Josh,
You might be wondering why I keep on reminding you about "streams" and the like. Based on personal observation in the field, and therefore, a personally biased opinion, turtle signs seem to indicate the presence of streams, creek or other watercourses in the vicinity. To cite an example: A turtle sign was found on a cornfield and a heart sign 2 meters away on an east-west direction. The suspect treasure site was 30 meters away to the west and 3 to 4 meters from a low ridge overlooking a meandering stream below. As expected there was
no sign over the site but on digging a cluster of stones neatly piled on a well-defined softer spot and
without signs was encountered at a depth of 1.5 meters. Of course, there's no need to tell how the pinpointing was done as there are as many ways as there are seekers.
A turtle is an aquatic animal and its habitat is a watery world unlike that of the tortoise which lives on dry land and can even survive in a semi-arid environment. Oftentimes, keeping your nose too close to a particular ground will deprive you of seeing the bigger picture. Be like a bird-- it doesn't lose sight of the forest while perched on a lowly branch of a sapling.
You can toy with the idea (we're just playing a game, remember?) that the turtle signs on the sloping site refer to these streams below or perhaps including the other stream on the other side of the ridge. Maybe the smaller "sleeping" turtle is suggestive of the nearer dried-up stream.
An imaginary scenario:
A Japanese treasure hunter under the guise of a vacationing tourist arrives at your place. Armed with a WWII-era treasure map which he alone can decipher, he looks for the old
tugas and
bato-an trees from a distance and upon reaching their location, searches the ground carefully for the turtle-sign and other signs in stones. From there, pinpointing the exact spot of where the Yamashita loot is buried will be as easy as saying, "
Hai!"
A real Philippine turtle has no business roaming around up high on a slope far from a water source. The turtle sign(s)--- decoy, true reference or both?
Send me a PM sometime.
--tabu