Old Bookaroo
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Treasure Myths Southwest - Part II
Pecos Has Its Own Treasure
PECOS, the birthplace of the myth of Quivira, within recent years has come into possession of a mythical treasure of its own. This was one of the most populous of the pueblos, its inhabitants numbering at the time of the discovery not less than twenty-five hundred. But it was a border community, ever subject to the raids of the Comanches and other fierce tribes of the eastern plains. Owing to this cause, and to the ravages of the "great sickness" which depopulated many tribes of the Southwest seventy years ago, Pecos became extinct in 1840. the pitiful handful of survivors deserting the home in which their ancestors had lived for centuries, and moving sixty miles west to Jemez.
No sooner had Pecos been deserted than the myth makers began to get busy. It was recalled that on the red tenth of August, 1680, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico had risen in revolt, massacred all the Spaniards on whom they could lay hands, including twenty-one priests and about four hundred others, and had driven the survivors from the territory. For twelve years the red men remained masters the Southwest, and the great adobe church at Pecos (like all other Indian missions in New Mexico) remained without a pastor.
Destroyed an Old Landmark
OF course, said the myth makers, the padres must have accumulated a great treasure; and of course they must have buried it securely before the blow fell. So men traveled from far and near to dig for the buried treasure of Pecos, burrowing like rats beneath the massive walls of the great church, cutting away the heavy timbers, and destroying the most imposing landmark that used to cheer the bull team freighters over the Santa FĂ© Trail as they neared the end of their long journey. Even now, after vandalism has done its worst, the sight of the great red ruin just east of the Glorieta Mountains evokes the tribute of wonder and admiration for the builders of old from every traveler over the Santa FĂ© railroad who catches a glimpse of the crumbling pile from the car windows.
Of course the padres of Pecos had no treasure. Often they suffered for the commonest necessities of life, living off the grudging bounty of their pagan congregations. If they built a church that was once one of the wonders of the Southwest it was because labor cost nothing, and life itself was one of the cheapest of commodities. But hundreds will still delve for the fabled wealth of Pecos, just as thousands have done before.
Destroying Pueblo Landmarks
IN New Mexico and Arizona there are many hundreds of ruins of long forgotten Pueblo Indian communities, some abandoned in historic times, and others of immemorial antiquity. Almost every one of these has its treasure myth, some only of local circulation, and others widely current. It is forgotten by the myth makers and by the myth chasers that the Pueblo Indians were entirely ignorant of metals until after the advent of the Spaniards. After that, they had no opportunity to accumulate anything but experience. Nevertheless, every ancient wall and crumbling pile has been ransacked and “explored” with pick, shovel, and dynamite. Even the cliff dwellings have been ravaged by ignorant vandals, and the Stone Lions of Cochiti blown up in the ruthless search for imaginary gold.
The History of Bluewater
ONE hundred and ten miles west of Albuquerque, on the Santa FĂ© route, is the way station of Bluewater. It consists of a telegraph office, a huge water tank, the shacks of the Mexican section hands, and a lonely ranch house. Nevertheless, it boasts of a longer and more thrilling history than many a populous trade center, having been a road house and stage station on Butterfield's Central Overland Route.
The original white settler in the shadow of grim Mount Taylor was an old Spaniard known to posterity only by the name Don Gonzales, who drifted north from Mexico more than one hundred years ago, built an adobe ranch house within half a mile of where the Bluewater water tank now stands, and began raising sheep He made friends with the Indians, and gained the reputation of being in league with the Father of Evil, and thus was never molested either by white bandits or red marauders.
By and by strange tales were heard of the looting of one of the great churches of Mexico of all its golden images and offerings and priceless treasures of art, just prior to the time when Don Gonzales arrived in the Bluewater Valley; and rumor fixed upon him the imputation of the sacrilege. However, those were troublous times in Mexico, when the viceroyalty was tottering to its fall; so that Don Gonzales had nothing to fear from public vengeance, while he was amply able to protect himself from private individuals.
In the fullness of time, Don Gonzales died; and the Apaches descended upon the rancheria, drove off the sheep, cattle, and ponies, and murdered the peons. The myth of Gonzales' buried treasure grew to amazing proportions; and even the timorous Greasers overcame their fears so lar as to dig and pry into all sorts of likely and unlikely places; but so far as is known not a single real did they ever find.
When the rush to California began, after the American occupation, Don Gonzales' old ranch house was appropriated by Butterfield, the transportation magnate of that epoch, and made into a roadhouse for the accommodation of freighters and travelers over the Central Overland Route.
After the railroad was built, the Bluewater myth began to fade; and it is possible that it would have died ere this but for an accident that revealed what appears to have been a part of Gonzales' stolen hoard. One day about ten years ago, a Mormon ranchman from a settlement of the Saints a few miles away entered the old adobe building, and noticed that the mud built fireplace was choked with debris from above. On trying to pull away the rags, he found that they were the frayed edge of a huge canvas which had been carefully rolled up and cunningly concealed in what appeared to be a solid wall.
The canvas was a painting, which to the untrained eye of the Mormon differed not at all from the altar pieces that adorn every Catholic church of the southwest. He sold it for a few dollars to an Indian trader; and the Indian trader was glad to dispose of it in El Paso for twice as much as he had paid for it. The El Paso dealer sent it to a New York auction house, where shrewder art judges recognized it as a masterpiece of the golden age of Spanish art. It is said that the painting now adorns the home of one of Gotham's kings of finance, having cost him the neat sum of forty thousand dollars.
Was this single oil painting the whole of Don Gonzales' hidden treasure? No one who lives within fifty miles of Bluewater believes it; and the search for mythical gold still goes on.
Murietta's Fabled Treasure
CALIFORNIA --- the land of gold --- has been particularly favored by the makers of treasure myths. Not the least interesting of the treasure myths of that State is the one relating to the buried gold of Joaquin Murietta and his band of desperados. For more than a decade after the discovery of gold in California, Murietta's band terrorized half the mining camps between Lake Tahoe and Sacramento. Finally Murietta and his chief lieutenant, known as Three Fingered Jack, were run to earth and killed. Murietta's head and Three Fingered Jack's mutilated hand were cut off and taken to San Francisco for identification, in order that the successful man hunters might be able to claim the reward offered for the bandits dead or alive. The remainder of the band fled to Mexico.
Then the wise men of the mining camps began to count up the loot that the robbers were reported to have secured in the Feather River country alone. It footed up among the millions; and scores of promising claims were abandoned that their owners might join in the search for the hidden treasure of Joaquin Murietta. The gold has never yet been found. Probably it never will be; for the trade of the highwayman has never been a profitable one. No doubt Murietta would be vastly amazed could he now be informed of the tremendous proportions to which his paltry stealings have been magnified. Even if he had any gold dust or money cached, it is more than probable that his followers took it with them when they hit the pike for Mexico.
Drake's Mysterious Cave
EQUALLY dubious is the reputed treasure now being industriously sought in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, near Point Dume. This myth dates back to the days of Drake; but has been brought into new prominence by the discovery of a mysterious cave, with shafts, chambers, tunnels, and half obliterated inscriptions. The cave was visited and described thirty years ago; but its location was forgotten until a corps of railroad surveyors stumbled upon it recently.
The story runs that three galleons laden with doubloons and bars of gold and other treasure set sail from Panama for Spain, by way of the Horn. They had not proceeded far when Drake, that prince of buccaneers [sic], gave chase. In order to escape from him, the vessels went far to the north, where they were overtaken by a tempest and never heard of again.
Away upon the sandy bars of Tillamook County, Oregon, for generations the Indians have from time to time discovered great chunks of beeswax, uncovered by the waves. Learned articles have appeared in the scientific press, descriptive of this "natural" beeswax; but there seems to be reasonably convincing evidence that this article formed part of the cargo of one of the lost treasure ships; that the vessel was wrecked off the coast of Oregon; and that the beeswax which is still discovered at intervals has laid buried in the sands for all these years.
But the fate of the two other vessels still remains unsolved. Tradition has it that they were wrecked off Point Dume, and that the crews succeeded in getting all the treasure ashore. It is said that they remained in the vicinity for months, hiding the gold and other valuables, and expecting ultimately to be picked up by some vessel on a tour of exploration. In the end, all are believed to have perished at the hands of the Indians.
Now there are many who are firmly convinced that the recently discovered cave was the work of the shipwrecked sailors of the lost galleons, who anticipate that the long lost treasure will be found in or near it.
Where Is the Arno's Whisky
IN 1850 the schooner Arno was wrecked on a sand bar at the head of the Gulf of California, near the mouth of the Colorado River. The most precious part of its cargo consisted of one hundred and fifty barrels of choice Kentucky whisky. Now the average unimaginative person would suppose that the barrels had been dashed on the rocks and that the nectar they contained had been irretrievably lost in salt water. But the myth makers are sure that every barrel was cast safely ashore and buried by the drifting sands. There, say they, it has been aging for nearly fifty years in wood, until every drop is priceless.
For years the probable resting place of the liquid treasure of the Arno has been discussed in every bar room of the Southwest, and red blood has more than once been spilled on account of differences of opinion. The tale was told as far north as San Francisco, where Frank Norris heard it and wove it into the story of "Blix" --- changing the location of the sand covered whisky vault to the Amazon.
Probably no one has ever yet instituted a systematic search for the long lost nectar; but it is safe to say that every soldier of fortune who has entered the gulf by way of the Colorado since the wreck of the Arno has wasted precious hours examining the sand bars in the hope that a barrel head might be distinguished protruding therefrom. The present value of the Arno's lost cargo has been estimated as high as one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and many a thirsty miner and cowpuncher would travel far and pay his last dollar for three fingers of this mythical treasure of the American Nile.
Evening Star Sunday Magazine [Washington, DC} 22 November 1908
No. 190. --- No. 17,590
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Estufa — A stove or heater - The writer appears to use the word here for an underground room
Real - Reale - A Spanish coin
Blix is an early novel by the American writer Frank Norris. Originally published in 1899, it is probably his least-known work.
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Good luck to all,
The Old Bookaroo
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