Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) - A Record of Five Years' Exploration Among the Tribes of the Western Sierra Madre; In the Tierra Caliente of Tepic and Jalisco; and Among the Tarascos of Michoacan by Carl Lumholtz
page 109 of 444 (24%)
page 109 of 444 (24%)
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The cave is situated about twenty-five miles in a straight line south
of the Mormon colony of Chuhuichupa. There are indications of a spring in the cave, and there is another one in the arroyo itself. The buildings are in a very bad condition, owing to the action of the elements and animals; but fifty-three rooms could be counted. They were located on a rocky terrace extending from the extreme right to the rear centre of the cave. This extreme right extended slightly beyond the overhanging cliff, and contained groups of two-storied houses. In the central part of the cave were a number of small structures, built of the same material and in a similar manner as those I described as granaries in Cave Valley. They were still in excellent condition, and, as will be seen at a glance, they are almost identical with the granaries used to the present day in some southern States of Mexico. We continued our descent, and, having dropped altogether some 2,000 feet, at last found ourselves alongside some lonely and unattractive old adobe houses. They were built by the Spaniards and are reputed to have once been the smelter of the now abandoned silver mine of Guaynopa. Only the naked walls remain standing on a decline, which was too steep to give us sufficient camping ground. So we went still a little further, to the top of a hill near by, where we made a tolerably good camp. This then was the famous locality of Guaynopa, credited with hiding such fabulous wealth. There was still another mine here of the same repute, called Tayopa, and both of them are said to have been worked once by the Jesuits, who before their expulsion from Mexico were in possession of nearly all the mines in the country. According to tradition, the Apaches killed everybody here, and the mines were forgotten until recent times, when ancient church records and other |
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