JESUIT TREASURES - ARE THEY REAL?

Sail Away; coffee with a shot of your favorite flavoring agent ? I tend to agree with you, but why would you put the metal mined back into the ground if that was your thought - or was it to only refer to te ornaments ?? ?? If it can be moved, think of the benefit that it would give. all, especially my family.who gave disproportionally more than I in the search . I had fun, my payoff.

For example it lists on one of the documents 1500 bars of silver etc. , what benefit is to put it back in the ground ?? It has already been paid for in sweat, tears, and lives.

Ideally I would like to rebuild Tayopa - The other mines developed - the mission rebuilt and Tayopa put back as it WAS in 1630 . That should be enough to satisfy History, and the few tourists that might be willing to brave the trip

Don't you believe that I should be reimbursed for solving the mystery of Tayopa and the time & expenses that I. and my family, have spent in bringing Tayopa back to light ??

We are not greedy, The Guayajiro Indians , whose ancestors worked in Tayopa, , already know that they will share in any metal recovered. Documents , maps, etc are to go to the proper entities, with certified copies of all to me with the authority to act upon them..Sigh, but that is still far sway

Don Jose de La Mancha
 

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Senor Don Jose, sounds like a great plan and I hope and pray that sometime soon you may continue on this journey.
Vaya con Dios mi amigo
 

Don Jose i was not referring to the actual money being put back into the ground, but it should be used as much as possible to reimburse you for your time and effort, along with rebuilding the area to as close as possible for the future generations to enjoy. Along with it should be used, say to give you and your family jobs, such as curator, manager, contractors, ect.. I know it would be a huge cost to rebuild just the church into its original state, however with the right scientific and archaeological assistance it could be done. It is a logistical nightmare to consider the rebuilding efforts of just Tayopa. Are there records of the actual buildings and would the Catholic Church participate in the reconstruction?
 

Hola Sailaway my friend, There never was a large church such as a Cathedral as is often quoted is stories of Tayopa,only a Capilla.. After all how big of a place of worship would you need for a couple of hundred of men, many who were Not Catholic ?

They did build a larger building, which acted as a headquarters, but that is a long gone now. It is just a mound of off colored soil (Adobe ) with a small, typical hill ranch house' on it.

The village of the workers was down below on the junction of the arroyos Barbarbarrocos and the arroyo Tayopa.

The zone presently is a Lumber Ejido, a lumber Commune or collective -- they do not know where Tayopa is.

You can drive to within perhaps 800 meters of Tayops. The take off point is on the Hermosillo = Yecora road, first crest of the Sierra Obscuro to 'the micro wave tower cutoff and to Bermudes, the settlement of the civil war southern soldiers and their families. It is 35 miles to Tayopa on a lumber road, and a huge bag of hard candy ( 5 1/2 hrs ) but beautiful country covered by Pine and Oak about 5 - 6 000 ft.

You travel on the crest of the Sierra Obscuro . In the rainy season at times it is impassable for weeks ar a tme, also at other times you have to stop to let the wild turkey flocks clear the road'

When the rains come ( now ) you cannot believe how fragrant the air is from te many aromatic herbs and pine scented air is.

Tayopa lies at the end of the road.

When the Jesuits returned they could not find Tayopa they, and nature , hid it too well. But they did open other mine and settlements, one such indicated on Dobie's Map. Espobachi,was lost as far as the Indians were concerned, but we relocated it some 20 miles to the south. About 35 miles the unnamed ruins of another mining town. You detectorists would have a field day -- untouched, Some day we will see what we can find with detectors == untouched since 176o's as far as I an find out. It is fascinating country.

Jose

p.s Coffee??.

















































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Senor Don Jose, fascinating and to explore the town with MD sounds great……
The question would be force protection, safety with the narcos as you said, nearby.
It would be a great time for coffee at the ruins……..
 

Drinking Coffee and letting the wonderful portrait you paint with words fill the mind, takes one to a wild place that fills the senses. I hope it stays as wonderful as you describe it only with a museum like the one Mel fisher has, only filled with the treasures that you may find. It would be better to share those treasures than to cash them in for a large bank account. Have you seen how small the Church of the Mother of Milk is in St. Augustine, Fl? I have spent time there and have pics somewhere of it but there are plenty of those online. That was a large settlement so it does not surprise me at the small size of Tayopa church. That does not keep the entire town from being restored to its original condition.
I wish you many years of good fortune and health Senior Don Jose!
Madre de Leche shrine.jpgSt. Aug.Shrine.jpg
 

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Don Jose Tropical Tramp - based on your recommendation on another thread, I just finished The Rivers Ran East, Col. Leonard Clark's account of his 1946 six-month exploration of the extreme upper Amazon tributaries. Although parts of the adventure must surely be embellished (if not invented), Clark himself was the real deal - WWII intelligence officer and special forces leader behind enemy lines in the Far East and highly respected by his peers. The book is very richly descriptive of the rivers (many unnamed), flora, fauna and natives inhabiting a vast area almost totally unexplored at the time. His stated purpose for the trip was to gather pharmaceutical data about plant usage from native witchdoctors for the purpose of scientific research, and the first five months of the journey provides amazing information about what he found. As important as this data later proved to be, Clark's secret goal was to locate the legendary El Dorado, the location of which was provided on an old map he obtained earlier.

Pages 290-295 spell out the secret of El Dorado, at least from Clark's perspective. Here is where the Jesuits are presumably involved, but IMO, Clark is mistaken about them. If the details he presents for the history of El Dorado are true, it seems much more likely that it was the Franciscans, and not the Jesuits, who were partnered with the early Spanish in the secret mission of recovering massive amounts of placer gold from the 'Seven Cities of El Dorado' - known only to the Crown and Church - Santiago de las Montanas, San Francisco de Borja, Legrono, San Reyes, Jaen de Bracamoras, Bajadeloro, and Zamora. These were all permanent outposts on or near the rivers that collected runoff from hundreds of streams draining the adjacent east faces of the Andes. The placer was recovered in massive amounts and caravaned to Lima, then to Panama before being shipped to Spain. The operation continued, off and on, for perhaps a century before the local headhunters finally killed off the remaining Spanish. The main stronghold was San Francisco de Borja, on the Maranon River, allegedly founded in 1549. This is where the Jesuit connection seems to break down.

The Jesuits were not in Peru prior to ca 1570. However, the Franciscans were there from the beginning, with Pizarro - including Marcos de Niza. For what it's worth, the Jesuit Juan Salinas de Loyola is credited in the text as the founder of Santiago de las Montanas in the late 1550's. Obviously, Clark's dates and his Jesuit involvement conflict. What's interesting about Clark's El Dorado history is that the Spanish and the Church were allied in the venture, which was a highly secured secret mission, hidden from everyone except the players involved. Supposedly, the North American 'Seven Cities of Cibola' legends were even cooked up as a diversion to focus attention away from Peru at the time. If true, that means Mendoza, Coronado, Onate, et al, were not in on the secret and were allowed to flounder in their expeditions into North America. Brings to mind the mysterious Marcos.

To make this book even more fun, there's a good looking, tough-as-nails girl in on the chase too. Clark reluctantly allowed her to travel with him, beginning in Iquitos. By the time they got to Borjas, Clark admitted his true goal - El Dorado. Then, the girl, Inez Pokorny, revealed that she too was seeking El Dorado as a secret agent for The National Gold Bearing Society of El Dorado, a well-funded, long-standing syndicate operating out of London and Lima. Inez apparently owns the distinction of being the first woman to travel the entire breadth of South America, from the Amazon's mouth to Quito. She spent most of the trip learning the ways and languages of the natives so that she could negotiate her way beyond the Maranon River. What a book.

Whether the El Dorado and Jesuit portion of the book is true or not, I highly recommend it. Lots of great photos taken by Clark. Plenty of page-turning adventure. Appendices documenting previously unknown rivers, animals, reptiles, trees, fish, tribes, medicines. Lots of people killed by other people, snakes, insects, poisons, fish, blowguns, spears, accidents. Don Jose - thanks for the tip.

Additional Information. These characters were real people. Out of curiosity, I tracked Leonard Francis Clark on Ancestry.com in their public record database. Born in British Columbia in 1907. One 1949 newspaper mention of him - the OSS asked the State Department to go easy on him for alleged war indescetions committed in China during WW2. He was all over the world after Peru - Egypt, Mexico, Columbia, his home base being San Francisco. He drowned in Venezuala in 1957 - the death certificate listed him as 'explorer'.

Inez Ethel Pokorny was interesting too. Born in Detroit in 1911. Lived in Coral Gables, FL in the 30's. Lots of traveling for several years - Hawaii, France, Hong Kong and then, Feb 1947 (a month or so after the Peru adventure, she and Clark sailed together from Panama to Los Angeles (US passports). She apparently lived in CA married to someone named Ballard until her death in 1982.
 

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Springfield you earned your coffee, oro?? That is a fascinating book that is where I first heard of the silicon dissolving characteristics of certain Plants, which gave me a possible answer to the Incas fitting their stones so closely than a knife cannot fir between the joints - this on a series of complicated joints which were easily passed off as grinding in place which was impossible
.
On the size of the snakes, i was most interested since it gave a possible verification of the giant aquatic snake that I saw in the Rio Fuerte while searching for the Gloria Pan -- honestly, I did find it, thanks to an old document that I had. It had references to Barras de Fuego the camino real, and Naranjal.

.I mentioned a Pichi Cuate, a very small venomous brownish snake about 9 - 10" long, he mentions a cousin that he found down there.

That was the most fascinating book that I have ever read. I am particularly pleased that 'you' enjoyed it.

Thanks for a most interesting post my friend.

Don Jose de la Mancha
 

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Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp said:
... I mentioned a Pichi Cuare, a very small venomous brownish snake about 9 - 10" long, he mentions a cousin that he found down there...
Click to expand...

The Acomas swear there's a similar snake in New Mexico - sounds like it might be the same one. They call it Pichu Cuate. It's pencil sized and can kill a man in minutes.

Snakes!! A friend of mine here in Silver City was a collector of venomous snakes. He had a Butler building full of them - maybe a hundred, nearly all different species. The cobras and gaboon vipers were especially frightening to me. One day he was pissed that a fer-de-lance had escaped its cage and he couldn't find it in the building. About a month later, we heard he had died suddenly. His wife said it was 'massive organ failure'.
 

The last trip into the Superstitions I got to see one of the rare black rattlesnakes.It was solid Black With Darker patterns where the Diamonds were with white rings on its tail before the rattles. it was just past the cave dwellings. He was a mean one too, kept striking at my golf club. Be aware that they do exist!
 

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Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp said:
Springfield, your addition has been copied and added to my book gracias
Click to expand...

You're quite welcome R de T. What are your thoughts on the Jesuit/Franciscan issue on the upper Maranon? Do you have any more info or stories about Clark's search area? I've ordered the P. Fawcett book on his search for the Lost City of Z. What do you think about his efforts? Most of the experts say the headhunters got him, but he was a smart guy - you think his lost city was part of Clark's El Dorado?
 

Here is some photos from Google Earth in Rogers Canyon that relate to the overlay of the Molina map.
Golden Heart Capture (2).PNG
The budding heart, Is that Jacob Waltz's campfire ring?
Largest Nugget ever edited.jpg
This is just to the west of the Serria Bell ringer
Serria Bell FC_edited.jpg
This is the Sierra Bell Ringer. Notice the rock carved with a Fc in left forground
Is this where Father Sierra hid the church ornaments? The Eye at the marker for the Mina Virgon across the canyon looks right at this spot.
 

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