Misc data and adventures of a Tayopa treasure hunter

[Real of Tayopa]

I noticed that my responce to no arms was the Explosives, I raided our powder magazine for a box of Torvex, AnFo, it is an explosive similar to dynamite. I would sit outside in view of the closely watching Indians and carefuly time the short fuses, then when it appearded satisfactory, I would tie one fuse to a stick , couple it to the other so that it would be difficult to pick up one and still have time for the other, It made a satisfactory grenade. the Indians realized what I was doing.I felt relaxed when I heard the double bom

 

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[Real of Tayopa]

do you rememberr the smalll library run by the city, that was on the plaza? I believe that Borrego"s photo store now occupies the spot. In there I found an extra large book" the yaqui wars " by some Col, In it ws a well illustrated map of the land ceded to the Yaqui. When Juan " Bacaseqa Valencia told a clerk that they had lost their copy of the treaty map, the clerk told him that without the map which they had given to the Yaqui
i, there was nothing that could done. Their land was bieng systemically eroded, - , sorry, the Govt was not in the habit of providing maps . A simple brush off, the same for other Indian claiments. I asked Juan if the map in the book would do any good. When I showed him the map in the book, he exclaimed " that's it, the same as the origional". Since it was in a book written by a Col, it had validity. He promptly headed a comission for a Presidental meeting .. They admitted the Yaqui were correct, that they included 1/3 of Obregon. what was the solution They finally compromised. A monetary Bank,for planting, and a new canal for irrigating, You can see the canal as you drive by " the Loma de Bacum" this success made my looking for the mines in the Yaqui territory much simpler.--- Never was able to exploit them, but that's another story, sigh.

 

[Crow]

Hello Don Amigo you can say a kind gesture opened doors for you.

Crow

 

[Real of Tayopa]

??/ why do my posts come through garbled ? They certainly arent like that in the origional ??

 

[Real of Tayopa]

Thabks, remember, I am almost 98, will soon bw running out of experiences How about you others postiing ? This isn't a one up type .Come on men and I include Oro in that.

 

[Real of Tayopa]

Oro, Crow, and my many other friends, I would like this insription scribed on my tomb,the same as found on Morro rock, " paso por Aqui" "I passed by here"

 

[Crow]

Gidday Don Jose Amigo

For pushing 98 and still able to post here all of us hold you in total awe amigo. That and more so with ya stories.

Now when it comes to epitaphs. I like mine to have some thing funny like "See I told you I was sick!"

Or a more sombre creepy headstone I read in West Wales many many years ago.

"Stranger please note as you pass on by.
What you are now so once was I.
What I am now so you must be.
Prepare for death and follow me."

Crow

 

[Crow]

Gidday Don Amigo ya twist my arm I ave a yarn for ya!

But this old beach bum of a pirate will relate a story from one of Hardlucks experiences....Actually we both know the person in question Shankie. In fact I had the dubious honor of trying to out drink the man once. It did not end pretty for raggedy old crow.

Hardluck tells in his words below the following yarn better than anyone else....

Ever had a boss that you despised and some how in an effort to help him it all came undone?

Here is a yarn in which you might get a cheap laugh from. There is an saying in Australia the higher North you go in Australia the crazier the people are. And the distinction between a place of worship and a pub gets a little burred so to speak.

In sweat and dust of a cruel summers day when sun burns you through your clothes. there was nothing better in the hottest part of the afternoon to retreat to the nearest bar for a bit of relief from the relentless sun.

The bar was usually filled with a various collection of all excuses of humanity. Miners drillers, bushmen cattlemen from all walks of life after one thing air conditioning! that of course with the mandatory beer or two!

In the bar you find the usually lot playing pool or sitting up at the bar telling the same old stories moaning about work. In an eagerness of a horse running to water I stumbled my fly blown carcass into the bar. To be hit with a wave of coolness from the fully cranked up air conditioner. In my moment of relief I turned and saw my old mate Shankie wobbling at the bar like a tall skinny human version of a prey mantis, already a few drinks ahead of me on a mission of destruction.

Shankie knew his job like no other. He knew his drilling job so well people said he would still be able to do His job dead. He was a alcoholic who sweated alcohol so much people feared to smoke around him, least he catch fire. In all his faults companies turned a blind eye to his drunkenness because he always got things done.

"Ah matey" he cried "just the man I wanted to see come and join me in my celebration! I shuddered at the invitation as drinking with Shankie always ended up with me driving the porcelain bus! Celebration I asked? Yeah come and help my celebrate me losing my job he mused with unexpected pride. How did that happen I inquired? "Ah I gave old bull dog an head ache" Laughed Shankie with a wink exposing a broken row of yellow teeth. It seems a little harsh I quizzed?

Bull dog was a man I had once worked with and knowing the character of the man who you loved and hated at the same time.There was no harder supervisor than Bulldog. he was a giant overweight alcoholic with two hanging jowls for cheeks that made him look like a bulldog. He had a very forceful and domineering persona. He clashed with many workers and I saw him many a time break a man he had taken a dislike to, especially when he was going through the dry horrors, withdrawals from Alcohol that is. Strangely enough I never really had a problem with him.

Shankie pulled me down to a table and ordered a round of drinks and told me the sorry tale.

We were working out on the lease out in the Nugga Nugga just south of the gulf channel country. Being sub contractors our task was to drill core samples at the site under the supervision of geologist and survey team. Access was to the site was through a very rough road through sometimes bulldozed through very harsh country.

Some time in the course of achieving the desired location the drilling rig or support vehicles would get bogged in the red bull dust soil of the Nugga Nugga. It was in one such episode that the drill rig broke down. leaving the drilling crew idle and left to camp out that night at the place of breakdown.

Old Bulldog was a man of the Bush. He had grown up among the cattle stations of the North and always barked out orders like a drill Sargent. People skills was not his strong point. Being an old man of the Bush he had a habit of sleeping in a Mexican hammock usually slung under the truck of the Drilling of the drilling rig.The other drilling crew member slept in their swags, sleeping bags.

As hot as the day is the desert at night temperatures can get real cold. Bulldog an overweight giant of the man in his hammock with his bottom off an inch or so off the ground. Bulldog was such a man who slept like log and snored like a chain saw. Shankie one of the crew members woke early one morning and glanced across the temporary campsite to bulldog snoring away in his hammock under the truck.

Shankie said he did not realize at first that his boss's backside was touching the ground in the hammock. Shankie blinked and stared realizing that it was not his backside touching the ground but a snake that had come in during the night when temperatures have dropped and curled up into a coil under Bulldogs back side for warmth.

What do you do? Shankie laughed. Do you wake him and have the possibility of him being bitten by Tipan which would most result in certain death! Being a time and place long before the days of Occupational health safety supervisors wrapped their employees in Cotton wool. They would would cringe in horror today if they knew the crew was carrying a firearm.

And so Shankie in his infinite wisdom decided to use the firearm on the head of the snake asleep without waking up Bulldog. Shankie put the rifle to the snakes head and fired killing the snake.

Of course the effect was devastating as one could imagine to poor old Bulldog. Being awakened by the sound of gunshot about an inch from his back side as he slept in the hammock under the truck. Bulldog wide eyed sprang upright smacking his head on the bulk head of the truck, knocking himself out and splitting his forehead open.

One could also imagine that changed the entire concept of the job of one now arranging of their boss to seek medical attention in these isolated regions are an expedition in its self. Thus affecting the validity and position of the contractor on the mining lease. Hence Shankie's loss of job.

And so Shankie said with and intoxicated smirk that's how I gave my boss a head ache!

Hardluck


So ya see some times ya try to do a good deed and only trouble comes from it.

Crow


​

 

[Real of Tayopa]

Qonderful Crow. That's exactly what I MWn, thanks.

 

[Crow]

Gidday Don Amigo

Ya never know who ya going to meet in this world. Ya many characters ya never see again then others years later pop back into life after 30 years or so. Some times the world can be a small world Amigo.

I av another yarn for ya.

But it late amigo Old Crow needs to roost.....

Crow

 

[Real of Tayopa]

I lived with the Yaqui about the same time as the pocket book " Don Juan, A yaqui medicine man" came out. I never had Contact with the authrr nor his medicine man, iexcept for an incident with my Don JuanI It would br very easy to call the books a figment of immagiation except ?? came out. with my Juan, h,e had a chronic coug. who it was ..after a time the witch doctor told Juan, that Yes he had found who had cast the spell, and that he had taken care of it. By a coincidence (?/) an old widow woman, with no famly, had been found dead with her mouth stuffed full of leaves, enough so that she couldn't breathe and had died. Juan's breathing improved slightly and he said " see, she was guilty " Juan always had the firm belief that Jesus would visit him before he died, To my knowledge Jesus never vivsited him. A story there fo another day.

 

[Real of Tayopa]

be warned I still have contact with the witch doctors, you have been warned Posts ?

 

[Crow]

Gidday Dom Amigo

So ya the scurvy scallywag that has been sticking pins into my voodoo doll? I had wondered where all those pricks and pains was coming from when I wake up in the morning...Arrrrgh Some time I think some of my ex women friends av a voodoo doll of me.

I am being lazy of late as my wife and son are running me ragged.... You know they sat you have more time when retired? There does not seem enough hours in the day some times.....

The following yarn is again from Hardluck. I was there at the Madang Social club when he got told that yarn by an American Fellow...
I was not present when Hardluck was told the story. I was partying er... uh emmm dancing with a stripper I vaguely remember pulling her bra off with my teeth...... like all good pirates should be.Arrrrgh

Anyway here is another Hardlucks yarns. Is in his own words below.....

Here's a yarn I once heard from a stranger. Is it true I do not know.

The hot humid bar with the overhead fans spinning like aircraft propellers at the Madang Yacht club in PNG gave very little relief. It was the hot time of year and it was unbearable. You lived in altered states, where sleep, awake and dreaming became one. Sweltering in a hot and steamy humidity.

In my early morning stupor of loss of sleep and alcohol I looked around through my blurry eyes breathing the air full of water and wondered how did I end up among the usual group of sorry excuses of humanity.

Madang at that time and place was one of places in world were you would meet all kinds of people from far away places you never heard of. There were miners, military personel, Drillers, ex mercenaries and kinds of messed up bureaucrats all with a story to tell

It was commonly said it you stuffed up in life once too often and had no place to go, no place to hide. Madang was the place to be. It was in this surreal world of early morning hard core group of misfits where the stories got more exaggerated as the alcohol flowed .

An Middle aged man with white receding hairline with face as burnt as brown as native stuck out his hand to shake mine. With a sly grin he reveled his impeccable white teeth. He introduced himself with an New England Accent commenting on the heat as the sweat poured off his forehead.

Dennis from Connecticut was an American Geologist sent out to Papa New Guinea for an American Mining company in the highlands. Being a driller, the topic started from gold mining and drifted treasure hunting as such.

Dennis in his good humor laughed at my mention of life's missed opportunities. And he asked me a riddle "When is a treasure not a Treasure" I must admit I looked at quizzed and suspicious at the his strange enigmatic question.

He grinned like the Cheshire cat and told me the following tale.

Many years ago as a young man studying for collage, he under the pressure of his parents in his study needed a few days off. Being late in autumn he went with his dog to spend a couple of days staying at one his parents friends cabins on a beach somewhere near Cape cod.

He roamed the deserted wildly storm lashed beaches with his dog running around a his heels taking in the cool salt air of the gray Atlantic. His dog a golden retriever fetched anything he threw as he walked over miles of deserted beaches.

The therapy worked and wind and salt air had did their thing. He and dog explored and beach combed along the coast. On his last day he discovered a low embankment where the wind and waves had washed the sand away. In this embankment was a small niche where there was the remains of a rotten faded grey cotton leather pouch. On picking it up it fell apart. About 100 little clay balls fell out.

What were they he thought perhaps some old fishing sinkers? he scooped them up and placed them in his pockets and continued his walk. In his idleness in walking along the water edge with the dog running after seagulls, he started skipping the clay balls like a flat stone across the water. Until most of the clay balls had gone.

Utterly refreshed from is autumn break. He returned home with a fresh vigor to study. In sorting out his clothes for the washing, the two remaining clay balls fell out and rolled alone the floor. He bent down to pick them up and realized one of clay balls had broken in two revealing a Ruby inside.in panic he broke open the other one and revealed a diamond.

For a moment the gears in his head put two and two together and he realized in horror the flash back of him casually throwing away nearly 100 clay balls into the ocean.

So you see Dennis said me in voice of bitter irony "When is a treasure not a treasure? When you are not prepared to look!"

And with that, he winked at me and disappeared into the crowd of misfits drinking at the bar.

Hardluck.


So ya see even in most unlikely of places many people have a story to tell. If only people take the time to listen.....

Cheers Crow

​

 

[Real of Tayopa]

Beautiful Crow. I have quite a few treasure stories also, thanks for getting them started but I have to get the Yaqui finished. More of your stories, they are excellent. ( jealous )

 

[Simon1]

And some of us ARE jealous of you Don Jose . You have been in inspiration causing perspiration

 

[Real of Tayopa]

One bright and sunny morning I found myself sitting outside of Juans house on the bench soaking up the sunlight and drinking cofffee. Amid Juasm's coughing He told me that the Yaqui's were origionally a small people he instatly set off a recall of when I was on the search for the Gloria Pan mine, I had found an almost obliterated path leading up to a mesa . It turned out not to have anything to do with the GloriaPan lost mine, but led to a village. the vilage had been abandoned for many centuries. The houses were in a ruined state, but since they had used rocks for construction, it was fairly easy to estimate their height, they were scaled to a people of about a meter tall. I could not find any skelitons no matter how hard I looked indicating that they must have been taken as slaves. As usual I gathered as many utensiles as I could find, nad buried them to prorect them leaving notice were they for the Anthropoligists that would follow some day, then filed this away, but stilll puzzeled as to what happened to them, when Juan broke through my thoughts with the remark that the Origional Yaui were a very small size, about 1 meter. He said that the Yaqui were aware of crude genetics, and welcomed men of a larger size into their tribe, thus gradually increasing their size. He said that they wanted to increase thier size was that there was a extremly large bird of prey that used to carry off the small sized Yaqui to their nests to be eaten. Then one day there appeared a gigantic negro and took up residence with them, He took up thier fight against these birds, went into the mts, Shot them with arrows, destroyed thier nests, an in genera drove them far inland, to the point that they no longer hunted the Yaqui. He became a hero to them, and when he died, they put his body in a cave and declared t a sacred shrine. One day , much later, Juan asked me if I would like to see the skeliton of the Nego Naturely I jumpted at the chance. The cave was extensively deaorated with offerings. I finally had a chance to see this giantic Negro's skeleton, Surprise, he was about 5' 10 . I wondred if the little people up by the Glotia Pan had the same problem ? The absence of any skeletons suggested tat they had been carried off to be eaten ?

 

[Secret squirl]

Could it have been this guy?

 

[Real of Tayopa]

SECRET, Nah, he wasn't around then

 

[Crow]

Gidday Don Jose Amigo Did ya ever get to visit those native cliff face dwellings in Sonora?

Crow

 

[Real of Tayopa]

Crow, the giants or the regular ones "?