The Curious Fate of One Juan Rodrigues

It was while browsing the brown and brittle pages of a turn of the century archeological journal that I came across an interesting account. According to an analytic report in the 1913 Journal of Archeological Anomalies of the Americas, co-authored by the noted team of Svenson and Balthazar, an unusual discovery had been made in the high desert of the El Cuervo region of the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. It had to do with stumbling upon what appeared to be the remains of a man named Juan Ramon Rodrigues, 30 miles west of Eldorado Mesa, near a prominent and solitary boulder in the desert referred to by locals as El Diablo. The article was entitled 'The Curious Fate of Juan Ramon Rodrigues'. It became clear early in the article that whether the discovered remains were, in fact what was left of this Juan Ramon Rodrigues, was, at that time (Fall, 1903) a point of conjecture, and in need of further research. I read on through the lengthy and somewhat tediously detailed document, curious about who this Juan Ramon Rodrigues was. After all, I had done extensive study of the region myself, and had never come across the name.

A court house document discovered in a small town nearby, does however, make mention of this man because of his claim to have discovered several gold coins that were clearly Spanish in design. That, and the discovery of a pick axe buried in the sand at the base of the El Diablo boulder bearing the carved letters, "J.R." support this conjecture. At this point in the treatise, the authors turn their attention to an examination of the boulder itself. How could it have come to stand in the middle of this vast and barren desert? The speculation that it was perhaps brought to that location from the nearest range of mountains in the distance, was quickly ruled out. The boulder in no way resembled the stratified sandstone, clay, and quartzite formations typical of any mountainous areas in that region. It was composed entirely of a granular red clay. Nor did it actually appear to be a boulder as such. It appeared to be more of a conical mound reminiscent of the giant termite or ant hills such as have been reported and documented in Zambia, South Africa.

The archeologists began then, to carefully probe the surface of El Diablo with hand tools in search of any tunnels or nests that might lie beneath its surface, even though ant or termite formations on this scale had never been noted as a part of this region's landscape. It was slow, careful and tedious work in the desert sun, as they gingerly began to carve into the surface. They worked very methodically digging gradually deeper in a carved line ascending vertically over the formation (which was said to be 7.3 meters high), and then vertically down its opposite side. At a depth of 15.2 centimeters (approximately 6 inches) there was no indication anywhere along this long continuous hand-carved groove of any kind of insect activity whatsoever. Nothing but a hard, seemingly sun-fired red clay. It is at this point that the team of Svensen and Balthazar made a sudden and astonishing discovery.

As Svenson placed his trowel into the fissure they had created, and struck it a modest blow with a wooden maul, the entire formation suddenly broke open and fell to the desert floor in pieces like a cracked egg. At this point, the team began to photograph and mark off this shattered structure in a large grid, and began to study it piece by piece. Clearly, a smaller quartzite and sandstone boulder had been contained within the large formation in the manner of a concretion. It had been encased in the larger mound of red clay. Oddly enough however, it appeared to have had a hollow air space around portions of it.

The authors at this point, describe their tedious assembly of the large clay fragments into two halves laid out on the desert floor. Their focus at this point was to try to understand the nature and form of the hollow shell itself. They describe, as this picture comes into focus piece-by-piece, what became at last evident. The hollow interior of the mound formed the perfect negative of a human body. A body that had been seemingly hugging or clinging to the smaller boulder at the center. It seemed impossible, but there it was, a vacuous ghost of someone not there, but defined by a shell of red clay the way a footprint in the sand makes such impressions. But, who was this person? And how had he become so entombed?

Is it possible it was a ceremony or ritual of some sort? Could superstitious people of the time have simply buried him in this manner upon finding his body in the desert? Or was he murdered? Or buried alive by people wanting only his coins? I traveled to Norway to speak with Svenson before he died. In a faltering voice he told me of reflections that he'd never written down. And they were this. Juan Rodrigues was likely at the wrong place at the wrong time. The sky must have turned blood red that day with fierce El Nino winds carrying a red clay dust from the west. Dust that blew for days and days. Apparently he had clung to the small boulder within El Diablo for several days until at last, he was suffocated by the wet clay in his nose and mouth. Over time, the desert sun had essentially fired the red clay heaped upon him. I asked him, why it was then, that his remains were not discovered within the hollow interior of El Diablo. He replied that upon soil analysis of the ground at the base of the smaller boulder, he noted a small concentration of such minerals as phophorous, sulfur, magnesium, iron, and others typical of the human body. There in the desert, buried alive beneath layers of red clay, all essential moisture in the body of Juan Rodrigues had been sucked out by the baking clay, he became mummified, and over time turned to dust. Professor Svensen then fished into his vest pocket and held his open palm out. "I found this beneath the dust of Juan Rodrigues", he said. It was a crudely minted golden coin. A Spanish doubloon dated 1528, minted in ancient Mexico from Aztec gold sometime shortly after the Spanish conquest of mesoamerica. "I suppose," the professor said wearily, "I will die one day with this in my pocket, as did Juan Rodrigues so many years ago."