Auction for supposedly authenticated artifacts nets thousands of coins, while allegations of fraud surface

 

Auctioneer Maeve Helena Steele made thousands of coins
on Saturday's auction, but she may face legal action.
Photos by Persephone Bolero-Trenton

 By Amazon River Staff

AMAZON — Residents of the Amazon community on Saturday engaged in a bidding war at Gallivant’s Clearing for a collection of allegedly authenticated artifacts. Items were auctioned for hundreds of coins, including one item that went for over 3,500.

As of Sunday, however, questions linger as to whether the items were actually delivered to the auction winners, with some bidders alleging they may have been defrauded.

Maeve Helena Steele, an aloof and shadowy figure with no known tribal affiliation, announced Saturday morning that an auction would be held at the Amazon agora known as Gallivant’s Clearing. 

A flier distributed to advertise the event said that “the finest treasures of the Amazon River have finally slipped past the authorities,” and these would be sold at “an exclusive, no-questions-asked auction of these rare antiquities.” 

 

Bidders vie for a wooden banana by a "local artist"

 

Cursed vase and Roman pillar 

Steele described herself in the flier as a “highly accomplished and trusted sales representative” and told bidders to bring their “heaviest coin bag.”

At the auction, Steele presented a certificate from Dr. Alistair Vance, who authenticated the items as being genuine, but some people, including Hollywood actress Alex Magellan, expressed doubt.

Despite those questions, the apocryphal items drew a lot of interest from the bidders.

Steele began with a vase that she claimed “held the ceremonial venom of the lost Serpent Cult.” She said that natives had tried to stop its removal and claimed the vessel was cursed.

“Frankly, I’m cursed with a taste for luxury, so who cares?” Steele told the crowd.

That item went for 100 coins, and that was followed by a marble pillar. Steele claimed it was discovered in an underwater ruin and that archeologists believe it belonged to a “rogue, wealthy Roman explorer who sailed across the Atlantic centuries before anyone else, trying to build a secret paradise in the jungle.”

The item went for 52 coins, one of the lowest earnings of the auction, but items that followed solicited a much higher amount of interest.

The 3,502-coin crystal ball 

Steele brought out a Tapirape “ritual seat of a highly revered tribal elder who could supposedly talk to spirits."

Persephone Bolero-Trenton, publisher of the Amazon River Sun, won the item for 300 coins. She said he intended to sell the item to wealth academics in California.

“You can literally sell them a piece of wood for thousands of dollars if they believe an impoverished indigenous artist made it,” Bolero-Trenton told the Sun. 

The Sun managed to secretly capture this back-stage
photo of the items that were auctioned.

 

Steele continued to roll out more items, but it was a crystal ball that garnered the most interest. The auctioneer said that her expedition team had risked their lives “diving into a glowing, cavernous vortex beneath the Deep Drop” to obtain the item. 

“The tribal legends say it was used by an ancient witch queen to peer into the future, read the minds of her enemies, and uncover hidden gold. Supposedly, it glows brighter when someone with supreme intelligence touches it,” Steele claimed.

Bolero-Trenton and her husband, Leslie Trenton, a local bush pilot known for being ruggedly handsome, fell into a competition with Kerity and Ter, a couple who resides in the Mt. Gedi area. The bidding eventually climbed, along with the tension, into the thousands of coins.

Bolero-Trenton was noticeably nervous as her husband pitched 2,800 coins for the item. It was at that point her husband bowed out, but Norgizen, who is believed to be romantically associated with Magellan, pitched 3,000 coins for the glass sphere.

Bidding for health 

The bidding reached its zenith at Ter’s offer of 3,502 coins. Ter also had the winning bid on a year’s supply of toilet paper, which went for 752 coins. Ter told the Sun that the crystal ball was mainly for his wife, Kerity.

“She wanted it for her healer dealings. I was happy to give it to her,” he said. 

He said his bidding on the toilet paper was also important for health.

 

A sample of the toilet paper on display.

 

“It's true that sometimes the lack of hygiene held us back a bit. But now with double-ply paper, we'll really have clean bottoms, and it promises us long nights of heuuuu.... exploration... Pure bliss,” he said.

Ter and Kerity also won the bid on a plant that was said to be an aphrodisiac from the Void.

“I think we'll be getting very little sleep from now on,” Ter said. 

Fraud allegations arise 

Questions remain as to whether the winning bidders had actually received the items. Bolero-Trenton told the Sun that as of Sunday morning, her Tapirape thinking chair had not been received. She said she had a buyer in Los Angeles lined up, and the lack of delivery was risking her investment and potentially harming her reputation with the buyer. 

If the items are not delivered to those who won them at the auction, Bolero-Trenton promised to take legal action. 

“If the auctioneer failed to deliver the items — or worse, if they were defrauded — I will represent the bidders in a class-action lawsuit and pursue criminal actions, if necessary. I will not rest until my clients are satisfied,” Bolero-Trenton vowed in a statement to the Sun. 

The Sun has reached out to Steele for comment.

Undercover: Amazon River Sun reporter infiltrates Amazon cult vowing to destroy Monks

An unidentified cult member stands before an idol
Photos by Persephone Bolero

 

By Persephone Bolero-Trenton 

AMAZON — I was approached a couple weeks ago by a trio of hooded individuals calling themselves “Os Guardioes da Besta.” They claimed that the corporeal reality we know is an illusion created by the Monks to imprison us, and they vowed to destroy them and set us free.

They asked if I’d be interested in joining their crusade, but when I asked for details on how, exactly, they planned to annihilate the Monks, they could provide no further information. I was told that it would be foolish to publicize their plans, and if I joined, they said, they would reveal their battle plans.

I said I would consider joining. I expected that I’d never hear from them again, so I was quite surprised when two of them arrived at the Amazon River Sun offices, including the male leader. They said they were pleased with the article I’d written about them and handed me a cookie.

 

The cult members when they first approached me

 

I wasn’t hungry, but they were insistent that I eat it. It was clear they were trying to drug me, but I also knew that if I was going to learn more about this curious bunch, I would need to go along with it. So, I ate the cookie, and soon lost consciousness under a deluge of hallucinations.

When I awoke, I learned they had removed my clothing and dressed me in their hoods and black robes. (I had been wearing an adorable tie-dye blouse and crimson shorts, which was never able to recover.) I’m not sure what else may have transpired while unconscious and disrobed. As far as I could tell, they only switched my clothing.

 

The cult's ranks have grown

 

They then told me to meet them at 1 p.m. near Deep Drop on Thursday, July 2, where I would undergo some kind of ceremony in which I’d be given my new name. Included in the ensemble they gave me was a pentagram pennant. I decided to place a hidden camera in the pentagram and shoot photos of the secret meeting.

On that day, I was surprised to find that their influence had grown. There was about a dozen hooded members of this cult that had come to receive their new name. 

We were ushered into a secret cave. The male leader of the group then sat before a pool of lava. We were told to cut our hands — I only pretended to do so — drop blood into the pool of lava, and pledge allegiance to their cause. This would, the leaders said, free us from the prison the Monks had trapped us in.

 

The secret cave had many strange carvings

 

The pledge was as follows: “I shall turn not from salvation! I willingly submit my fire unto HIM, who delivers us into eternal paradise. Upon my blood, I swear to serve the Great Mapinguari Beast as Guardian and Keeper—to never lie, never betray, and remain forever loyal. Beneath this cloak of honor, I renounce my identity, my name and face to remain hidden.”

During this ceremony, in which I was given the name “Tutelary,” I surreptitiously triggered the camera I had hidden on me pendant.

After we’d all been given our names, they had us play a game in which one of us had been secretly designated the Monk. The Monk would they “kill” us off one-by-one until his identity was uncovered. Each round, players had the opportunity to “kill” one person they believed to be the Monk, and his identity wasn’t discovered until almost all had died. Anyone who was “killed” could not speak for the remainder of the game.

I was among the first to be suspected of being a Monk and killed by the group, which makes perfect sense. Of course, the woman who has been writing about the evils of the Monks for literally fucking years would be the Monk. Right??? It didn’t take me long to determine who the Monk was, but unable to speak, I was left to watch as the group slaughtered themselves one-by-one while the true Monk, who turned out to be the one named Stallwart, remained hidden. 

The leaders who conducted the ceremony.

 

I suspect the drugs they’d given us during the naming ceremony led to the group's completely irrational choices, and I believe the point of the game was a carefully crafted psychological tool to instill in us a sense of helplessness before the machinations of the Monks. The cult’s practices would thereby provide the only path to safety and salvation.

Whatever the case, I was never able to discern that the leaders of this hooded sect had any concrete plans to war against the Monks. Nor did I ever recover my stolen outfit. I did, however, get some pretty good drugs. So, maybe it was all worth it.

Nathan, my quiet Native American friend, and the Great Coyote

 

By Persephone Bolero-Trenton

Many years ago, I returned to California for a time. After so many years in the backwaters of this bug-infested swamp, I found the noise and chaos of Los Angeles difficult to assimilate back into. Long-story-short, I ended up shacking up with a guy in the Mojave Desert in rural Southern California.

There was a Mexican food truck that stopped at the park most days, and I’d sit with other residents of the mobile home park on some picnic tables, which I've written about before, enjoying what was surprisingly some of the best burritos I’ve ever tasted. 

Among the residents that would sometimes sit down for lunch there was a Native American man, Nathan Honanie. He said he was a member of the Hopi Tribe. He was an older man, his hair graying, and there were wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. He had calloused hands of someone who did hard manual labor his whole life. I think he said he had a son who lived in Arizona.

He worked as a roustabout, which are crews that maintain oil wells. He would be out in the field for sometimes weeks, driving his work truck down dusty roads of Kern County, out to job sites in the middle of nowhere. But when he was home, he’d stop at the food truck for lunch and we’d have lunch together.

 

 

He had little to say about himself when I asked, so I don’t know much more about him. While his responses to my questions were brief, he listened quietly as I spoke. I’d always ask if he’d mind if I sat with him, and he’d always gesture to the seat across the picnic table. As he ate his lunch, he would occasionally glance and nod at me thoughtfully while I talked on and on about everything.

I told him all about the life I had in the Amazon, living in a cave, raising Kiki, and digging around in a crashed spaceship. He didn’t seem to even be skeptical of that, which I always found a bit surprising.

I talked a lot about growing up in Beverley Hills and the excessive expectations my high-achieving parents placed on me. I told him about how, after years of living in the Amazon, my father thought I was dead. And when I returned to L.A., he offered me half my trust fund if I’d continue to play dead. Turns out, my being alive was a tax liability for him. Something to do with life insurance.

Anyway, I’d talk and talk and talk, and Nathan would listen and listen and listen. One day I tried to press him for more details about his own life.

“Every time we have lunch together, I’m always telling you all about myself, but I hardly know anything about you,” I said. “I don’t mean to pry, but I don’t want to talk your ear off if you want to tell me something about yourself.”

He chewed his food slowly and swallowed, staring out into the scrub brush desert surrounding the dilapidated mobile homes, like he was thinking about what he wanted to say. Then, he looked at me and said, “You’re the coyote."

I blinked and tilted my head. “I’m the what now?”

“You’re the coyote,” he repeated.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked defensively.

 

 

“Millions of years ago, the Great Spirits created the world,” he began, speaking each syllable carefully in his Hopi accent. “They believed that if the animals they placed in this world were to grow and thrive, they needed order. The bears wandered forests where the trees were in neat rows like crops in the field. 

"The branches were placed at exact heights so the birds could easily find a place to build their nests. The flowers grew in one place, and they were all the same. So the bees knew exactly where to find them and could easily fly to each one all day long.

“The sun rose at the same time every day, and it set at the same place along mountains that were all the same height along the horizon. Even the stars at night were arranged like the honeycomb in the bees’ hives. They spread out evenly across the heavens, each one the same as any other.

“One of the Great Spirits was the Coyote, and he created a dog that would scurry along the forest floor, among the rows of trees that were all of equal height.” Nathan’s rough hand scuttled across the table on fingertips to illustrate the coyotes’ running.

“The coyotes didn’t like the forest,” he said. “It was perfect for all the other animals, but for the coyote, there were no rolling hills to run over. All the rivers ran in predictable straight lines, and they never bent. The coyotes became very bored, and they could not thrive in the perfect forest the Spirits created.

 

 

“When the Great Coyote complained to the other Spirits that the world was too perfect, they got very angry with him. They called him crazy. ‘Shoo, you worthless dog,’ they said. ‘Our world is perfect, and nothing will ever change it. Go now!’ They ran the Great Coyote off and told him never to come back.” 

Nathan took a bite of his lunch and chewed slowly. The warm desert breeze blew across the table as he sipped his Coke. 

After a long, quiet moment, he continued: “The Great Coyote hid for a long time, and the other Spirits thought he would never return to complain about their perfect world. While he hid, he watched as the coyotes he created in the perfect forest grew so sad. They stopped running along the banks of the straight rivers, or along the straight rows of the trees. They just laid down and waited to die.

“One night, when the sun set behind the perfect rows of mountains and the moon rose in its place among the perfect rows of stars, the Great Coyote emerged from hiding. He ran through the forest, scattering the trees like dust. He scurried through the stars, and they swirled in the wind behind him. 

"The Coyote picked up the rivers and twisted them in all different directions. He made them wide and narrow and all widths in between. Some ran fast and cut into the ground, creating canyons. And the Coyote stomped on the mountains, making their peaks jagged and uneven all across the horizon. Hills formed at their feet. The dust he stirred up formed clouds in the blue sky.

 

 

“When the other Great Spirits saw what the Coyote did, they were so angry. ‘What have you done, you worthless dog! You have ruined our perfect world!’ they said. They tried to chase him off again, and he yapped and snarled at them. But then the Great Owl told the other Spirits to stop chasing the Coyote and look at the sky.

“They looked up into the heavens and saw the Milky Way. It was bright and beautiful and full of stars of different sizes and colors, and now they twinkled. The clouds the Coyote created plumed like blooming flowers. When the sun rose and shone through the clouds, it created an orange glow the Spirits had never imagined. 

"The flowers were all different colors and shapes, the bees were amazed at their allure. The birds now had canyon walls to build their nests upon, as well as trees. And as each tree and flower, bee and bird, bear and coyote found its place in the chaos the Coyote created, it became unique and beautiful in its own way, like no other in the world. When the Spirits saw what the world was becoming, they welcomed the Coyote back and let him run free through the world."

Nathan paused for a long moment, sucking Coke through a straw until it gurgled.

“The coyotes are pests,” he continued, “and wherever they run, they cause nothing but problems. But nothing can grow or discover what it truly is without change. That is their purpose, and some people are born to be the coyote.”

He paused and I smiled, realizing he was saying I make things beautiful.

He then turned to me and added, “However, sometimes the coyote causes too many problems, and he must be run off.” He then got up and left without another word, my smile fading.

 

 

A couple weeks later, he showed up at the food truck again. He was sitting by himself, eating his lunch in silence as he always did. I waved at him as I stood in line, and he nodded back.

When I got my burrito, I asked if I could sit with him, and he gestured to the seat across the table.

“How are things?” I asked and shooed away some insects. “Damn flies. This ain’t nothing like the mosquitos in the Amazon. I used to try everything to keep them off of me. One time, I had this idea. What if I could build a giant mosquito net to cover the whole jungle?”

He nodded and listened quietly to my story.