Some local history: the Jemez Pueblo people call their town Walatowa, "the people in the canyon", while the Jemez Springs people call their settlement Guisewa, "pueblo of the hot place".
All Pueblo people are thought to be descended from Anasazi and perhaps Mogollon and several other ancient peoples. The Jemez people lived near Stone Canyon, south of Dulce, around 2000 years ago.
They moved to near their present location after the arrival of the Athapaskans, around the 14th Century. Some moved to the San Diego Canyon area where they established large fortresses and hundreds of small houses. The Spaniards found them in 1540 and built a mission at Guisewa Pueblo in the late 16th Century.
Despite the pueblo's position as a missionary center, the Jemez resisted Spanish efforts to undermine their culture and they joined in rebellion with the Navajo around 1645. They also took a leading position in the Pueblo rebellion of 1680. For years, the Spaniards had routinely tortured Indians for practicing traditional religion. They also forced the Indians to labor for them, sold Indians into slavery and let cattle overgraze Indian land, a situation that eventually led to drought, erosion and famine.
Pope, of San Juan Pueblo, planned a great revolt. On August 10, 1680, a united stand of Pueblos drove the Spanish from the region. The Pueblos had withdrawn to sites on top of the San Diego Mesa. When the Spanish left they descended, only to reascend in 1689 when they sighted a new Spanish force. Some returned again to the pueblo in 1692, when they and the Zia made peace with the Spanish.
By 1696 Jemez Pueblo had been rebuilt and reoccupied near the original site. The following year, however, after joining forces with the Navajo again in an anti-Spanish revolt, the Jemez returned to their ancestral home in Stone Canyon. Others went west to the Navajo country. The Jemez exile did not end until the early 18th Century when members of the tribe returned and settled at Walatowa, and built a new church - San Diego de los Jemez.
The cache is hidden on one of the high points of what could have been the Jemez' retreat from the pueblo to one of the many redoubts up top the mesas.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ZUNI KID ON AN OUTSTANDING ACCOMPLISHMENT ON 4/6/2009!