King of the Road - June 2011
City on a Hill
Embrace Acoma Pueblo's enduring spirit
Story and Photography by
Lesley S. King
I stand on a hill overlooking a wide green valley, crowned on the horizon by a mesa-top city that shines golden in the morning sun. Acoma. The pueblo’s home is also a legendary fortress. In the Acoma language, Keresan, the pueblo is called Haak’u, “the place prepared.” Today I will explore it. Little do I know that my adventure will take me not only into the extraordinary lives of people who live much as their ancestors did a millennium ago, but also into the most vulnerable parts of my self.
I begin my exploration at the 40,000-square-foot Sky City Cultural Center, 65 miles west of Albuquerque off I-40. The building was opened in 2005, and its architecture unites stacked sandstone and sculpted adobe; corn plants greet me as I approach the door. Inside, at the Haak’u Museum, I find exhibits of pottery and history and learn that Acoma, a National Historic Landmark, dates to approximately 1150 a.d., and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the United States.
With a small group of travelers, I ride a bus 370 feet along a steep a road carved into the sheer sandstone cliff to the mesa top, where we disembark. Our Acoma guide, Kevin Vallo, leads us on a ¾-mile, 90-minute walk through narrow, dirt streets that end in spectacular views of distant buttes and mountains, and of course the enormous blue sky, which earned the community its nickname: Sky City. We pass depressions naturally occurring in the rock—functioning as catchments for collecting rainwater, and still used by the 13 families who live here year-round. The rest of the approximately 4,800 tribal members reside in villages on the nearly 700-square-mile reservation, many coming to stay here during ceremonies and in summer.
We pass a windowpane made from gypsum, which is opaque but lets in light, and along our walk see more homes built of rock and adobe with mortar of mud and straw. Among the 300 structures here, such traditional materials are giving way to more modern glass and concrete block, Kevin explains. However, families still live atop the butte without running water or electricity, though most use propane to power stoves and refrigerators.
IF YOU GO: WHAT TO SEE & DO Robert Patricio WHERE TO DINE Y’aak’a Café WHERE TO STAY Sky City Hotel & Casino |
As we wander, I contemplate these people, who do without modern conveniences to live in a stunning setting steeped in tradition. We visit a potter whose vessels bear symbols of Acoman cosmology: a checkered pattern that indicates corn, thin lines for rain, the color green that indicates vegetation, orange for the sun. “We pray for the rain, earth, and plants,” potter Carolyn Concho explains to me at the museum. “So a lot of the world goes into a pot.” I lift one in my hand, but it feels so light and fragile that, remembering how clumsy I can be, I set it back on the table. For seconds, it totters perilously.
We come to San Estéban del Rey Mission, a towering, 6,000-square-foot structure with thick earth-and-stone walls and twin bell towers, completed in 1640. Kevin explains that while the Acomans were forced to build this Roman Catholic sanctuary, they made sure their own spiritual traditions were represented by subtle symbols throughout the building: pillars painted red; murals depicting rainbows, corn, and parrots; and a door that opens to the east. Again, I’m struck by the strength of the Acomans’ traditions, as they continued their own spiritual practice throughout their long subjugation by the Spaniards.
I leave the tour group to meet Robert Patricio, a talented young potter who won three awards at the 2010 Santa Fe Indian Market, including Best of Class for pottery. We meet at his family’s home on the mesa, where I fire up my camera to capture his creative process for the monthly video I post on www.nmmagazine.com. With adept fingers, Robert kneads the creamy brown clay, coils it into a pot, and smooths the slender walls. Then he brings out a fired pot to demonstrate how he paints designs, such as swirls and kiva steps, derived from ancient Acoma vessels.
Toward the end of the filming, I reach to move an air-drying pot by taking hold of its rim. It collapses in my hand—I had no idea an unfired pot was so brittle. Stunned by my clumsiness, I step back as Robert’s face drains of color. We stare at what’s left of a work that took him days to complete—
now destroyed.
“It’s OK,” he says forlornly as we walk to the edge of the mesa, where he points to stairs chiseled into the stone cliff face, once the only passage between the mesa top and the land below. Modern-day visitors like me can choose to descend the stairs and walk back to the Cultural Center or ride the bus. I’ve chosen the former. I apologize again, say goodbye, and, on shaking feet, make my way down. Back at the Cultural Center, in the Y’aak’a Café, I order lunch. I’d looked forward to this moment, gazing up at the mesa while relishing traditional Acoma food. But the red-chile posole, lamb sandwich, and horno-roasted corn sit uneaten before me.
I know this feeling—I had it often as a child, when my family upbraided me for my klutziness. I shattered dinner plates, dented ranch trucks, broke my own bones. As an adult I’ve learned to be more graceful, but I can still be paralyzed by an error in judgment or in my writing. My responses to such mistakes tend to be extreme. They remind me how terribly flawed I am—how completely unlovable.
I look up to the mesa top and remember what I read on a plaque there this morning: “Legend describes Acoma as a place that always was.” I sit back and realize that though the pot—symbolizing much hard work—is broken, Robert himself is fine, as am I. Thousands of pots that have served these people over thousands of years and are now only handfuls of sherds, and likely thousands more will be. I resolve to pay Robert the hundreds of dollars his pot would have sold for when finished. Most of all, I realize I can forgive myself—not only for this mistake, but for all of them—because, like the Acomans, I know I am far more than anything material.
With a steadier hand, I eat a spoonful of posole. It tastes delicious.
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