Acoma

On Sunday we joined our friends Tom and Leah in Albuquerque to go to the Acoma Pueblo, an hour west of Albuquerque. This pueblo is called "sky city" because of its original location on a high mesa. The mesa has been inhabited since 1150 AD, apparently making it the oldest continuously inhabited village in the United States. The Spanish arrived in the early to mid 1600s and began building a mission (with Indian slave labor) in 1629. The Spanish were kicked out during the New Mexico wide pueblo revolt in 1680 but the mission survived because it had been built over the villages' original plaza and the Indians continued to use it for their ceremonial gatherings. Several families who were more loyal Catholics saved the patron saint statue (St. Stephen) and some an oil painting. The two Franciscan priests at the mission at the time were stoned to death. The Spanish returned in 1692 but promised they would not persecute the Indians for practicing their own customs if they also practiced Catholicism. They also allowed the Pueblos to govern themselves and gave them control over their own lands (how generous!).

The mission remains a sacred place today as is the cemetery outside the church. Because the village sits on rock, the cemetery was constructed with earth hauled up bucket by bucket by the women. The men built a wall surrounding it to contain the soil. They are on the last possible layer now with many layers of bodies over the centuries. No photography was allowed in the cemetery or mission.

Except for a couple festival days, you can only visit Sky City with a guided tour. From the visitor's center you take a bus up to the top and walk around the town. The guide was quite good despite being nearly hoarse. She had a very dry sense of humor, for example noting that only men could go into the kivas, but she was sure they had a big screen tv and some lounge chairs in there. Although the Acoma have a matriarchal society, men govern the town. They now seem to have a quite a tourism business going. You pay for the tour and there is a separate fee if you want to take photographs. Up on the mesa different people are selling pottery and food and drinks. You get to look at the pottery briefly during the tour and if you want to go back to a certain section afterwards to purchase something they have a someone guide you back.

From a practical standpoint, there are only 7 - 13 families living on the mesa. There is no electricity except from generators. All food and water come from below except for an intermittently filled reservoir. There is no running water and just outhouses (or now port a potties) for restrooms. Most families live in a modern village about ten miles away, but they do own houses on the mesa that they come to for festivals.

Jake and I chose to walk back down to the visitor's center along the rock stairway (see last photo). This stairway was very steep, but had handholds cut into the rocks at convenient intervals.