The Taiopa Mine - 1938

[Old Bookaroo]

THE TAIOPA MINE​

The Taiopa mine was located, supposedly, somewhere in southeastern Arizona or northwestern Sonora. It is said to have been unbelievably rich and was in territory possessed by the Pima Indians. It is claimed that this mine was near the mission of San Bernardino, which lies just across the Arizona boundary in Sonora, and that it was worked under the supervision of the padres of that mission.

The tradition persists among the Pima Indians today that the Taiopa mine was worked under the supervision of the jesuits [sic] of San Bernardino and that, when in 1767 came the royal order for all jesuits to leave Spanish territory, the padres of this mission told the Indians that some day they would return and, while it might be many years, the Indians were to keep a fire always burning at the mine, to guide the returning padres to it.

The jesuit fathers never came back. But the Indians, generation after generation, faithfully kept the fire burning and with the passage of time it became a tradition that some day those same “black robes” would return. And so the fire never has been allowed to die.

Somewhere, say the Pimas, in the bewildering maze of the mountain fastnesses of that region the fire burns still.

No record of any such mine has yet been found in the archives of Mexico. If there was such a mine, and it was worked by the jesuits, it is not probable that any record of it ever will be found in secular archives.

But some of the Pima Indians today claim to know its approximate location. It is a fact that for many years after the first Anglo-americans came into south-eastern Arizona the Pimas frequently sold them quantities of ore that was very rich, but these natives could be neither persuaded nor coerced into revealing the source of this ore. They declared that the curse of the “black robes” would fall upon whoever revealed the location of the mine.

None of this ore has been brought in for many years, and it is conjectured that the Indians who knew the exact location of the mine are now all dead and that their confinement upon a reservation has prevented their showing the mine to any of their children. This supposition, however, does not harmonize very well with the tradition that the fire still is kept burning.

The story still is current through southern Arizona of how a Mexican woman once was permitted to visit the Taiopa mine. She had taken care of a Pima chief through a long illness, and upon his recovery he gave her some pieces of ore containing a high percentage of free gold. This roused a good deal of excitement in her village, and she was urged to prevail upon the chief to show her the source of the ore. At length he yielded to her importunities and consented.

But she was disappointed in her hopes. She was conducted by two Indian [sic] women who adopted the precaution of traveling only at night and in addition blindfolding the Mexican woman while traveling. On the morning after the fourth night the mine was reached, and the woman was permitted to gather up some of the ore to take back to her village as proof that she had visited the mine. That evening she again was blindfolded and conducted from the scene.

Only two nights' travel was required to reach home; she, therefore, was evidently led back over a different route and a much shorter one. The woman retained no idea of the direction in which she had traveled, and the distance could have been anything up to two nights' travel.

There are several traditions as to what the padres of the San Bernardino did with the bullion obtained from the Taiopa mine, but the most persistent is that they buried it somewhere on the mission grounds. The Mexicans of southeastern Arizona tell many tales of the attempts to find this wealth, and it appears that the grounds of the San Bernardino, like those of the Tumacacori, have been pretty well burrowed.

~ Legends of the Spanish Southwest by Cleve Hallenbeck and Juanita H. Williams (1938)

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Editor’s Notes – Researching the Lost Tayopa, it is important to remember the various spellings of the name. These authors used “Taiopa.” Others have used “Tyopa.”

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

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[Old Bookaroo]

"Somehow, but not inexplicably, the Spanish padres and the missions they established have been woven into the indigenous romanticism of the Southwest - the legends of lost treasure."
~ Charles W. Polzer, S.J. "Legends of Lost Missions and Mines" The Smoke Signal Fall 1968 (No. 18).

Did the Jesuits (and any other religious orders) mine for gold and silver in the territories that have become Mexico and the American Southwest? Father Polzer says "No." He also made his case in Desert Magazine - "Jesuit Gold" (August 1962 - Vol. 25, No. 8).

The contrary view is far larger. Coral Pepper published a number of articles in Desert that present the much more common contention that they did. Her "Lost Mission of Santa Isabel" (February 1966) is a very typical example. Father Polzer found her work to be "...hardly more than hopeful interpretations based on scanty information, poor Spanish, and weak logic."

E.B. "Ted" Sayles briefly presented the matter in the classic Fantasies of Gold; Legends of Treasures and How They Grew (1969).

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[markmar]

THE TAIOPA MINE​

The Taiopa mine was located, supposedly, somewhere in southeastern Arizona or northwestern Sonora. It is said to have been unbelievably rich and was in territory possessed by the Pima Indians. It is claimed that this mine was near the mission of San Bernardino, which lies just across the Arizona boundary in Sonora, and that it was worked under the supervision of the padres of that mission.

The tradition persists among the Pima Indians today that the Taiopa mine was worked under the supervision of the jesuits [sic] of San Bernardino and that, when in 1767 came the royal order for all jesuits to leave Spanish territory, the padres of this mission told the Indians that some day they would return and, while it might be many years, the Indians were to keep a fire always burning at the mine, to guide the returning padres to it.

The jesuit fathers never came back. But the Indians, generation after generation, faithfully kept the fire burning and with the passage of time it became a tradition that some day those same “black robes” would return. And so the fire never has been allowed to die.

Somewhere, say the Pimas, in the bewildering maze of the mountain fastnesses of that region the fire burns still.

No record of any such mine has yet been found in the archives of Mexico. If there was such a mine, and it was worked by the jesuits, it is not probable that any record of it ever will be found in secular archives.

But some of the Pima Indians today claim to know its approximate location. It is a fact that for many years after the first Anglo-americans came into south-eastern Arizona the Pimas frequently sold them quantities of ore that was very rich, but these natives could be neither persuaded nor coerced into revealing the source of this ore. They declared that the curse of the “black robes” would fall upon whoever revealed the location of the mine.

None of this ore has been brought in for many years, and it is conjectured that the Indians who knew the exact location of the mine are now all dead and that their confinement upon a reservation has prevented their showing the mine to any of their children. This supposition, however, does not harmonize very well with the tradition that the fire still is kept burning.

The story still is current through southern Arizona of how a Mexican woman once was permitted to visit the Taiopa mine. She had taken care of a Pima chief through a long illness, and upon his recovery he gave her some pieces of ore containing a high percentage of free gold. This roused a good deal of excitement in her village, and she was urged to prevail upon the chief to show her the source of the ore. At length he yielded to her importunities and consented.

But she was disappointed in her hopes. She was conducted by two Indian [sic] women who adopted the precaution of traveling only at night and in addition blindfolding the Mexican woman while traveling. On the morning after the fourth night the mine was reached, and the woman was permitted to gather up some of the ore to take back to her village as proof that she had visited the mine. That evening she again was blindfolded and conducted from the scene.

Only two nights' travel was required to reach home; she, therefore, was evidently led back over a different route and a much shorter one. The woman retained no idea of the direction in which she had traveled, and the distance could have been anything up to two nights' travel.

There are several traditions as to what the padres of the San Bernardino did with the bullion obtained from the Taiopa mine, but the most persistent is that they buried it somewhere on the mission grounds. The Mexicans of southeastern Arizona tell many tales of the attempts to find this wealth, and it appears that the grounds of the San Bernardino, like those of the Tumacacori, have been pretty well burrowed.

~ Legends of the Spanish Southwest by Cleve Hallenbeck and Juanita H. Williams (1938)

------- o0o -------​

Editor’s Notes – Researching the Lost Tayopa, it is important to remember the various spellings of the name. These authors used “Taiopa.” Others have used “Tyopa.”

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

It's amazing how stories and clues get mixed along the years. Real de Tayopa as a mining complex, was/is somewhere about 200 miles SE from San Bernardino ( today Hermosillo ),so not a surprise the mining complex to be supervised by the Jesuits padres with the headquarters at Hermosillo. But the first inaccuracy for that region, there were not Pima Indians but Yaqui as basic inhabitants and in some cases Apache who were migranting between south Arizona and north Mexico.
The Pimas were living where is now the Gila River Indian reservation, and little SW reaching in some cases the border with north Mexico in Santa Cruz Valley. It's said the Pimas are descendant of Aztecs, and how they knew/know where the Aztec treasure is buried. About 1750-51, the Jesuits took the treasures from Tayopa and hid them with the help of trusted Pimas, in an ancient rich gold mine somewhere in the Superstition Mountains Arizona.
The fire that should be permanently lited in front of the gold mine which holds the treasures, it's a metaphor and means the Pimas have to remember the place and not let that info to get lost over the next years.

Here is a fragment of a story which describes the gold mine and was told by someone who accidentally found that location:

".... The kid told him that his Great Grandfather was in the Cavalry during the Apache wars in Arizona. They had chased a band of Apaches that were raiding small homesteads and stealing cattle and horses. They chased them up a river where the Apaches turned into a small, rocky, steep canyon. Up the canyon and then up the side of the mountain on a very old trail the cavalry chased. When they got to the only level area up there, the Apaches were nowhere to be seen. It was almost dark and the Commander ordered a bivouac, with several guards to be set up on the perimeter. The kids Great Grandfather was one ordered to find a safe place on the canyon wall to set watch. The kid was scared to death so he found a brush thicket with a huge rock outcropping in the center of it. He pushed through the brush and began looking for a place to sit against the rocks when he came upon a cave. The cave went back about 30 feet at a rather steep slope. In the back of the cave were steps cut into the rock going up about 15 feet. He climbed up and there at the top was another tunnel. He had some sort of light source so he saddled over the small rock wall and into it. There he found two mummified Spanish soldiers with spears stick in them. The shaft was spilt into two tunnels at about a 45 degree angle. He took the right one and it went down a ways to a big pile of dirt. When he moved his light, it sparkled with rough gold. He moved past it to the bottom where he found a big vein on quarts with gold all though it. He got some of the best pieces he could find and stuffed then into his haversack. He went back and entered the other tunnel. It opened into a rather large room where tons of gold and silver church ornaments were stacked. He emptied the gold samples and everything in his haversack and filled it completely with treasure...."