Acoma Pueblo, NM

The only thing that is a bigger mystery than who will be voted out of Dancing With The Stars each week is the weather. Today was the really bad wind day that caused us to hold our departure over, yet it turned out to be the best weather day since leaving Dallas.

We visited the Acoma Pueblo, which is the oldest continually inhabited community in the country. It was established in 1158. Can you believe that? Actually, they first settled a mesa nearby in 650. They relocated after a tragedy that left access to the top of the mesa impossible. While the majority of the villagers were on the valley floor tending crops, a large storm came through. Lightening destroyed the only path to the top of the mesa, stranding a woman and her granddaughter atop the mesa. Rescue was not possible, and they were faced with the choice of starving or leaping to their death. Sadly they elected to jump.

Original Acoma mesa.

The Acoma people tightly control access to the community atop the mesa. Tourists are bused from the Visitor Center and given a guided tour of the village. The history is amazing, and it was great to hear it from a young full-blooded Acoma.

When construction started in the twelfth century the average height of an Acoma adult was 4"6".

View of original mesa from current pueblo village.

Original access to mesa top. Road was built in 1920's.

There was a considerable period in which the Acoma were enslaved by the Spanish. That ended in 1680 by revolt of all Pueblo Indians in the region that drove all Spanish from the area.  The continuing legacy of that period is 90% of the Acoma practice Catholicism as well as the ancestral religion. Today a small number of Acoma tribal leaders live fulltime on the mesa, and the remainder of the homes remain as second homes for the female descendants of the original inhabitants. The homes have no water, plumbing, bathrooms, etc. The only electricity would be from a small generator, but most go without. Primarily the homes are used when families return to the mesa for significant religious ceremonies. The remainder of the year they live in nearby towns.

Later in the afternoon we visited Petroglyph National Monument. The petroglyphs are on volcanic rocks on a escarpment created thousands of years ago when lava flows  miraculously stopped just short of a subdivision.

Tomorrow’s plan is Sante Fe.