Chapter I: Preface

The attempt is here made to bring together, and put into a form for the general reader, the story of that pueblo of the Keres people known as Ácoma, so far as yet discovered in the records of Spanish diarists and in those of more recent historical writers. It was one of the places visited by the first white explorers of the region we know to-day as New Mexico. From the very outset Ácoma excited the curiosity and even the fear of the pioneers because of the strangeness of its position and the reputation of its inhabitants for ferocity.

The early Spaniards made no prolonged stay there, but to “the marvellous Crag” there are constant brief allusions from the time of Coronado’s chronicler in 1540 onward to that of its conversion to Christianity after 1629.

Nor are there more vivid and thrilling tales told of any Southwestern pueblo people than can be veraciously set forth of Ácoma, the City in the Sky, built more than 6500 feet above sea-level.

The student of aboriginal legends and customs, after reading the many monographs that have been printed about other Pueblo Indians, notably the Hopi and Zuñi, is inclined at first to think himself fortunate to find a field so little worked as Ácoma. Even Cochití and Laguna have opened windows of understanding to the white investigator. One soon finds that Ácoma has not been neglected, but that every one attempting to go beyond the most superficial glance arrives at a wall as blank of entrance as the ancient lower story of its own fortress dwellings. The ladders of admission to its hatchways hardly give the stranger more than uncertain glimpses here and there within the obscure interior, and these are so fragmentary and elusive, often contradictory, that he can affirm little about their ritual life—which is the core of tribal existence. Of all Indians the Ácomas seem most resentful of intrusive questioning and most unwilling to impart, even for purposes of record, any real knowledge of themselves. Certain clans and rituals are already extinct. It has, however, seemed worth while, before the old life has become something less than a memory, overspun by all the vagueness of tradition, to bring together into one small volume the substance of everything already written about Ácoma. Such historical data as have come to light are followed by a few legends and folk-tales—fairy tales perchance some of them are—and then by the researches of scholars like Bandelier, Fewkes, Parsons and Hodge.

It may be thought that the legitimate bounds of the subject as given in the title have been too far exceeded. In explanation it is but fair to state that since Ácoma is still well-nigh impenetrable to any foreigner, the only way to apprehend its mental and spiritual development is to use inferentially whatever seems permissible from related tribes. In justification of this method I am happily supported by no less an authority than the distinguished anthropologist, Dr. Kroeber, who writes: “That the pueblo civilization was substantially the same in every town has always been assumed; it begins to be evident that a great part of it has been borrowed back and forth in the most outright and traceable manner. The history of the cults and institutions of any one of these people simply cannot be understood without a knowledge of the others. The problem in its very nature is a comparative one, and until the pueblo languages are more thoroughly understood there is no solution.”

Ácoma belongs to the most numerous of the six linguistic groups of the Pueblo Indians, called the Keresan (Queresan), and shares with Laguna a dialect differing somewhat from the rest of that “Nation.” Standing aloof as these two do from the other Keresan villages, they nevertheless own kinship with Sía, Santa Ana, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, and Cochití, who all claim the famous Rito de los Frijoles for their ancestral home. The researches of the best scholars find in the Ácoma ritual considerable affiliation with the Zuñi, and rather less with that of the Tusayán tribes of Arizona.

The writer makes no claim to be more than a compiler, but she has endeavored not to include in the following pages the customs and beliefs of any group of Indians which the scholars have not shown to be more or less interwoven with those of Ácoma. In assembling these fugitive accounts of the Sky City from diaries and archaeological notes, as well as from appreciations of sympathetic visitors, she has hoped to lay a foundation for some scholar of the future to build upon. The writer has followed in the footsteps of genuine research, and she desires to offer these pages to be used, like the toe and finger holes of the mesa, chiefly as a guide to others to go further and to do the real work that must be done soon if it is not to be forever lost.

The opportunity to collect and study these materials in the Bancroft Research Library at Berkeley has been most cordially given to the writer by Professor Herbert E. Bolton of the University of California. My thanks are due also to Dr. Leslie Spier for much helpful suggestion and criticism on the chapters dealing with the anthropology and native customs of the Southwest. To Professor Bolton, the master-mind, whose scholarship and insight are joined to a rare power of kindling in others something of his own enthusiasm for historical research, and of setting before them ideals of work which have broadened and deepened the world’s knowledge of early American history, I wish to express my deep gratitude for his never-failing encouragement and guidance.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY

I. Mesa Land 3

II. The Citadel of Ácoma 14

HISTORY

III. First Expeditions from New Spain 51

IV. The Battle in the Sky City 69

V. Ácoma Rebuilt 88

VI. Father Ramírez at Ácoma 97

VII. Ácoma in the Pueblo Revolt 106

VIII. The Wonder-Working San José 127

IX. Ácoma and the Federal Government 134

LEGENDS AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

X. Origins and Migrations 147

XI. The Tradition of Katzímo and Ácoma 166

XII. The Social Organization 176

XIII. Folk-Tales of Ácoma 194

XIV. Keresan Myths 209

XV. Religious Beliefs 225

XVI. Ceremonials and Rituals 245

XVII. Indian Games 262

XVIII. Pottery 272

Appendix 289

Bibliography 301

Index 311

ILLUSTRATIONS

All the illustrations but two are from photographs not hitherto published. For the frontispiece, I am indebted to the well-known photographer of Indian life, Mr. Edward S. Curtis. For the difficult trail up Katzímo, to the courtesy of the Century Company of New York.

All the others were taken for this book by Professor Herbert E. Bolton of the University of California, or were given him for my use by the Reverend St. John O’Sullivan of San Juan Capistrano, California. To these gentlemen the author extends her thanks for making the text more vivid. The cover design is from a water-color done by Mr. Kenneth M. Chapman of the Art Museum of Santa Fé, from an ancient jar of Ácoma potters, for which the writer feels especial gratitude.

ÁCOMA MAIDENS AT THE SPRING _Frontispiece_

MESA-LAND 4

THE CARSON MONUMENT 6

WALPI IS UNIQUE. IT MUST BE PRESERVED 10

KATZÍMO, OR THE ENCHANTED MESA 16

THE SAND-RAMP, OR “NEW TRAIL” 18

ÁCOMA, NORTH ROW 20

ÁCOMA, MIDDLE ROW 20

ÁCOMA MAN IN EVERYDAY DRESS 24

ÁCOMA WOMAN ON HER HOUSE TERRACE 24

THE LADDER-TRAIL 28

ÁCOMA “DOORWAYS” 30

THE TWO UPPER STOREYS, ÁCOMA 30

GENERAL VIEW OF ÁCOMA PUEBLO 34

THE CHURCH, ÁCOMA 38

A KISI IN A RIO GRANDE PUEBLO 40

THE LONG LINE OF ÁCOMA, TWO MILES AWAY 44

MAP OF NEW MEXICO IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 52

HÁWIKUH TO-DAY. FIRST OF THE SEVEN CITIES OF CÍBOLA 56

THE RUINED CHURCH OF HÁWIKUH 56

THE STAIRCASE TRAIL AND THE CHURCH 60

TO-YA-LA-NE 66

MODERN ZUÑI 66

FACSIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF VILLAGRÁ’S RHYMED HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO 70

THE FORTRESS HOUSE OF ÁCOMA 78

ÁCOMA, LOOKING NORTHWARD 88

EL MORRO, OR INSCRIPTION ROCK 118

INSCRIPTION OF DE VARGAS ON EL MORRO 118

A NAVAJO HOGAN 136

THE PUEBLO OVEN 140

ON THE OLD TRAIL TO ZUÑI 160

THE CLIFFS OF ÁCOMA; KATZÍMO IN THE DISTANCE 166

ASCENT OF THE GREAT CLEFT OF KATZÍMO, 1897 172

THE ILLIMITABLE DESERT 176

THE INHERITED DANCE COSTUME 250

ÁCOMA ON FEAST-DAY OF ST. STEPHEN, SEPTEMBER 2 256

PROCESSION OF THE DANCERS, ÁCOMA 260

ÁCOMA GIRL RETURNING FROM THE RESERVOIR 272

THE GUARDIAN CLIFFS OF ÁCOMA 284

MAP FROM NORDENSKIÖLD’S CLIFF-DWELLERS OF THE MESA VERDE (_End-papers_)

ÁCOMA, THE SKY CITY