Joseph was unfamiliar such as the tapir or jaguar
Modern paleontologists contend that mastodons and mammoths became extinct thousands of years before the Book of Mormon was written.