Earliest source of the legends of the transported Aztec gold

[Highmountain]

Wally Hesse, probably from TorC, wrote a story a long time ago about a lost and buried city of the Aztec in the Capitans for one of the Treasure Magazines. Said someone from Roswell led him up to some caves in the Ruidoso area. It's the only Aztec connection I've ever come across for the Capitans and that country's been so explored by hiking Texans and real estate developers it's tempting to reject the whole notion of the Aztec being that far east without being discovered and hauled to Houston on a flatbed truck.

But the other possible interpretation of Aztlan is 'place of whiteness'. The whitest place I know of in the desert southwest runs north to south in the valley between Alamogordo and Cruces with Victorio Peak spang on target and the Capitans running parallel on the eastern boundary.

Maybe there's something to it. A bit to the north of the Jornada in the same valley there's a cliff overhang 100 yards or so long that has a lot of graphic depictions of Spaniards in armor being pulled from their horses and slaughtered. The artists appear to have been fairly enthusiastic about the matter and I'd always assumed it involved some unfortunate stragglers during the Spaniard trek south after the Revolt of 1680. But I suppose it could just as easily have been put there by Aztecs coming north as an instruction sheet for anyone encountering Spaniards.

 

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[the blindbowman]

has any one found a native ladder going into some kind of a mine shaft of sweat house ,or hiden secerd cave , in the supers ...? the ladder would be about a 14 inches wide and the rails kind of piont inward at the top , not much just a few inches inward ...has there been any of these ladders found in the supers....?


i guess so

"T H E L E G E N D O F T H E T U A R - T U M S
B Y C L A I R M I L L E T T
In 1980, I was camping at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and met an artist by Havasupai Falls. We became friends and he shared the following story about the Papago Park area in Phoenix, Arizona with me.

THE PAPAGO BUTTES
The name 'Valley of the Sun' is much older than most people imagine. I learned this as I listened to a strange and fascinating story. A story revealed to me by an old, wrinkled, white-haired apache woman one clear, chilly September evening as she huddled by my campfire. A story only she knows...and me, and now you!

She explained how, millenniums ago the sun sent down an awesome, brilliant fireball to incinerate a band of giant invaders who threatened his children. She told me those Indians still survive today in huge caverns beneath the Valley floor. How they kidnap all who discover them, taking them away to their subterranean cities.

I can't swear this story is true, but I heard it from a dying woman, the guardian of her people's legends. In telling this tale, I am making good my pledge to her that night, to keep the story alive after she was gone.

Because I am deeply interested in Indian lore and traditions, I have spent many years studying and painting their ceremonial dances. I have become friends with many of them. It was through one such friendship with an Apache medicine man that I was invited to the very impressive 'Changing Woman Ceremonial' (Apache Crown Dance) for his daughter. Few white men are invited to these very personal, sacred ceremonies. I took it as a high compliment when I was asked to come.

I recall the magic that drew around us even as we arrived at the ceremonial site in the mountains northeast of Phoenix. It was raining steadily and rivulets of water ran down the tracks in the dirt road ahead of us.

"Looks like bad weather for the dance," I observed to an old medicine man.

He shrugged and replied, 'No. I made the medicine to move the storm away until we're through.' The rain soon turned to a light drizzle, then stopped. Not until the fourth day as we drove away from the meeting place did the rain clouds come back again.

My daughter and I spent four days with the San Carlos Apaches and their guest from the Mescalero Apache tribe. I lent a hand in the cooking, corn grinding and wood gathering, as my daughter did. We soon melted into the crowd. The deep feeling of promise and beginnings swept us up, and though we couldn't understand all the Apache word of the prayers, we prayed along with her people for the girl's future happiness and well-being.

Late the third evening, we returned to our camp from the colorful ceremonial dances and I put another log on the fire. Bright sparks jumped into the air and the flickering flames performed a ritual dance of their own. I sat almost hypnotized by the erratic movements of the fire, with the rhythmic beat of the drums in the distance. I heard someone approaching. There was a rustling of leaves, a snapping of twigs, the crunch of feet and the whisper of cloth brushing the undergrowth as two figures came toward us.

As they entered the ring of light diffused by my fire, I recognized an elderly white-haired Apache woman I had ground corn for, and her granddaughter. Stiffly, the old woman, with the help of her granddaughter, settled down cross-legged near the warmth of the fire. The younger woman invited my daughter to go see something interesting in the main camp, leaving us alone in the serene beauty of the mountain night. The old grandmother leaned forward and said in a high-pitched voice, "You asked about stories. I will give you one because I like you and trust you I will die very soon and I do not want my story to go to my grave with me." She went on to explain that none of her young relatives seemed interested in the legends that had been passed down through generations of grandmothers. She asked me to pledge that I would help preserve the story she was about to tell me.

I swore, and she slowly began the tale the Tuar-tums, the little Indians who lived down in the 'Big Valley' (the Salt River Valley of the 'Valley of the Sun'), and the Jian-du-pids, the giants who invaded their land, stole their water, ruined their fields, drove them underground and were finally seared into the earth by the Great Father, the Sun.

'Long, long ago, long before the people you call Hohokam came here and dug the first irrigation canals (the first you found anyway), a little tiny people lived in the Big Valley. They were like so (holding up a hand), 'bout three feet high. Good farmers, using water from the Salt River to grow fine crops and raise fat animals. They were very happy, singing and chanting as they worked, until the Jian-du-pids came.'

She described the coming of enormous Indians, apparently as big as Paul Bunyon, who used a tree for a toothpick. They came dragging with them massive sleds containing all their wealth. Their vast horde of gold weighed down a mountainous camel (she called it a Bay-ze-lea). They also had with them a huge reddish-brown hunting dog whose head stood as high as the knees of his masters. It swept on ahead, killing the Tuar-tuams and their animals and ruining their fields.


CAMELBACK MOUNTAIN
The giants came from the northeast, headed for their old home in the south, led by Evilkin, a massive, hulking man who struck fear into the hearts of all who saw him. When they reached the Roosevelt Lake area, they decided they could go no further by land, that they must build a ship to carry them southwest to their home beyond the Gulf of Baja. But where could they find enough water in the parched desert to float such a tremendous ship as they required?

The tiny Tuar-tums lived in the Big Valley using the water from the rivers to supply their needs for raising food. They lived a healthy, productive life until the Jian-du-pids came into the valley and diverted all the rivers, creeks and streams, destroying the dams and irrigation systems. The Jian-du-pids wanted all the water to flow down the Salt River so they could launch their ship. In trying to do this, they destroyed much of the civilization the Tuar-tums had built up. Many of the Tuar-tums were killed, their farms and homes ruined.

For a time, the Jian-du-pids returned to the north to bring in more gold and supplies, but the Tuar-tums knew they would come again. To save their lives, the little people decided to build everything underground - their homes, their farms, even divert the rivers into the Undervalley. Since there were large honeycombed caverns already in existence, this was not an impossible task.

To the east, the Four Peaks each held a Tuar-tum sentry facing one of the four points of the compass. The lookouts signaled with polished copper shields to a central watchkeeper in the Valley to warn of the return of the enemy.

When the Jian-du-pids returned with more supplies and gold, the bright copper shields flashed the warning. Bitter war, resulted, though of course the tiny Tuar-tums could do no more than tear down the new diversion dams at night, steal back their grain and torment the Jian-du-pids by piling thorn bushes and jumping cactus in their blankets.

Retaliation followed as darkness follows dusk, and soon the Tuar-tums knew they must hide. They fled into the vast caverns which they had made ready beneath the Valley floor. They made their homes there, using stored food and supplies and grew their crops in tiny plots in out-of-the-way places on the surface.


HOLE IN THE ROCK
In what is now Papago Park, between Van Buren and McDowell Road, you will find 'Hole in the Rock'. A window on the eastern face of the butte opens onto a wide downward slope under the western face. From the opening, westward, a huge tunnel sloped down to the safety of the catacombs of the Undervalley (below the city of Phoenix). At the very top is a small opening. The old woman explained that the central watchkeeper climbed a long wooden ladder from the main tunnel, which led into the caverns, and stood his watch looking out this vent. The ladder was made from small stripling juniper trees lashed together with leather thongs. What we see now as 'Hole in the Rock' was the main entrance to the Undervalley.

One terrible dawn, after a particularly annoying Tuar-tum attack, in the blinding glare of the rising sun, the Jian-du-pids rushed the entrance to the Undervalley. Great feet rose and crashed down as the invaders stamped angrily on the tunnel roof and all around the area, collapsing many of the caverns and utterly destroying everything they could of the Undervalley and its people. Bay-ze-lea, their great camel, lay down a little way to the north, watching, and Dap-gong, their hunting dog, snapped and snarled fiercely at the wrecked entrance, peering through the tiny hole that led now only to a smashed slope of earth, debris, and dusty rubble.

From behind a mesquite bush some distance away, little Dar-lac peered fearfully out at the terrible devastation. He was perhaps the smallest of the Tuar-tum men - brown, wrinkled and frail, but surely their holiest holy man. "Oh, Father Sun," he cried out in beseeching anguish, "your children will all be smashed. No more will the Tuar-tum live to sing to you in mid-winter joy as your warmth returns, bringing with it planting time. Help us, Oh Father, or we will all perish! We have done all we have the strength to do. Help us, oh Father Sun!"

With that, trembling, Dar-lac retreated underground in utter despair. He did not see that the dawn this day grew more brilliant than ever before, that Father Sun flung out an orange ball of flame which almost touched the earth. It destroyed the giant ship in its cradle, leaving only molten rock to mark the place where the golden hoard of the Jian-du-pids lay buried. Dar-lac did not see the holocaust rush straight toward the rampaging, terrified invaders and sear them all to smoking skeletons - melting them down like butter, striking them lifeless and shapeless in an instant, their faces contorted in agony. The 'the little finer of the Sun', having flicked away the threat to his children, returned to the heavens.

I looked up from the crackling, dancing flames of the campfire into the sad eyes of the old woman. "You see? The Anglos make a park for golf and picnics and cage up strange animals in a zoo. They name it all for the Papago tribe, right on the spot where all this happened. Do they not call the mountain to the north the camel's back? Is there not still a hole in the rock where the door was? Are there not the grotesque melted faces of Evilkin and his henchmen in the stone of the buttes? Do you not see the dog still turning to snap at his tail in the searing flames?

I said that I would go and look, and a week later, standing beside my van, I did see them. On the western face of the butte is a distorted but massive face, and across McDowell Road looking down on the National Guard vehicle park is another , and yet another she called Eye Socket Mountain. The camel is still there to the north without a doubt. Turning east, through the morning haze, I could surely see the 'Four Lookouts' (Four Peaks) in the distance north of the Superstition Mountains.


SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN
The Superstition Mountains might, I suppose, look like a charred ship, and when I think of the hundreds who have searched the mountains' innermost recesses for the fabled hoard of glittering gold, from Jacob Waltz on, I wonder. The old woman said they just haven't dug deep enough to reach the 'belly', or what we would call the 'hold' of the giant ship.
I have found no corroboration for the old woman's story. All I can find are the molten faces in the stone...the Camel's back, the dog, the hole in the rock, Four Peaks, and the Superstitions. And I wonder!

Why do so many climbers fall from Camelback Mountain and the Papago Buttes? Why have so many people gone into the Superstition Mountains, never to be seen again? Is it forbidden soil, or sacred ground? Do the Tuar-tum medicine men cast an evil spell on those who trespass, causing the intruders to slip and fall? Or, are they pushed by the phantom-like Tuar-tums who scurry back down into their Under-valley?

The old woman swore the Tuar-tums still live in the Undervalley. "Do not climb the Papago Buttes," she said. "Do not peer too deeply into the holes. If you find the secret opening, you will be caught and taken down. No one has ever returned!"

As she finished her story, we both sat quietly starting into the fire for several minutes without speaking; the she impatiently signaled for me to help her to her feet. As she quietly slipped away into the inky darkness, I shivered, but not entirely from the chill breeze which suddenly set the leaves on the trees dancing and murmuring above me.

This article was printed in Outdoor Arizona in August, 1978

About the Author:
Day-ga-Khle-chee (Man with Red Whiskers) is the Indian name given to Clair Millet. He is well known to the Indians of the Southwest as an interested student of their lore. His paintings capture the mystic glow of firelight behind ceremonial dancers in full costume, and while he gathers material for his art, he gathers stories too. This is one of them. The Apache story-teller has since passed away; but, as she requested, the story has not followed her.

 

[Highmountain]

has any one found a native ladder going into some kind of a mine shaft of sweat house ,or hiden secerd cave , in the supers ...? the ladder would be about a 14 inches wide and the rails kind of piont inward at the top , not much just a few inches inward ...has there been any of these ladders found in the supers....?

BB: I don't recall ever seeing a ladder under that kind of circumstances anywhere. Never got into the Superstitions, though I did live for a while in outside Apache Junction as a pre-school kid in the 1940s.. During those years right after WWII and into the early 50s the adults were doing a lot of talking about the Superstitions and the Dutchman. Some sort of major treasure-hunting murder related investigation was being beaten to death. People got into the mountains a lot more in those times and I'd bet half the adult males in a 200 mile radius of those mountains either went up looking for treasure, or intended to.

Could be the ladder you're looking for got found during those times and removed for one reason or another. I read in a treasure magazine or book sometime during the 70s that the Dutchman is the most consistently and sustainingly searched-for treasure in the history of the world and that the Superstitions are the most searched, explored and dug piece of vacant real estate anywhere. That doesn't equate to whatever's there being found, but it could surely have destroyed anything a person today might rely on for surface signs and evidence.

 

[Highmountain]

Drifting back into the original subject of this thread, I find thinking about it a few days has caused me to think there are a couple of ways this legend could have emerged, if it's authentic in the present form.

It would have had to come originally from the Aztec side of things. Nobody else would have known how many groups of how many people went in which direction.

Possibilities for transmission of the legend to Spaniards: Some high ranking Aztec would have to have been captured and tortured until he told the story, converted to Catholicism and told it in confession.

Other ways the legend might have survived and been communicated: Someone earlier in the thread made the observation the first time he's found any reference to the story was during the 1930s. At that time tribal members of all descriptions had begun telling whites a lot of things they'd never spoken of before. It might be someone among the Zuni or Hopi told the tale. Those would probably the two places the survivors of the gold-transport expeditions might have landed after they finished their work. If so, it would be no great matter for it to find itself a part of secret tradition of one or another clan.

If the tribal members among the Hopi were telling as many whoppers about tribal beliefs and traditions as they are today it raises the odds to about even the whole thing was the product of somebody's imagination told straight-faced with the bundle of other falsehoods to see just how much whites would swallow.

But there's so much detail in terms of how many carriers, how many groups and what the direction of travel was it seems to me one of those, or some combination of them, would almost have to be the route the legend took through time.

 

[the blindbowman]

i have been studying these photographs for thousands of hours ,and then out of now where i find a ladder sticking up from a hide shaft of some kind in the wildet spot you could ever find otr thing one could be .. i did find it ...it found me ....i can see about 2 ft of the top of he ladder ,and it has join up un to pictures so far .. i got to go threw 586 photograph to be sure it dosen show up on one of te others ... but it is a wooden ladder ...i am shocked its where it is ....this is a completely hide shaft ...

 

[the blindbowman]

Blindbowman wrote:

out of now where i find a ladder sticking up from a hide shaft of some kind in the wildet spot you could ever find

That is an interesting discovery amigo, tell me more! Can you make a guess-estimate of how old it might be? Thank you in advance,
Oroblanco

know way of knowing ther then a guess . its not modern made i would say Acoma or Anasazi

 

[Highmountain]

i have been studying these photographs for thousands of hours ,and then out of now where i find a ladder sticking up from a hide shaft of some kind in the wildet spot you could ever find otr thing one could be .. i did find it ...it found me ....i can see about 2 ft of the top of he ladder ,and it has join up un to pictures so far .. i got to go threw 586 photograph to be sure it dosen show up on one of te others ... but it is a wooden ladder ...i am shocked its where it is ....this is a completely hide shaft ...

That's a tough gig. The last helicopter flight down my way got 4000 pics of the area of interest about 500 feet above ground level. The quality's surprisingly good but even so it's easy to mistake one thing for another. From where both of us are sitting it's probably just means some hills have to climbed to see whether it's what it appears to be. I'm relatively lucky in that regard because the heli flight this time around covered a lot smaller area than previous flights.

If those 586 pictures you've been through only produced one place you're going to have to hump to you can count yourself a lucky man.

Good luck
Jack

 

[the blindbowman]

i dont think its the number of pics as much as the definding focus of them .. i coverd a lot of area yet i have many pictures of the area around my sites and a good over veiw of the area ...

 

[the blindbowman]

Blindbowman do you get any impressions (remote-viewing type) on that ladder? Thank you in advance,
Oroblanco

i havent had a chance to focus on it yet ,, i have just look threw 586 pictures and scaned 9 and reveiwed them in zoom .. it is a Ladder and it is stading straight up and down in some kind of hiden shaft ,,,.. if you told me there was a hide shaft there i would lol ..

no one would find this one ... this could be a another unknown mine or the enternce to the catcoms ...

its nothing new, its native and i would say who ever put it there knew the mts better then i do lol

 

[the blindbowman]

i would guess this ladder is no less then 25 -30 ft it would have to be ...unless there are more ladders below this one ..

 

[the blindbowman]

i will have to do some research tomorrow to find out more legends that had ladders in them .


i got to get some sleep ...

 

[the blindbowman]

Blindbowman wrote:

<snip>..to find out more legends that had ladders...<snip>

When you say "legends" amigo you don't mean that you would exclude historical accounts right? Or do you mean that you are only checking into legends specifically, at this point in your research?
thank you in advance,
Oroblanco

at this piont i had no idea there was any ladders in this area , so any back ground or related data would be a help ...i like legends that in some way dirrectly relate or any facts of histroyical nature that say there were ladders of this type in the supers ....from a fast check i know there was a few diffrent tribes that used these type of ladders and from histroyical record they had been in this area .. but have they been near site 4 and if so was it a matter of facts of theories ..i did get a veiw of a indain climbing out of this shaft . so i would guess this is a native ladder of some kind , i didnt lock on enough to defind who he was .....i will use this to focus .and see what i get ...it works best early in the morning when i am well rested and free to use my full ablities ...i can watch it in full color and sound and smell and taste ...my shink once said holly shi-! my gift is rare i can shift from one preson to anoth if they are near each other , it dose have some lemits but few that stop me ...i find ways around them ...

but you have to remember when you open your sense it means pain as well as happeness...

as well as love and hate . you may find your self crying because they do . in all manner you are shareing what they are feeling .. you are remembering their past as if it was your own . yet yu have no age and time no longer matters unless you try to hold to one location ,let your focus go and you will return in the blink of and eye or less ...

 

[the blindbowman]

Blindbowman do you get any impressions (remote-viewing type) on that ladder? Thank you in advance,
Oroblanco

i havent had a chance to focus on it yet ,, i have just look threw 586 pictures and scaned 9 and reveiwed them in zoom .. it is a Ladder and it is stading straight up and down in some kind of hiden shaft ,,,.. if you told me there was a hide shaft there i would lol ..

no one would find this one ... this could be a another unknown mine or the enternce to the catcoms ...

its nothing new, its native and i would say who ever put it there knew the mts better then i do lol

Did you get the location nailed well enough so's you can find it when you get in there? GPS on the camera or some such?

Just curious.

i know this area like the back of my hand now .. i can find it easy ...

that was a good question because those mts can play tricks on a lot of people even me .. yet my navigational skills take over and i focus and its mine in a short time span .. i can often walk to a place i have never been in a matter of mintues . by senseing it ..... in the supers its a little harder to do because of all the magneic feilds ...

see its like the preson that was makeing the mt lion tracks to scare me . i knew it when it happend , i also knew they had been watching me for about 15 mintues ...



they call as birds do .and when i called as the hawk they vanished ..." ride the spirits like the wind in peace or in sin, knock ,knock ,knock ,i am comeing in ! "

a altered state of mind and body , your being is as free as you can make it beleive it is . thus mind over matter & time ...it dose,nt have to be real to let you know it is posable dose it ...?

 

[the blindbowman]

i am going to bed see ya tomorrow ,,,

 

[Highmountain]

Blindbowman do you get any impressions (remote-viewing type) on that ladder? Thank you in advance,
Oroblanco

i havent had a chance to focus on it yet ,, i have just look threw 586 pictures and scaned 9 and reveiwed them in zoom .. it is a Ladder and it is stading straight up and down in some kind of hiden shaft ,,,.. if you told me there was a hide shaft there i would lol ..

no one would find this one ... this could be a another unknown mine or the enternce to the catcoms ...

its nothing new, its native and i would say who ever put it there knew the mts better then i do lol

Did you get the location nailed well enough so's you can find it when you get in there? GPS on the camera or some such?

Just curious.

i know this area like the back of my hand now .. i can find it easy ...

that was a good question because those mts can play tricks on a lot of people even me .. yet my navigational skills take over and i focus and its mine in a short time span .. i can often walk to a place i have never been in a matter of mintues . by senseing it ..... in the supers its a little harder to do because of all the magneic feilds ...

see its like the preson that was makeing the mt lion tracks to scare me . i knew it when it happend , i also knew they had been watching me for about 15 mintues ...



they call as birds do .and when i called as the hawk they vanished ..." ride the spirits like the wind in peace or in sin, knock ,knock ,knock ,i am comeing in ! "

a altered state of mind and body , your being is as free as you can make it beleive it is . thus mind over matter & time ...it dose,nt have to be real to let you know it is posable dose it ...?

Got a smile out of me. I used to never get lost when I did compass/map navigation. Always knew exactly where I was. Then around 1990 I got addicted to a Magellan Trail Blazer GPS. Within 5 years I tended to be lost most of the time unless I turned on the doggone thing.

J

 

[the blindbowman]

i have lots of questions i do not have answer for...

...they are .little crow... the little caw .....the mas or Tumas,,....

i am a shaman my being holds me true . i can not betray them for you . ....sha a amen

yo na i sha a llah

 

[Springfield]

... Other ways the legend might have survived and been communicated: Someone earlier in the thread made the observation the first time he's found any reference to the story was during the 1930s. At that time tribal members of all descriptions had begun telling whites a lot of things they'd never spoken of before. It might be someone among the Zuni or Hopi told the tale. Those would probably the two places the survivors of the gold-transport expeditions might have landed after they finished their work. If so, it would be no great matter for it to find itself a part of secret tradition of one or another clan.

If the tribal members among the Hopi were telling as many whoppers about tribal beliefs and traditions as they are today it raises the odds to about even the whole thing was the product of somebody's imagination told straight-faced with the bundle of other falsehoods to see just how much whites would swallow.

But there's so much detail in terms of how many carriers, how many groups and what the direction of travel was it seems to me one of those, or some combination of them, would almost have to be the route the legend took through time.

Yes, the Native Americans always have been and still are likely to tell Anglos anything they want to hear, and the gullible whites are just as likely to swallow it. Throw gold into the mix and you've got a Chinese fire drill of people chasing around the hills in circles, sometimes for lifetimes. Coronado finally realized this, but it took him years.

Now, the 1920’s/1930's. I'll invite the reader to do the research for himself: observe how many of our main-stream treasure tales (and writers) surfaced in the ‘20’s and '30's, both on a national level (LDM, LAD, Victorio Peak, Beale, Montezuma, etc.) and regionally (an endless roster of lost mines, hidden robbery proceeds, buried-gold-during-Indian-attacks, etc.). Keep a list of how many 'Mexicans with an old map' showed up all over the West and Midwest looking for 'Spanish treasure'. Granted, it was the Great Depression, and the poor folk needed hope, but that explanation of the phenomena is limited and doesn't satisfy. Yes, you can find mention of some of these legends in the newspapers prior to this era, (LAD, LDM in our Southwest venue), but the time period in question brought all treasure legends, and interestingly, a great number of newly-discovered carvings, etc. presumably leading to them, to a widespread audience.

Fast-forward 50 years, ca 1980. Another wave of 'Mexicans with an old map', more discovered carvings, the ‘KGC’ phenomenon, the internet, etc. More hidden treasure awareness, more clues, more circumstantial evidence, more theories, lots of ‘proof’ in the books and papers, but (allegedly with a small private number of exceptions, Victorio Peak notwithstanding), no recoveries. Something’s happening, but we don’t know what it is, although some pretty bright people are trying to figure it all out.

Back to topic: ‘Montezuma’s Treasure’ is yet another gold story with a fuzzy origin and many theories and champions. In this case, like many others, there’s really not much to go on.

 

[Highmountain]

i have lots of questions i do not have answer for...

...they are .little crow... the little caw .....the mas or Tumas,,....

i am a shaman my being holds me true . i can not betray them for you . ....sha a amen

yo na i sha a llah

BB: I think I might have mis-stated my intent. I wasn't asking you to reveal anything or betray anything.

Jack

 

[Highmountain]

... Other ways the legend might have survived and been communicated: Someone earlier in the thread made the observation the first time he's found any reference to the story was during the 1930s. At that time tribal members of all descriptions had begun telling whites a lot of things they'd never spoken of before. It might be someone among the Zuni or Hopi told the tale. Those would probably the two places the survivors of the gold-transport expeditions might have landed after they finished their work. If so, it would be no great matter for it to find itself a part of secret tradition of one or another clan.

If the tribal members among the Hopi were telling as many whoppers about tribal beliefs and traditions as they are today it raises the odds to about even the whole thing was the product of somebody's imagination told straight-faced with the bundle of other falsehoods to see just how much whites would swallow.

But there's so much detail in terms of how many carriers, how many groups and what the direction of travel was it seems to me one of those, or some combination of them, would almost have to be the route the legend took through time.

Yes, the Native Americans always have been and still are likely to tell Anglos anything they want to hear, and the gullible whites are just as likely to swallow it. Throw gold into the mix and you've got a Chinese fire drill of people chasing around the hills in circles, sometimes for lifetimes. Coronado finally realized this, but it took him years.

Now, the 1920’s/1930's. I'll invite the reader to do the research for himself: observe how many of our main-stream treasure tales (and writers) surfaced in the ‘20’s and '30's, both on a national level (LDM, LAD, Victorio Peak, Beale, Montezuma, etc.) and regionally (an endless roster of lost mines, hidden robbery proceeds, buried-gold-during-Indian-attacks, etc.). Keep a list of how many 'Mexicans with an old map' showed up all over the West and Midwest looking for 'Spanish treasure'. Granted, it was the Great Depression, and the poor folk needed hope, but that explanation of the phenomena is limited and doesn't satisfy. Yes, you can find mention of some of these legends in the newspapers prior to this era, (LAD, LDM in our Southwest venue), but the time period in question brought all treasure legends, and interestingly, a great number of newly-discovered carvings, etc. presumably leading to them, to a widespread audience.

Fast-forward 50 years, ca 1980. Another wave of 'Mexicans with an old map', more discovered carvings, the ‘KGC’ phenomenon, the internet, etc. More hidden treasure awareness, more clues, more circumstantial evidence, more theories, lots of ‘proof’ in the books and papers, but (allegedly with a small private number of exceptions, Victorio Peak notwithstanding), no recoveries. Something’s happening, but we don’t know what it is, although some pretty bright people are trying to figure it all out.

Back to topic: ‘Montezuma’s Treasure’ is yet another gold story with a fuzzy origin and many theories and champions. In this case, like many others, there’s really not much to go on.

Good, sound observations. I think there's a lot of truth to what you're saying. As you add, 'something's happening'. I've had a suspicion nagging at me that's tried hard to become an opinion for some while, but I try my best to beat it away and force it to keep its distance by refusing to examine a particularly outrageous and seemingly insistent body of still-accumulating evidence.

Occam's razor can't be applied sometimes without having to sacrifice too much that just isn't acceptable.

Edit: Just reading through the Victorio Peak thread posted here probably illustrates what you're driving at as well as anything else could. The catalog of 'My best friend was present and saw thus-and-so', 'I know thus-and-so because I SAW it', combined with the litany of accounts of first-hand name-dropping of authoritative acquaintances with absolutely certain assertions mutually exclusive with similar assertions for the next dozen posts by others probably says everything needing to be said.

A goodly part of 'what's happening' involves the second-cousin to the Spanish-fly and the floor-shift knob type story we used to all know somebody who knew the person it happened to in the 1950s. Reading through that thread and stretching charitability as far as it would reach I couldn't come to any other conclusion.

 

[Highmountain]

Victorio's Secret, it might be called.