Misc data and adventures of a Tayopa treasure hunter

[Crow]

Crow, the giants or the regular ones "?

Gidday Don Jose Amigo

The ones like these.....



The tribe that one lives in stone house built into cave cliff faces of some Canyons.



Storage of grain and refuge in the cliffs from predators and tribal enemy's. One thing you can see such small doorways. Which might be an indication of the stature of the inhabitants? I think they was the southern extension Morgallon culture.



I imagine you have come across places like these in your travels of old Mexico?

Crow

 

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[Crow]

I wondered if genetic factors that some tribal groups across the world has some genetic traits that makes smaller in stature? I have seen Pygmies in New guinea. Africa, Indonesia and Philippines quite small in stature. Even some tribes in South America some had smaller stature.

While other tribes either medium height or even much more taller stature. Stories of Pygmy like tribes that was pushed to extreme places by tribes of taller tribes over time competing over land and resources. Perhaps over time those shorter people was absorbed by intermarrying over time? That might be the case with Mexico. Apparently their was 12 tribes in Australia that later merged before the 20th century with other taller tribes thus disappearing.So perhaps not a great mystery to what happened to the people living in those cliff dwellings.



Anyway I can only wonder what experiences you had exploring the mountains and Canyons.

Crow

 

[Real of Tayopa]

Crow, my esteemed friend, some times the smaller doorways were used as a form of defense. An agressor would have to bend over - not the best position for aggresion.

 

[Crow]

Gidday Don amigo.

Thats a very good point. for an aggressor before they stand upright and get bearings adjusting to the light inside of the chamber might be enough time for people with in to defend themselves. Also traveling through the door with back bent looking at the floor leaves you open from a downward blow of a axe on back of the skull in which would most likely be fatal.

Crow

 

[Mackaydon]

Might a smaller door also tend to moderate the inside temperature and better protect against inclimate weather?
Don.....

 

[Real of Tayopa]

True, Mac my friend,

 

[Real of Tayopa]

There is another intrusion further south from Tayopa,about 15 miles, nother volcanic intrusion that is possibly richer than Tayopa. imagine a tennis ball cut in half with the hollow interior of one half sitting on it's side - the hollow is open. Now image this representing a moutain with the cut verticale, with the side as a overhang reprenting the area of a villags surroendied by proteccion on tthree sides and you have the picture. The origional explorers lowered themselves with ropes, I have no idea how the origanal inhabients entered or left the area, unless they were the origional excavators of the access tunnel, The tunnel of the siete muros, "the tunnel of the seven walls." The Spanish secured lots off fo Gold in there, but had to leave due to one of the peicdac reveloutions that sweep Mecico' They have searched for ths tunnel ever since, but I have an Indian friend that actually found this tunnel but after opening three walls something scared him and he refuses to return. Sigh

 

[releventchair]

Might a smaller door also tend to moderate the inside temperature and better protect against inclimate weather?
Don.....

Depending on structure design, "vent" size would affect draft for a fire ,or cooling air movement without a fire too maybe.

Stone /masonry stores heat. Useful in solar heating purposes where at night the stored heat slowly releases.

Yet can retain coolness from night temps to benefit at least part of the day during warm/hot seasons, if not subject to deliberate daytime heating or exposure to sunlight.
Positioning/location of structure (s) greatest mass in relation to seasonal sun patterns may apply for greatest efficiency during specific season(s).

Or, a non connected shade wall or cover allowing air space between could block sun when not wanted.

Heat rises. Muti level dwellings must have noted which floor was better for season and time of day. If dwellers cared...

The rock temp in the pictured mountainside (farthest into , nearest being in it) it would have a steady temp compared to most anything else.
Probably quite tolerable in summer. (?)

 

[Real of Tayopa]

Crow posted a picture very similar, the house and the grain holder.with a cylindrical overhanging roof

 

[Real of Tayopa]

Relevant, Very good description of , construction prob. of the cliff dwellers, Thanks

 

[Real of Tayopa]

Anoyher day we were engaging in our favorite daily pattern " of sitting in the sun, drinking coffee"" when Juan startled me by asking " what do you know about JESUS ? i replied that "I had been an Alter boy." , So naturely I comencd questioning about his relationship, under those circumstances. He replied that " Well I have met him, He told me that I would not die until HE returned., This was why I was credited whith so many acts during our last rebellion" Naturally I had to question him. Jesus was tall, and wore a cloak, was beared, and of a clear complexion, that Jesus had stayed in his house. That one day JESUS said that he had to visit another pueblo some 13 miles away. IHe called the other pueblo by telephone tto let them prepare for his coming but the other stoped him cold by saying " But he is already here "

i
I oftten wonder , did ifJESUS ever visit him before Juan died ?


I often wondered if KESUS was a figment of his imagination.or ??



























i exist to live, not live to exist








died ?

 

[Real of Tayopa]

comiliano had been a runner for Pablo Schmidt, a German, who was digging a mine at Sierra la Chuna, a three or four mile walk from San Bernardo. Sierra la Chuna was a small outlying mountain with oak, not high enough for pine. Schmidt was a rice grower in Ciudad Obregon and I had met him through Hoffman. One day I had Emiliano guide me up there when he was carrying supplies from the store in San Bernardo up to the mine for Don Pablo. I rented a horse from Don Juan Argiielles and rode while Emiliano walked. It was a nice trip up through the woods. We climbed up into the mountains and came to Pablo Schmidt's dig. He had another German fellow or two and some Mexicans working for him.

Schmidt was digging away down in a kind of hole there. He showed me an inscription on the rocks right above his dig. After I got acquainted with him, he told me he was digging for an Aztec treasure. He said he'd had the petroglyphs on the rocks interpreted by an anthropologist or linguist and they indicated that Aztec treasure was buried right there. So I found out about Don Pablo's treasure hunt. I told him that I was exploring, going up to the Rio Mayo country to see the Guarijfo Indians, and I hoped to get as far as San Luis Barbarocas.

He said, "Well, maybe I oughtn't to tell you this, but I think I will. If you're going up into that country, there's a lost mine up there called la Mina Tayopa which is famous for its rich ore." He said nobody else knew where it was, but that he'd give me the description of how to find it. Schmidt said to go to San Luis Barbarocas, climb the mountain north of the river, that the mine was a short distance below on the Rio Mayo. The miners used to come down to San Luis Barbarocas to get milk in the morning, so it couldn't have been more than a few miles away. There was supposed to be a cache up there mined by the Jesuits and abandoned when they left.

On your way up, you would see these three peaks and on the back side of the third peak you would find an iron door. If you could go through that iron door, you'd find the cache of gold and silver. "Well," Schmidt said, "don't try to bring it out by yourself. You'll get killed on the way. The people would all know you had it and you'd be robbed. Come back and notify us and we'll get it out." So Schmidt told me all about the Tayopa Mine. I finally got up to San Luis, and sure enough, there were three peaks up there. Maybe there's an iron door there too, but probably a tree has grown up since the Jesuits left in 1767.

I'd read about the mine in Carl Lumholtz, who had visited the mine. Old Dobie [J. Frank Dobie] had also written about looking for the Tayopa Mine. He apparently had never read Lumholtz. I never went beyond San Luis and didn't waste any time looking for the Tayopa Mine or the treasure, but I've always remembered Pablo Schmidt's secret directions to me. Schmidt never found any treasure there and finally abandoned his dig. Incidentally, San Luis Barbarocas was the farthest church founded by the Jesuits when they came into the Rio Mayo country. It was a very modest adobe church, but it was about twice as tall as any other building in the village and it had been kept intact. The roof had been patched and kept up, so it was still standing when I was there but it wasn't very much used. There were a few Indians, but no Mexican rancheros living in San Luis. I rode that old Nublado horse up to San Luis Barbarocas by myself one day and found an Indian hut. It started to rain, so I went into the hut. The Indian who lived there knew a little Spanish so I could talk to him. He took me out to the storehouse where he kept his grain, a little room with a porch about six feet long, and he said I could sleep under the porch. I slept under that porch in his corn crib that night and early the next morning I found out an old sow had crawled into bed with me. She'd come in out of the rain and laid down next to me. So that's the way I spent the night at San Luis Barbaroca..."rcourtesy of CUB"

 

[Real of Tayopa]

courtesy of CUB

 

[Real of Tayopa]

That sow reminded me of my mercury mine, I had the same experience, a huge sow slept with me next to the oven where it was warm. She folowed me around the next day, I gues she figured we were engaged since we had slept together, sigh

 

[Real of Tayopa]

So* In 42 I received*a flurry of Japanese 20 m/m fragments among which one large piece almost severed the tendon that was attached to the top right knee cap. it left me with* a twisted knee - about 20 degrees clock* wise, I walked wilh*a limp.* *Fast forward----I walked from San Bernardos* to Chinapas, then a sleepy seni abandoned* mining town.* I had become used to the idea that the only* way to travel was with a mule.* *I then contacted* * Guiermo for*a mule, eventually buying a pinto.* But then we encountered a problem, no saddle.* after looking around*we found one down by the arroyo It had been**sittinl. in* *the sun* and the rain for who knows how long, the leather was hardened so I commenced rubbing oil on it, eventually getting it fairly softt.* *for the stirrups, Eventually made the saddle*buseable.* * The rirst day on the trail my right leg hurt er so much that i didn't eat,* the second*was the same, the third was the e third was better, I could walk. I no longer had the limp the twidtedrked as a traction splint,,

 

[Real of Tayopa]

h and full of Jap 20 nn , theyh it me in the chest, forehead, ight hnaad r anthey left my righh t twistef aboutt 20 degrees to the right - laft me with a limp.and Guiermo at hinipas. I hin, and ally bought a little pinto mue, biy he ad no saggle to go with tha mule, tgen he remembed thay ab old one was out in the corral. The stiripts wera hard as ban be, te right one was twisted counter clock wixe.
I beat all of the tacke that originally held the lether to the saddle frame and said ok. Wheb I mounted the stirrup twisted my leg righht front knee.hey left me wit a limp, Ome otem almost seveRED mt the tendon just to the top of ny righT KNEE. My rigt foot healed kinda wango my right foot was in 42 I was vthe ecipie

 

[Crow]

Gidday Don Jose ya seem to av your fair battle wounds over the years, enough to make any old treasure pirate proud.

i heard an old joke once if ya have not got pain some where in the body after 50 ya dead.

My hat is off to ya amigo nearing double that and still kicking....

Crow

 

[Real of Tayopa]

CrIn my opinion, whatever is written about Don Jose should include his own words from several years ago. Here's his quote from Mar.27, 2011:

"While I may not have acquired riches or fame in the campaign, I 'have' accumulated wonderful
memories and experiences which can never be be reexperienced or bought. Memories of traveling
by myself / mule, in what was basically unexplored territory in those days. Of being on top
of lonely pine covered mesas by a small campfire listening to coyotes tell of dinners and love
found or lost, Listening to the gentle sigh of the deliciously , pine scented, clean air, which hinted of
frost by morning. Or of being deep in tropical canyons exploring ruins that probably had not
seen another human since the last survivors left centuries ago. I was able to sense a feeling of
complete freedom, a feeling which very few humans today are privileged to experience. It is
difficult to put into words."

"I had the unique opportunity to find just how much I could rely upon myself, and not others.
this was experienced in traveling in uncharted country, twice experiencing bandits, lack of food,
heat and cold, sometimes continuing to exist simply by willing my body to place one foot ahead,
then the other until I managed to reach safety, or my camp. It was a growing up period, which
while rough, I would never change."

Source: The history of Tayopa
Post 190

 

[Real of Tayopa]

( prologue) for the boo.Crow, you missed that, so I'll post it again..thankS TO Doug for copying the "prologe) to the book

 

[Crow]

Well Don Jose Amigo

I would really like to see you book one day amigo!

Crow