Sky City

“Sky City,” or the Acoma Pueblo, is located on top of a 367’ high sandstone mesa at an elevation of 6,460’, so it’s easy to understand how it got its nickname. It is an hour drive, about 55 miles, west of Albuquerque, and an additional 15 miles south of Interstate 40 on Acoma Indian Reservation lands, nearly 500,000 acres of spectacular mesa and canyon country. Amazing rock formations and great natural beauty are just part of its uniqueness, so I especially wanted my son Grant to see it during his Christmas visit. We experienced that, and so much more.

I had attended the annual feast day celebration on September 2^nd honoring St. Esteban, patron saint of the pueblo and Spanish mission church built on top of the mesa. The two-and-three-story adobe buildings contain about 250-300 dwellings. The houses, plazas, and walkways have been used for more than eight hundred years, making Sky City one of the oldest continuously-inhabited communities in the United States. The isolation and location of the pueblo offered it great protection.

Historically, initial interactions recorded with Spanish explorers heading north were generally peaceful. Coronado’s expedition describes the pueblo in 1540 as "one of the strongest places we have seen." They "repented having gone up to the place," because the only access at the time was a set of almost vertical stairs cut into the rock face. It is believed Coronado's expedition was the first European contact with the Acoma. To this day, the old, original pueblo, Sky City, has no electricity, running water, or sewage disposal. Everything necessary for living must be brought to the top of the mesa. Fortunately, a road has replaced the original steep, rock-face stairs.

The relationship between the Spaniards and the Acoma declined by 1598 as the intensity of Spanish intentions to colonize the area and convert the Acoma increased. During the war that followed, most of the pueblo was burned, 600 people were killed and 500 prisoners of war were forced into slavery. The Spanish renamed the pueblos with the names of saints and started to construct churches at them. Survivors rebuilt their communities but were forced to pay taxes in crops, cotton and labor.

Bundled up in jackets, hats, scarves and gloves to ward off winter’s cold, Grant and I visited Sky City December 27^th. Traces of snow remained on the shady side of hills, creating white shadows for bushes. 2,000 limp, brown-paper bags, remnants of Christmas Eve luminarias, lined the access road to the pueblo. I was pleased to see that, unlike on feast day, the parking lot of the magnificent Sky City Cultural Center was almost empty. The beautiful 40,000-square-foot building, constructed in 2008, houses a museum, restaurant, gift shop, theater, and meeting rooms. Casino revenue has benefitted the Acoma in wonderful ways.

Tour buses to the mesa top were scheduled on the half hour. My previous feast-day visit was too crowded and busy for tours. Our tour guide’s father was a tribal elder. Those who take tribal leadership positions are required to live in Sky City for a year, so her family lives on the mesa. Currently ten families reside there. Her connection to her family, history, tradition and land made seeing the pueblo with her a deeply enriching experience. She emphasized the sacred nature of the church, its graveyard, the dances and the dancers in traditional dress, explaining why photography was prohibited in that part of the pueblo.

First, she took us into the San Esteban del Rey Mission Church. A transformation had taken place since my previous visit. It still featured dirt floors, plastered, white, adobe walls and a two-story high wood-beam viga and latilla ceiling. A twenty-foot-tall, decorated Christmas tree now adorned the altar platform. Folding chairs filled with Acoma families lined the side walls. Gold tinsel garland festooned the walls, connecting each of the six antlered deer heads with the next. Eight dancers in traditional dress moved with the rhythm of a drum. We stood in the back. The diminished light of late afternoon beneath an overcast winter sky dimly lit the room, creating the feeling of a cloak drawn close. I could feel the energy shift on my back, arms, neck. Anticipation, and something more, something numinous, permeated the atmosphere, causing me to turn around. Then I saw them, deer dancers, each covered completely with a pine branch mask from crown to neck and a six-foot span of antlers. In the dancer’s hands, two wooden sticks embellished with fur symbolized the animal’s two front legs. Clattering seashells wrapped around the dancers’ legs accompanied ritual chants. I could feel the wordless sacredness of the experience at the cellular level. Silently we left when the dance ended. Later, I would read, “Although the Pueblo Indians value their privacy, outsiders may view the highly religious deer dance ceremonies.” It was an indescribable gift.

Our guide continued to walk us around the pueblo, explaining what we were seeing while greeting potters and vendors personally. The Acoma were ordered to build the church between 1629 and 1641, moving 20,000 tons of adobe, straw, sandstone, and mud to the mesa for the church walls, in which she said some of her ancestors are entombed. Limited space on the mesa made the graveyard four layers deep. She pointed out snow-capped Mount Taylor on the horizon, over 40 miles away, from which Ponderosa pine ceiling beams for the church were carried by community members. At 6,000-square-feet, with an altar flanked by 60-foot-high wood pillars, hand carved in red and white designs representing Christian and Indigenous beliefs, the church is considered a cultural treasure by the Acoma, despite the slave labor used to build it. Acoma Pueblo was named the 28th National Trust Historic Site in 2007 and is the only Native American site in the nation. Both the Mission and the Pueblo are Registered National Historical Landmarks.

The Acoma embrace both Catholicism and their own religion since they find value in each. Round kivas, or sacred Pueblo ceremonial chambers, were destroyed by the Spanish in their forcible efforts to convert the Acoma to Christianity. They bombarded the kivas with cannon, burned them and filled them with sand. The Acoma replaced the destroyed kivas with square structures disguised as residences to avoid detection by the Spanish, continuing to practice their religion in secret.

New Mexico tourism plays a large role in the Acoma Pueblo’s economic growth and well being with more than 55,000 visitors a year. Twenty-five years ago, business enterprises were established to help sustain the economic development of the pueblo. The Acoma own not only the casino and the cultural center, but also a hotel, travel center, RV park and big game trophy hunting and communication businesses. You can enjoy photos and videos of the pueblo, their art, music and dance on their website:  http://sccc.acomaskycity.org  The Spiritual Adventuress would like to express her gratitude to the Acoma people for the generosity of their inexpressible gift. May they continue to thrive.