I mean no offense when I make a joke here. I apologize if my sense of humor offends anyone.
Also, I want to tell you that I am typing this on a text editor, and will proofread it several times to make sure every word is as literally true as I can make it. I cannot give you the proof you would seek, but you already know that, don't you? The good news is, I don't care a bit if anyone believes it. I am old, and I don't care much what anyone thinks of me.
By literal truth, I mean if I tell you there is a local legend, I am NOT saying the legend is true, I am saying it is the truth the legend itself exists. Of course, if I say the legend has been proved true, that statement will also be true.
If I didn't desire to keep my location hidden from you, I could give you URL's to support much of what I say is proved true. Alas, as experienced treasure hunters, you know the score on that.
I tell you, when I read on a thread the theory that Montezuma (I will use the current spelling, which is Moctezuma here in Mexico, the standard spelling has changed over the last 500 years) was taken 1200 miles to the Superstition mountains in Arizona for burial, I had a good laugh.
The Aztecs were good soldiers, which means they had some military strategy. They did conquer most of Mexico in their day. There seems to be no written record of Moctezuma's removal from Tenochtitlan although maybe some of you found things I don't know about. But, it is hilarious to imagine we know they took him north, just because someone saw them going north.
"Hey, look everybody! We are going north. See! North. That'away, North! Yep, north. Don't forget, we took him North. North; pass it on!" Hee, hee.
Which tells me they took him South! Or, any direction but North.
The Aztecs documented everything, much like the Germans did. I have heard of no description of their native land that would tell us exactly where it is. So, until it appears, I must assume their claim to have wandered around for a very long time with no way to know exactly where they came from is true.
I have been married to a Mexican woman for almost 35 years. Before we married in 1975, she told me her family was descended from Emperor Moctezuma, and he originally owned the small avocado ranch currently belonging to her family.
I am afraid I was not nice about it. I told her, sarcastically, "Yeah, and George Washington vacationed there while his troops froze off their cojones in Valley Forge, right?"
It was bad enough I had to eat crow, but worse yet, the crow forced down my throat was road kill. After I started visiting that small ranch, I learned that scholars at UNAM, the big University in Mexico City, had learned much of it was true, which I will address farther on.
I am in my comfortable albeit unfinished retirement home between 80 and 150 miles SE of Mexico City. It is located on land which at least in the 18th Century, until the early 20th Century, belonged to known descendants of the family of Moctezuma. In fact, my house is about 75 meters from the ruins of the house which is well documented was property of a member of that family who lived here in the 18th Century.
It is not proved that he was descended from Moctezuma himself. In fact, I expect he was not. They did prove he was descended from family (parientes) of Moctezuma. I got this from a doctoral thesis of a woman Ph. D. from a university in Madrid, Spain. A friend found it online, and it fascinated the whole family, because it proved they are descended from Moctezuma's family, at least, if not the Emperor himself, as the family tradition has said.
Around 1700, a man surnamed Moctezuma, and known to be from Moctezuma's family, owned over 23,000 hectares (almost 51,000 acres, or 79 square miles.) His son, the owner of the family home at that time, which my wife lived in from the time she was 4 until she went away to high school in Mexico City, inherited less than 20% of that amount.
There is a genealogical gap from his death in the late 18th Century until the last female member of the family was born in the late 1800's (records from Latter Day Saints database.) She married my wife's great-grandfather, and after her death before WWI, the ownership passed to the Martinez family, where it resides today.
We don't have the names from the time he died in the late 18th Century till she was born, with one sister,and no brothers to carry on the family name. But, same surname, same house, so we have just accepted the direct descendancy as self obvious.
Between 1600 and 1700, the surname Moctezuma in its various spellings was spread all over the Central Highlands, I got 256 hits from the database, but the great majority were in Mexico City. This makes sense because that is where the Emperor lived and had the most wives.
So, there may - or may not - be many places where there are people who are descended from his family.
There may also be other places where the other local legends here are told.
One of those other legends is that Moctezuma's gold was brought here and buried. The legend says it took them over a week to bury it, and that there were a lot of workers working at it.
People have been digging for that treasure for a very long time. My wife's grandfather, whose name was **** Martinez Moctezuma, (father's surname / mother's surname) who owned the original Moctezuma land, was asked why he allowed treasure seekers to dig on his land. He said if he didn't they would probably kill him to dig, and besides it was good for the avocado trees to dig around them once in a while. Heh, heh.
We have a large garbage pit behind our house. Two cousins got drunked up one day and decided that exact location was where the treasure was buried. So, they dug a large hole looking for it. We toss organic garbage in it, and we call it the treasure hole, to the embarrassment of those two men. I told them when it gets full, I will buy them a nice bottle of whiskey so they can dig another. They grin sheepishly.
My wife said when she was a little girl in the 40's, a man said he knew where the gold was buried, that each generation two men are told, and must swear to kill the other man if he tells where it is. Um, okay, sounds phony to me, but what do I know?
Now, the current news. Saturday, a young cousin told me an older man had told her that Moctezuma's "tomb" is not far from here. She asked if I knew anything about it. I laughed and asked her if she wanted to explode my brain with statements like that.
Sunday at church I asked the woman most likely to know such a thing. She said she has never seen it, but her brothers have. She said it is out in the "boonies". She said if asked nicely her brothers would show it to me.
She said it is not a rock. She described it as a cerito, which may well correspond to the mounds built in Wisconsin and Iowa. For them to think it might be a "tomb" it would have to have a man-made look to it, wouldn't you think?
Anyway, the legend is that it's where Moctezuma was buried.
So, if here, why here?
Darned if I know for sure, since we don't even know if the legend is true. I know there was a fierce Indian tribe not far from here, who supplied safe passage and a safe night's rest for merchants traveling from Oaxaca to Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs only conquered them less than a generation before the Spanish came.
My wife heard about their ruins when she was a little girl. The local people all knew about it forever and ever, but it was not "discovered" by the scientists and government until a few decades ago, another proof that local legends are not all just tequila doing the talking.
And, Moctezuma is believed to have built the house here over a spring that never dried until truck farmers drilled a zillion wells to water their plants, and that was a few years ago. He sent out his assistants every so often to take their part of the loot, and if this was done, the Indians could keep running their protection racket.
This paying of tribute was also part of the local legends, and was later documented by UNAM scholars after the ruins were "found".
I searched the data base for the Moctezuma family between 1600 and 1700. Most were in Mexico City, which makes sense. Of the several other common locations, this village was in the top third, so it was a common place where family members lived.
Do other such locations have the same legends? It's hard to tell. So, I do not mean to encourage you to come looking for the treasure. This is all private residential and farm land, and you can't just wander around and dig. If you start acting suspiciously, it takes only one call to INM and they will come and get you and take you away.
If you did by miracle find a treasure here, it would be a case of which thugs got there first. Criminal thugs with guns, or government official thugs with armed soldiers with guns and legal documents, since all old things belong to the government. No commission; they just take it. If they think you were trying to take it away, you do a lot of really hard time. This is not like going out into the Superstition Mountains far away from mankind where you can dig and poke around.
Not to mention to what happens if you trespass on my land, heh, heh,
So, there you have it. Is it true? Who knows? Could be. Probably isn't. (I mean the body and gold buried here probably isn't true, it has been proved that the family was descended from the Moctezuma family.) But, it's interesting to contemplate the possibility that Moctezuma's gold and his body were buried on family land here in Mexico, either in this village or another of his homes, two or three days from Mexico City, and not months away in the USA.
Let me add I registered here only because of people wishing to place the treasure some place only because they can search there. Funny.
Also, I want to tell you that I am typing this on a text editor, and will proofread it several times to make sure every word is as literally true as I can make it. I cannot give you the proof you would seek, but you already know that, don't you? The good news is, I don't care a bit if anyone believes it. I am old, and I don't care much what anyone thinks of me.
By literal truth, I mean if I tell you there is a local legend, I am NOT saying the legend is true, I am saying it is the truth the legend itself exists. Of course, if I say the legend has been proved true, that statement will also be true.
If I didn't desire to keep my location hidden from you, I could give you URL's to support much of what I say is proved true. Alas, as experienced treasure hunters, you know the score on that.
I tell you, when I read on a thread the theory that Montezuma (I will use the current spelling, which is Moctezuma here in Mexico, the standard spelling has changed over the last 500 years) was taken 1200 miles to the Superstition mountains in Arizona for burial, I had a good laugh.
The Aztecs were good soldiers, which means they had some military strategy. They did conquer most of Mexico in their day. There seems to be no written record of Moctezuma's removal from Tenochtitlan although maybe some of you found things I don't know about. But, it is hilarious to imagine we know they took him north, just because someone saw them going north.
"Hey, look everybody! We are going north. See! North. That'away, North! Yep, north. Don't forget, we took him North. North; pass it on!" Hee, hee.
Which tells me they took him South! Or, any direction but North.
The Aztecs documented everything, much like the Germans did. I have heard of no description of their native land that would tell us exactly where it is. So, until it appears, I must assume their claim to have wandered around for a very long time with no way to know exactly where they came from is true.
I have been married to a Mexican woman for almost 35 years. Before we married in 1975, she told me her family was descended from Emperor Moctezuma, and he originally owned the small avocado ranch currently belonging to her family.
I am afraid I was not nice about it. I told her, sarcastically, "Yeah, and George Washington vacationed there while his troops froze off their cojones in Valley Forge, right?"
It was bad enough I had to eat crow, but worse yet, the crow forced down my throat was road kill. After I started visiting that small ranch, I learned that scholars at UNAM, the big University in Mexico City, had learned much of it was true, which I will address farther on.
I am in my comfortable albeit unfinished retirement home between 80 and 150 miles SE of Mexico City. It is located on land which at least in the 18th Century, until the early 20th Century, belonged to known descendants of the family of Moctezuma. In fact, my house is about 75 meters from the ruins of the house which is well documented was property of a member of that family who lived here in the 18th Century.
It is not proved that he was descended from Moctezuma himself. In fact, I expect he was not. They did prove he was descended from family (parientes) of Moctezuma. I got this from a doctoral thesis of a woman Ph. D. from a university in Madrid, Spain. A friend found it online, and it fascinated the whole family, because it proved they are descended from Moctezuma's family, at least, if not the Emperor himself, as the family tradition has said.
Around 1700, a man surnamed Moctezuma, and known to be from Moctezuma's family, owned over 23,000 hectares (almost 51,000 acres, or 79 square miles.) His son, the owner of the family home at that time, which my wife lived in from the time she was 4 until she went away to high school in Mexico City, inherited less than 20% of that amount.
There is a genealogical gap from his death in the late 18th Century until the last female member of the family was born in the late 1800's (records from Latter Day Saints database.) She married my wife's great-grandfather, and after her death before WWI, the ownership passed to the Martinez family, where it resides today.
We don't have the names from the time he died in the late 18th Century till she was born, with one sister,and no brothers to carry on the family name. But, same surname, same house, so we have just accepted the direct descendancy as self obvious.
Between 1600 and 1700, the surname Moctezuma in its various spellings was spread all over the Central Highlands, I got 256 hits from the database, but the great majority were in Mexico City. This makes sense because that is where the Emperor lived and had the most wives.
So, there may - or may not - be many places where there are people who are descended from his family.
There may also be other places where the other local legends here are told.
One of those other legends is that Moctezuma's gold was brought here and buried. The legend says it took them over a week to bury it, and that there were a lot of workers working at it.
People have been digging for that treasure for a very long time. My wife's grandfather, whose name was **** Martinez Moctezuma, (father's surname / mother's surname) who owned the original Moctezuma land, was asked why he allowed treasure seekers to dig on his land. He said if he didn't they would probably kill him to dig, and besides it was good for the avocado trees to dig around them once in a while. Heh, heh.
We have a large garbage pit behind our house. Two cousins got drunked up one day and decided that exact location was where the treasure was buried. So, they dug a large hole looking for it. We toss organic garbage in it, and we call it the treasure hole, to the embarrassment of those two men. I told them when it gets full, I will buy them a nice bottle of whiskey so they can dig another. They grin sheepishly.
My wife said when she was a little girl in the 40's, a man said he knew where the gold was buried, that each generation two men are told, and must swear to kill the other man if he tells where it is. Um, okay, sounds phony to me, but what do I know?
Now, the current news. Saturday, a young cousin told me an older man had told her that Moctezuma's "tomb" is not far from here. She asked if I knew anything about it. I laughed and asked her if she wanted to explode my brain with statements like that.
Sunday at church I asked the woman most likely to know such a thing. She said she has never seen it, but her brothers have. She said it is out in the "boonies". She said if asked nicely her brothers would show it to me.
She said it is not a rock. She described it as a cerito, which may well correspond to the mounds built in Wisconsin and Iowa. For them to think it might be a "tomb" it would have to have a man-made look to it, wouldn't you think?
Anyway, the legend is that it's where Moctezuma was buried.
So, if here, why here?
Darned if I know for sure, since we don't even know if the legend is true. I know there was a fierce Indian tribe not far from here, who supplied safe passage and a safe night's rest for merchants traveling from Oaxaca to Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs only conquered them less than a generation before the Spanish came.
My wife heard about their ruins when she was a little girl. The local people all knew about it forever and ever, but it was not "discovered" by the scientists and government until a few decades ago, another proof that local legends are not all just tequila doing the talking.
And, Moctezuma is believed to have built the house here over a spring that never dried until truck farmers drilled a zillion wells to water their plants, and that was a few years ago. He sent out his assistants every so often to take their part of the loot, and if this was done, the Indians could keep running their protection racket.
This paying of tribute was also part of the local legends, and was later documented by UNAM scholars after the ruins were "found".
I searched the data base for the Moctezuma family between 1600 and 1700. Most were in Mexico City, which makes sense. Of the several other common locations, this village was in the top third, so it was a common place where family members lived.
Do other such locations have the same legends? It's hard to tell. So, I do not mean to encourage you to come looking for the treasure. This is all private residential and farm land, and you can't just wander around and dig. If you start acting suspiciously, it takes only one call to INM and they will come and get you and take you away.
If you did by miracle find a treasure here, it would be a case of which thugs got there first. Criminal thugs with guns, or government official thugs with armed soldiers with guns and legal documents, since all old things belong to the government. No commission; they just take it. If they think you were trying to take it away, you do a lot of really hard time. This is not like going out into the Superstition Mountains far away from mankind where you can dig and poke around.
Not to mention to what happens if you trespass on my land, heh, heh,
So, there you have it. Is it true? Who knows? Could be. Probably isn't. (I mean the body and gold buried here probably isn't true, it has been proved that the family was descended from the Moctezuma family.) But, it's interesting to contemplate the possibility that Moctezuma's gold and his body were buried on family land here in Mexico, either in this village or another of his homes, two or three days from Mexico City, and not months away in the USA.
Let me add I registered here only because of people wishing to place the treasure some place only because they can search there. Funny.
Thanks for sharing that with us, and as Real said, any other legends or stories you'd like to tell would have a ready audience here!
