Acoma: A Landscape of Settlement
Dennis Playdon
The history of Acoma is the history of the settlement of its people.The making of place is completely tied to the people’s identity.The past and present are interconnected and exist in the land, as do the people’s ancestors.Time and place are not separated.
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Acoma village.The original village was built on top of the 100 meter high rocky mesa. Sand dunes surround the edges of the mesa. Water is stored in open rock cisterns.
The Acoma valley.The lands of the village and surroundings are under the supervision of the Field Chiefs.The old pathways within the sandstone cliffs are hidden.
The Acoma peoples’ 30 hectare village, together with its famed San Esteban del Rey Mission (1629), is located on top of a high sandstone mesa, approximately 100 kilometres from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The village is inhabited year-round by fewer than 50 of the approximately 3,000 people who occupy Acoma tribal lands. Most Acoma families maintain houses in the village, identifying their places in the old settlement through seasonal occupation. The site is a National Historic Monument and is owned by the Acoma people. The mission, unoccupied and used on feast days for traditional dances and Catholic masses, is also owned by the tribe. The topography of the region is characteristic of its ancient volcanic origins, approximately 2,000 metres above sea level. Its magnificent arid valleys, mesas and forested volcanoes are visual evidence of their geomorphic evolution. The ancient New Mexico sea beds are rich in crustacea. In an environment of little water (precipitation is approximately 25 centimetres per year), the landscape is clearly shaped by the former presence of oceans. The presence of basaltic lava beds on top of high mesas and also in low-lying areas (named el Malpais) is a continual reminder of the once dramatic shaping of the earth. The region receives most of its rain during a monsoon season (July). Its annual dust storms are so extensive that the sun is blocked by the turmoil. The water supply, once plentiful, according to the elders, has diminished to the extent that only dry farming is practiced. Livestock water is obtained from artesian wells. Within the six ecozones of New Mexico, Acoma lies in the piñonjuniper/ponderosa pine elevation. The region has an enormous natural diversity of plants and animals, mostly unaffected by “scientific” agriculture and urban growth. At Acoma and nearby Zuni, the use of native plants for food and medicine, still prevails, although not exclusively. Their uses in religious ceremonies are not discussed. Plants were used as fibre for clothing, cosmetic and food dyes and many of them continue today. Black paints for pottery are made from plants with high iron content and applied to the pot with a chewed Yucca plant leaf. All traditional activities of the people are accompanied by a rich heritage of stories passed from one generation to the next. The Keres language is not written, but spoken. The learning that takes place is from elder to youth, requiring special times of story telling and instruction. The tribe has a Kiva system that further instructs through medicine men and the elders of each Kiva. Acoma is a matrilineal society, and the houses are passed to the youngest daughter in the family. The men are traditionally farmers and builders.Acoma is famous throughout the world for its pottery. A clan system establishes ties within the tribe as another interconnective system within. Inside this complex social system the beliefs that bind the people are fundamental to all. Prehistoric evidence shows the earliest settlements from about 400 A.D. in the region of Acoma. Migrations to the region are generally attrib-
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The original seventeenth century houses were constructed with stone and adobe brick. With the introduction of hard cement based products, the annual mudding has fallen away, leading to the deterioration of the original fabric.
The great mesa to the east is sacred land for the Acoma people.The “Enchanted Mesa” or K’atzim means “a space all by itself” or “a place left alone” or “a place left by our ancestors”.
uted to four groups of people who settled in the lower elevations of the land, near water courses. The most recent migration occurred in about 1300 A.D. during the great drought that forced people from the Mesa Verde area. The wanderings of people in search of their place are described through the Acoma origin myth and the oral histories of today’s people. Acoma oral history tells of the Acoma ancestors in search of Hak’u, a spiritual homeland prepared for their eternal settlement. Literally translated, Ha’ku, Acu, Acuo and Ako all equally applicable, mean “a place always prepared”. The great mesa to the east, the “Enchanted Mesa” or K’atzim means “a space all by itself ” or “a place left alone” or “a place left by our ancestors”. Significant in this term is the implication that K’atzim was the first place of settlement at Acoma, although there is no archaeological evidence of this at present. Old Acoma lies almost due south of the sacred volcano, Kawestima (Mount Taylor) and is visible from the village. Spanish colonization began in 1595 with the formal appropriation of the territory by Juan de Oñate. In a single act of vengeance over the death in Acoma of his nephew Juan de Zaldivar and soldiers in 1598, Oñate dispatched a force led by Zaldivar’s brother. A canon was used to raze the village, house by house. The rebuilding of the village, circa 1640, was guided by Fray Juan Ramirez of Oaxaca. The new mission, begun in 1629, was built over the southern-most part of the original village. The buried archeology can occasionally be seen after heavy rains and wind. Although the exact location of the razed village has not been determined, archaeology in the south of the village has shown rows of stepped houses, some of which appear to be beneath the 17th century mission. The fields below are still dry farmed with crops of corn, beans and squash. Water cisterns, located on top of the mesa, are the only source of water. There is no electrical power. Thus, the 17th century village is still present today. There is much evidence to show that adobe and sandstone were used almost exclusively in building before contact with the Europeans. Indeed, not far south in Casas Grandes, Mexico, the ancient settlement of Paquime demonstrates this fact. Chaco and Mesa Verde to the north, Canyon de Chelly in the west, to name a few, demonstrate similar approaches to dwelling. Pueblo settlements almost invariably show an orthogonal architecture that belongs to those ancient traditions. At Acoma the tradition is fundamentally the same with more emphasis in its 17th century village on the use of adobe. The layout follows a similar pattern to what we know of the original. Rows of stepped houses, facing slightly east of south are immensely successful demonstrations of passive solar efficiency. The lands of Acoma represent one of the few environments in the United States that retains its inseparable ties between the people and the land. All places in the Acoma landscape are identified by their significance to cultural memory. All attributes of the land are sacred to the people, having an
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Example of a Deer Dancer. All Pueblo Indian tribes retain traditional religious practices. Some tribes, including Acoma, do not permit the photographing of these dances.
“The religion of the people revolves around the land and our harmony with the universe and our Creator. The land is a living being, in and of itself. The land and the people are inseparable: they are one and the same ...” “... This land and the people have always been part of a sacred cycle of struggle and harmony. This is the meaning of ‘amuu han’u, aamuu haatsi’: it includes all people. It means we are responsible for the values we hold precious.” (C. Maurus Chino)
existence that is not separate from its inhabitants. Those who violate this condition are censored and required to pay a penalty. For the Acoma people, their identity symbolizes the cultural landscape, and its preservation is fundamental to their existence. The Keres language is rapidly being lost, and with it, a connection to the land that could ultimately sever the intimate ties that the people have with their culture. Because of this, the tribe has a Language Retention Program that teaches children Keres. This inspired program connects the children with their land through naming and identifying the landscape. The tribe recognizes the importance of preserving its culture as a working landscape. Over the past six years, since the establishment of the Acoma Pueblo Historic Preservation Office, a far-reaching ambition has been to re-establish the interdependence of the Keres language with its cultural landscape. Much effort has been directed towards the preservation of the mission, San Esteban del Rey and its companion building, the Meeting House. Through these efforts, many forms of traditional building were re-invigorated. Much has been learned about the presence of the ancestors who built the church, and whose ancient village is covered by the church. Young people have trained in methods of building handed down by centuries of tradition. In this process, knowledge of the landscape as imparted by the tribe’s elders became critical in decisions about the mining of materials and their application. The young preservers became intimate with the stories of the places of the land and their innate meanings. The Preservation Office assembled an advisory council of elders who would confer with the Tribal Council and tribal government. The locations of materials, pigment, clays, timbers and so on, were told as in stories by these elders and the Field Chiefs, within whose domain lies the old village. The mission’s traditional caretaker, the gaugashti, also the chief medicine man, became central to the process. The recent efforts of building were first and foremost to reawaken cultural traditions that were falling away. The restoration of the buildings, while the main outcome of the process, was almost a by-product. The central focus was to re-instill the working relationship of the people to their building traditions and land. As in all traditional communities, the increasing severance of language, place and tradition is eroding the interdependence of all three, resulting in a great loss to the Acoma cultural landscape. The Acoma people recognize this problem: the loss of the traditional language is a loss of cultural cohesiveness; the loss of traditional ways of using materials for dwelling will sever the physical connection between the people and the land. Once lost, these people/place connections are seldom restored. The fragility of the village itself poses a real and imminent possibility of a lost connection with its land. The preservation of such environments may be critical to human survival. The values preserved by these cultures represent enduring, lasting life lessons for the modern world.
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