Yeah it would be foolish to expect a database of old court cases in Mexico. From what I hear they don't even know about shoes or combs there - very backwards.
For those who aren't interested in Ostrich kissing there is always these records:
Ramo Civil: 1533–1857 (Civil Division: 1533–1857). 1989.
Documentos Civiles, 1626–1886 (Civil Documents, 1626–1886). 1988.
Ramo de Tierras,
1523–1822 (Land Records, 1523–1822). 1989–1992.
I find it interesting that Mexico keeps a database of all court cases nationwide since 1533 in it's Archivo General de la Nacion in Mexico City but in the U.S. you have to search out each individual court and request a copy of the record if they still have it. Different databases for different folk.
I often see on this forum the misunderstanding about Spanish colonial and Mexican record keeping. The Spanish were obsessed with record keeping and made a note of every quill, spoon and shoe purchased and used as well as personal and family records. The Spanish were record keeping nuts and the Mexicans no less so. If it happened it got written down on paper and filed. The final dates you see on the archives above are when the entire collection was fully imaged.
Clay, part of your problem with understanding what's going on in this thread, is you think you know what you're talking about but you don't have the entire picture. This is no different from any of us here. The difference seems to be that most of us have at least a developed sense of what we DON'T know. I can assure you, if you think there's a court record on this, you're barking up the wrong tree. So your post above is informative, but essentially useless for finding out what happened.
Take for example the AZ Highways article. Sounds like you assumed I had never read it, and directed us to Garry Cundiff's website so all us uneducated folks cluttering up the thread with gobbledegook could get a look at it and get ourselves educated as to what Coconino sandstone is. What you don't understand, is pretty much everyone posting in this thread has already seen, studied and even researched the circumstances around how that article came to be, and there are countless threads discussing it on this and other forums going back to when it first came out in 2005.
I knew exactly what Dr. Miksa was saying when she said "The big stone with the horse on it appears to be Coconino Sandstone." I know why scientists use that word, "appears". I'm not a geologist so my statement that I was unsure what she meant by Coconino sandstone, and that I thought it referred to a geological formation on the Coconino Plateau, was worded that way for a reason. The same reason Dr. Miksa used the word "appears" or "most likely" when describing the H/P stone and the map stones. I personally have confidence in her findings, but I'm in no position to make declarative statements one way or the other on it, beyond what she said in the article.
Garry completed his investigation on the stones and other items years ago, but it's still something I talk to him about from time to time. He's done outstanding investigative work over the years, which he shares with everyone, and I'd bet my bottom dollar that most particicpating in this thread have read and pondered his work over and over again, for years, not just on the stones but also his work with other folks on the Adolph Ruth stories and more. I believe their efforts are the defining work on these subjects to date.
The same can be said for Fr. Polzer's opinion on the stones. We're going over much-plowed territory here. Alan is exactly right, I have read his posts on this and other forums going back to around 2003 or so. I'm sure Alan in particular was researching these subjects for much longer than that. We all know what Fr. Polzer had to say about it. Many of us also understand the context of that history, which is missing when one just reads the end product from a quick search of Tom Kollenborn's articles to support a post on the internet.
The reason most of us get on these forums and discuss these things is we're seeking some kind of resolution on a particular legend, map, lost mine, etc. For some of us, it's a lifelong hobby. It requires a bit of an open mind if one isn't going to dismiss the stories outright. My feeling is it's mostly BS, but I'm unsure of what led to the creation of the stones, thus my interest. Everyone here has a different motivation and point of view.
There are those that get on these forums and insist that dismissing things outright is the appropriate action because something isn't written down somewhere, or that historians or scientists say it didn't happen. Fair enough. But many here have already considered that point of view many times, and no amount of browbeating by that point of view is going to change much. Many here lose patience with such rigid views as it assumes we've never thought of what the poster is talking about, when in reality we've crossed that road with that particular information decades ago.
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) and of course you don't get what you want and throw tantrums as a result. By now you should understand that nobody is going to hand feed you, and neither are they obligated to. Subjecting the methodologies of treasure-hunting to the requirements for scientific validation is the worst way to accomplish anything in either field.
