Aug. 24, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
231 
mounds were found near the center of the valley 
within sight of the village. One of them is 300 
feet long, 100 feet wide and nearly forty feet 
high, while the other is practically twice as large 
in every measurement. 
After careful examination I found that the 
mounds were intact, had never been entered, and 
doubtless concealed graves rather than ruined 
buildings. They appear to be identical with the 
mounds of the Ohio Valley, and the people who 
constructed them appear to have been a nomadic 
rather than a building people, and so far as I 
can learn, there are no traces of ruined cities in 
the country of the mound builders in Guerrero. 
I prepared at once to dig into the smaller of 
these mounds, around the base of which I found 
a number of beads, small ornaments and other 
■ artifacts of stones, which, strangely enough, 
seemed never to have been disturbed since the 
rains and the winds had sent them tumbling- 
down through the natural disintegration of the 
mound. 
But all my plans for entering the mounds 
were speedily frustrated by the woman chief of 
the town—the only woman Indian chief in 
Mexico, by the way. No sooner had my men 
begun moving shovelsful of earth when she ap¬ 
peared, followed by practically the entire popu¬ 
lace of the village. She approached me quietly, 
and in a dignified manner informed me that the 
mounds were the tombs of the ancestors of her 
tribe; that they were guarded night and day by 
the young men of the village, one of whom had 
informed her of my first attempt to open the 
ruin. 
All attempts at expostulation were vain, and 
offers to buy the privilege of cutting into the 
mounds proved futile, and as a last resort she 
pointed to about twenty Indians, armed with 
long knives, and old-fashioned stone and bone¬ 
headed spears, declaring that if I did not desist 
she would put these men on guard and death 
would be my portion if I attempted to go on 
with the work. Following this she extended to 
me the hospitality of the village, declaring that 
even her house was mine, as long as I wished to 
remain, but under no conditions would I be per¬ 
mitted to open the mysterious mounds. 
In her house that evening the queen, who 
bore a strong facial resemblance to high-caste 
Chinese women, and whose name was Chen-a-la, 
told me in all seriousness that the mounds cov¬ 
ered the open ends of enormous veins of virgin 
gold, from which her ancestors had taken fabu¬ 
lous amounts of the yellow metal, with which 
they paid tribute to the Spaniards to prevent the 
conquerors from invading their country. She 
declared that beneath the mounds lay the ruins 
of magnificent temples, built as last resting places 
for the dead kings of her people, and she con¬ 
firmed my belief that the mound builders never 
were city dwellers, but were nomads, miners and 
traders, living in temporary structures and never 
erecting edifices to compare with those I had 
seen at Yerbabuena. 
“According to stories told me by my father,” 
said the queen, “it was the custom of the tribe 
to take a few pounds of the yellow metal to the 
coast, when they wished to purchase cloth from 
the tribes of weavers near the sea. In later 
years a priest, in one of the coast towns, con¬ 
verted some of these traders to Christianity, 
bought their gold himself, and repeatedly begged 
that they tell him the source of the yellow metal. 
“All the Tlapanecos, however, were sworn to 
secrecy on penalty of death, as regards the veins 
of gold, and refused to tell the priest. One day, 
though, the men of my tribe engaged in a fight 
on the way to the coast, and went to the priest 
to confess their sin. He absolved them, and in 
return they agreed to take him to the source 
of the gold, provided he would make the jour¬ 
ney blindfolded. To this he agreed, but, when 
they set out, he carried beneath his robe a bag 
of corn, from which he dropped a grain at al¬ 
most every step of the mule on which he rode, 
thinking that by the scattered grains he would 
be able to retrace the trail to the source of gold. 
“On the second day out they arrived at the 
vein, the bandage was removed from the priest’s 
CHEN-A-LA, THE QUEEN OF THE TLAPANECOS, WHO 
REFUSED TO PERMIT PROF. NIVEN TO OPEN THE 
RUINS OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS IN GUERRERO. 
eyes, and he gazed on a vein, of virgin gold more 
than six hands in width. Filled with amazement 
and joy, the priest, chuckling at his cleverness in 
outwitting the Indians, prepared to return, when 
to his complete mortification one of the Indians 
approached and handed him a bag, exclaiming: 
‘Here, father, is some of the corn you lost.’ 
These mounds you see here mark the treasure 
house of the Tlapanecos and never shall they be 
opened while there is life in my body.” 
After spending another day in argument with 
the obdurate queen, and finding all attempts use¬ 
less, I commenced the descent to the coast, fol¬ 
lowing the ancient trail down which the Tlapane¬ 
cos had gone centuries before to peddle their 
gold. I stopped at a hot spring near Santa 
Monica, the waters of which are above 100 de¬ 
grees Fahrenheit. Surrounding this spring are 
hundreds, if not thousands, of crosses erected 
by grateful sufferers from various maladies who 
had been cured by bathing in or drinking of the 
waters of the spring. We dined at San Luis 
Allende, an important trading center, through 
which were passing all day long loaded burro 
trains going to and coming from remote parts 
of Southern Mexico. Then we rode to Paso 
de Zintla, and next morning to Copala, where 
many days were spent hunting and photograph¬ 
ing the beautiful scenery. Game was everywhere 
abundant, and we had deer, wild hog, rabbit, 
ducks, wild pigeons, doves, wild turkeys and a 
species of small grouse on the table one day or 
the other all the time we were in the village. 
Thereafter we went on to Ayutla, stopping 
a few days there, and then took the old Acapulco 
trail back to Chilpancingo, fording the Omitlan 
River, and in three days more were back in 
Mexico City. Naturally I was disappointed at 
my inability to explore the ruins of the mound 
builders, but I was satisfied that I was the first 
white man who had ever gazed on their mys¬ 
terious mounds, and to-day I have the further 
satisfaction of knowing that no one since has 
been able to penetrate the mysteries they conceal. 
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