Sky City: The Pueblo Indians of the White Rock

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To the hundreds of visitors who flock there each season to marvel at its well-preserved models of ancient architecture, it's known as Sky City.

To the traditional people who've lived atop the great Rock of Acuco since 10,000 B.C. it's a holy land and a place of inspiration.

It's the oldest inhabited city in the United States. It's also a prime testimonial of Native endurance and civilization's will to encroach on Aboriginal culture.

The Acoma Pueblo Village, which sits 115 metres on top of the great sandstone mesa that juts from the desert plains of the Rio Grande in west-central New Mexico, is as mysterious as its ancient history which is filled with myths and misery, and which is now suffering from modern problems.

But Sky City remains more than an attraction for curiosity-seekers and a place for the Pueblo Indians to share their art work with the world.

It is, and always will be, a place of deep reverence for the people who live there.

I was given a special tour of Sky City, and given a special understanding of how the Acoma perceive their lives after 500 years of conformity. From the beginning, I know it would be a journey of a lifetime.

My guide, Gilbert Ortiz, a self-proclaimed Native radical, told me before we embarked on our trip from the small Acoma museum located at the base of the Sky City mesa, that there's more to the Acoma cliff-dwellers than their surreal ancient lifestyle depicts.

He was right.

The spiraling stone stairwell, hidden deep inside the mesa crevice, lead me into a world torn between ancient traditions and contemporary convenience. I found a world isolated from the madness of mainstream living but willing to display its visual treasures to the public.

It was a world where visitors from the outside were welcomed, but they are only permitted to know what the Pueblo Indians would allow them to know.

"It's not our nature to be revealing," Ortiz said as we emerged from the shadowy pathway leading to the mesa summit.

"This is our Jerusalem. It's sacred ground here," he said. "So naturally, there's a secretive attitude among the people who live here."

"I'm open-minded, however," Ortiz said as he looked out across the dusty plains pointing to unmarked boundaries that now separate the desert Indians from land their forefathers pioneered before the white man came.

"After all this time of conquest, the Pueblo are just beginning to make headway with the government in convincing them this is our land. I'm determined to push hard for change."

The desert, rich in corn and cotton producing soil, and perfect for grazing sheep and cattle, was once shared undisputed by the nineteen Pueblo tribes scattered throughout the Rio Grande peninsula.

The desert land is now divided by government-imposed boundaries that the Pueblo are trying to wear away.

Ortiz said the Acoma people are rightfully entitled to one-and-a-half million acres of desert land but a 1924 government survey only allocated them 95,000 acres.

"It was a false survey," he charged. "We're losing our rightful claims."

And now, as the federal government and local ranchers are looking to buy up desert land, the Acoma are feeling the brunt of the white man's repression once more.

There are about 50 families still living in the adobe and sandstone village of Sky City, one of the highest peaks in the area. Most of the Acoma inhabitants also own homes in a neighboring town 30 kilometers away. But Ortiz said the Acoma people, more than 2,700 strong, continue to flock back to their traditional roots because they fear they'll lose their culture.

"This is a special place for them. It's the center of their lives," he said. "If this place wasn't here for them, it would be very hard to identify themselves as Acoma. It's a feeling the white man just don't understand."

There was no one on the streets except two Acoma merchants selling jewelry to the few out-of-town visitors who strayed away from the small tour group being escorted by and Acoma uide. "That's usually not allowed," Ortiz said. "But if they don't disturb anything, no one will object."

Some Acoma sell their pottery and other handiwork to visitors outside the one and two-storey clay bungalows. There are tours of the village and, at times, ceremonial dances are held for the public to mark special days in Pueblo history.

But as we walked along the narrow, uneven dirt streets of Acoma, Ortiz explained how the Pueblo have a distrust of civilization that has evolved from the time the Acoma were conquered by the Spanish in 1599, and they are only casually amicable to visitors intrigued by their culture.

But Ortiz, who has sat on committees and lobby groups established to preserve Native heritage throughout the world, said the Acoma are not yet committed to opening up their arms entirely to the outside until the U.S. recognizes their rightful claims.

He rests blame for the resentment on the confusion over land grants first set up by the Spanish after the Acoma were conquered.

Since that time, the Acoma have abided by the laws of two more governments, the Mexican and United States. Ortiz said the U.S. is refusing to negotiate and agreeable purchase for land it needs and the Acoma are growing wary of haggling over land that was officially allocated to them hundreds of years earlier.

And, as Ortiz would explain it, "there's no longer a wand and need for colonial dependency."

"The Acoma generally don't like to talk about the horrible past--how their land and then their dignity were taken from them," he said. "But now the traditional Pueblo are working on controlling their own sovereignty."

As we ventured deeper into the inner streets of Sky City, Ortiz told me how the New Mexico Pueblo are now pushing for control of their lands and lifestyles but their traditions are making it difficult to cope with an "ever-changing" society that has more to offer than what their ancient ancestors had to live with.

Many of the Acoma Pueblo living in Sky City ar seeking government funding to remodel and renovate the small village, but the federal Bureau of Indian affairs is reluctant to permit too much change because Sky City is an official historical site.

"Progression is our way. We can no longer permit a government body to control our way of life and keep us from doing what is best for generations yet to come," he said.

There is no electricity or running water in Acoma, and waste disposal is becoming a major problem to its residents. Oritz said the Sky City population fluctuates but is steadily increasing because more and more Pueblo are striving to retain and maintain the town's existence.

He noted many of the Pueblo have made headway in their quest to progress by renovating their homes with sandstone instead of abode, which is less durable.

The next, and most complicated step in possessing land and sovereignty rights may be through the federal court system, he suggested.

"But slowly we are reverting back to our ways," he said.

Reverting back to their ancient methods of survival is the only way they can progress like they were meant too, he said, and "not by conforming to the ways of three different governments."

The Acoma remain tillers of soil like their forefathers, harvesting crops of corn, beans, squash and cotton planted on the mesa shoulders.

No one agrees on he exact age of the Acoma or where they originated. But according to Ortiz, legend describes the "Enchanted Mesa" as their first home.

The nearby "Enchanted Mesa" is a mountainous rock structure with virtually no pathway to the top.

The Pueblo call it Katzimo, a fierce storm washed away the only access to the village while all the people were away gathering crops. Two old women and a male caretaker, the only Acoma left behind in the village, were trapped with no escape.

Their wails and cries for help were heard throughout several days and nights as the Acoma members tried in vain to find a new path to the top.

When their efforts to save their mmbers and secure their homes failed, they moved to a mesa some three kilometers to the west and established a new village.

The Acoma, who are descendants of the Hopi Indians from Arizona, resumed their lives and traditions but then faced additional problems when Spanish explorer Francisco Vazquez de Corodano and his conquistadors "discovered" the meek cliff-dwellers in 1540.

The first attempt to colonize the Acoma in 1599 resulted in the deaths of 600 Indians and 600 more taken prisoner. The Spanish assault on Sky City lasted three days. Although the Pueblo maintained fierce resistance at first, the yeas of government suppression and conformity were about to begin.

According to Ortiz, the Acoma--a traditionally spiritual people--felt desecrated by the defeat and have never been able to overcome their inherent hostilities for the white man and his government.

Soon after the Acoma succumbed to control by the Spaniards, they had to contend with a new form of suppression that added to their resentment for society.

Religion, which had played an intricate part of the survival of the Pueblo Indian for a thousand years, was changed dramatically with the introduction of Catholicism in the early 1600s.

In this period of transition, the Acoma were enslaved to labor by both the Crown and the Church.

When we walked through the Acoma mission, built during the reign of King Charles V, Ortiz told of the religious tyranny that consumed the Acoma under Spanish dominance and how Spanish beliefs were ingrained in the Acoma. Because of the cultural amalgamation, the Acoma are today devout Catholics and are predominantly of Spanish and Indian heritage.

Picture-taking is not permitted inside the mission, whose 18-metre high walls represent hundreds of years of religious assent. But the paintings of Saints and religious minions that hand there tell a story of their Catholic progression from the time the Acoma were indentured by the Church and forced to build the cathedral in the h