Acoma Pueblo is on top of a high mesa, and has been home to the Acoma Indians since the 1200's, and is one of oldest continuously occupied locations in North America.
Acoma Pueblo is on top of a high mesa, and has been home to the Acoma Indians since the 1200's, and is one of oldest continuously occupied locations in North America.
You will leave Interstate 40 at the exit 12 miles east of Grants, where there is a well-marked turnoff and a blacktopped road all the way to the museum and visitors center of Acoma. It is called Sky City.
When you reach the visitors center, you will need to register for the guided tour to the fascinating primitive world atop the impregnable mesa. There is a charge for each person, depending on senior citizens, adults or children.
If you wish to take along a camera there is also an added charge and certain restrictions apply.
You will climb aboard the bus and have a tour guide on board who will call you on a loudspeaker if you are exploring the museum area.
You will ride to the top in a small modern bus. The lady tour guide will be an Acoma Indian and will add a lot to the information you'll receive with her intimate knowledge of the place and she'll also be very cheerful and pleasant. The walking tour will take about 45 minutes to an hour. You will be able to enter a beautiful Spanish-style church devoted to San Esteban del Rey, the patron saint of the Acomas since the l600s, when the first missionaries arrived. You will see a huge vigas, these are logs forming the roof of the church. The vigas, 40 feet in length and more than 14 inches in diameter, were carried 40 mile from the slopes of Mount Taylor, on the shoulders of the Acomas.
There are natural cisterns on the mesa that trap water from infrequent rains, providing drinking water for all the people who once lived there. Today there are about l3 or l4 families who still
live on the mesa. Life is very primitive,with no
running water and only outdoor privies. Digging a pit toilet in the sandstone is obviously impossible, so the toilets are set 20 to 40 feet down, over the edge of the mesa.
Most of the people now live in the communities of Acomita and McCarty on the lower level of the reservation. You will also learn that the ownership of the homes atop the mesa are passed down along youngest daughters of the owners. But there are certainly strings attached. The youngest daughter must take care of her parents until they die before she has untrammeled use of hte property. This form of Acoma old-age security has functioned well for perhaps a thousand years.
The walls of the Sky City kept invaders out for centuries. It was overrun by the Navajo, the Apache, the Comanche and the Spanish conquistadores, but the Acoma persisted after these various waves of conquest. The Sky City finally fell in l947 to Hollywood as the Acomas agreed to let the film capital make a movie set on top of Acoma, they even allowed a road to be built up to the top of the mesa to transport camera equipment. It's a short road, but it changed things forever for the Acomas.
The Acoma people are a very friendly people and they make beautiful pottery that is offered for sale atop the mesa. More pottery is for sale at the visitors center.
Acoma has several festivals celebrated on Acoma's high mesa during the year. Above all, when visiting the Sky City mesa respect their beliefs, for the Indians have been here much longer than most.
