Acoma Sky City

The original pueblo of the Acoma people is perched 375 feet up on the top of a mesa. I had heard about it when we came this way in 2021 and wanted to tour, but it was closed because of the pandemic. So this year we planned to visit.

The morning of the day we planned to visit was a bit cold! I called to see if they’d be giving tours in the afternoon when it was supposed to warm up and be sunny, but could only get a message. The message said they would be closed February 17, and open again on the 18th. Their website said tours were offered every hour on the half hour.

We decided to arrive at about one for the 1:30 tour. The valley is stunningly beautiful, with huge rock formations and their small mesa. You can just pick out the mesa with adobe houses on top to the left side of the photo.

The approach was spectacular. Unfortunately, when we got to the Sky City Cultural Center and Ha’aku Museum we found the next tour wasn’t until 2:30. Oh well, we’d wait. But when we got on the bus to go up to the mesa they told us this was a condensed tour because they had a cultural activity that evening.

The bus took us up and we got out in an open area, though this wasn’t their main plaza. The road up was built by a film company in the 1970’s. Before that everything had to be brought up by hand or by mule.

There still is no water or electricity in the village.

There are, however, beautiful views. We didn’t get to go to any lookouts on the side of the mesa with the rock formations, I guess the condensed tour didn’t have time for those.

The Acoma people first settled this mesa in about 1100 and people have been living here ever since. Now there are only 5 caretakers that stay, those rotate every year. The rest of the tribe comes up for special celebrations. Along with a Hopi town in Arizona, this is the oldest continuously inhabited village in America.

This is a matrilineal tribe. Houses are passed from the mother to the youngest daughter.

The men are tasked with their upkeep.

If there is no daughter, niece or granddaughter to inherit the tribe assigns the house to a family that needs one. This is true for all the houses, fields and livestock off the mesa, also.

The main focus of our tour was the San Esteban del Rey Mission. This was built as a gesture of “peace” under Friar Juan Ramirez starting in 1629.

The men of the people were forced to bring all of the building materials, including huge trees for the roof beams, up to the mesa. These trees were brought from 30 miles away. Our young tour guide told us the four carved trees incorporated into the altar had to be carried without ever touching the ground. If one tree touched the ground all four had to be abandoned and four new ones brought. The mission was finally completed in 1640.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but the walls were painted incorporating Acoma images, including representations of the sun, moon, stars, rain and corn. Eventually the Acoma took possession of the mission. Now it is only used in celebrations in September and on Christmas. The tribe invites a priest to come, since this isn’t part of the Dioceses.

Their religion still centers in kivas, the buildings with the white ladders for entry. These kivas are square, not round, because after the Spanish forced the men to destroy their round kivas they built them again disguised as houses.

Our guide introduced this as the Acoma National Forest. It is the lone tree on the mesa, a cottonwood planted in the 1970’s. The rock lined depression behind it is one of three cisterns on the mesa. These used to supply drinking water, but after the Spanish allowed their horses to drink from them they were contaminated with algae and could no longer be used.

There is no love lost for the Spanish. Someone asked the guide about names in the cemetery in front of the mission (also off limits for photographs). She explained that as the Spanish recorded names they would use a Spanish equivalent for the names, as they couldn’t pronounce them. She has a Acoma name she was given at birth, but it is only used for ceremonies “and when my mom is really mad at me”.