Acoma, some twenty miles west of Laguna, is, a large and very interesting pueblo. It rests on the summit of a flat mesa, whose perpendicular cliffs rise to a height of from 300 to 400 feet above the valley. The houses here are three stories high, built on the usual principle, each successive story being smaller than that on which it rests. Ladders are also used to reach the ledges. The flat top of the mesa includes about fifty acres of land; it is reached by a steep winding path cut in the rock, and so placed as to be easily defended. It is a very wealthy pueblo; the Indians own abundance of cattle, and grow large quantities of corn, peaches, pumpkins, and other produce.
The houses of San Domingo, Sandia, and others, although only built of one story, have no doors or windows on the outside, but are entered by ladders from the roof.
The ancient pueblo of Toas consists of one compact fortress, formed of terraces seven stories high, and built on a rock overlooking the stream. So strong was it as a place of defence, that in 1847, when the Mexicans of the village of Toas could no longer defend themselves against the Americans, they betook themselves to the Indian pueblo a few miles distant, and there sustained a protracted siege, yielding at last only when provisions had utterly failed. This pueblo, moreover, was never taken by the Spaniards, although it was many times attacked.
Venegas, Coronado, and, in fact, all the early Spanish explorers and writers upon New Mexico describe numerous seven-storied fortresses now no more, and give many instances of the great bravery shown by the Indians in their defence. Those I have mentioned, however, with the exception of Zuni and the seven Moqui pueblos, are the only native fortresses which now remain inhabited.
The most interesting of all the pueblos is undoubtedly Zuni. It is built on a rising ground, affording an extensive view of the surrounding country; and six terraces at least can be counted one above the other. Ladders planted against the wall give access to the different terraces upon which the doors of the apartments open.
In the valley through which the Zuni River (a tributary of the Colorado Chiquito) flows are to be seen orchards (chiefly of peach-trees), vineyards, fine corn-plots, and vegetable-gardens producing onions, beans, melons, chili Colorado (red pepper), pumpkins, &c. Formerly cotton was cultivated, probably by Indians further south; but now they obtain what stuffs they require from the Mexicans in exchange for farm produce. They do not raise their crops by irrigation, but depend entirely upon the rainfall; hence all their traditions relate more or less to the production of water.
Not far from the town is a sacred spring, about 8 feet in diameter, walled round with stones, of which neither cattle nor man may drink. The animals sacred to water (frogs, tortoises, and snakes) alone must enter the pool. Once a year the cacique and his attendants perform certain religious rites at the spring : it is thoroughly cleared out; water-pots are brought as an offering to the spirit of Montezuma, and are placed bottom upwards on the top of the wall of stones. Many of these have been removed; but some still remain, while the ground around is strewn with fragments of vases which have crumbled into decay from age.
Not far from the present pueblo is a lofty mesa, which rises about 1000 feet perpendicularly from the plain; upon this are many ruins of houses and a sacred altar, constituting all that remains of old Zuni.
The following tradition is related about this place: -- Long before the first appearance of the white man, a dreadful flood visited the land. Waters gushed forth from the earth, and huge waves rolled in from the west, drowning man and beast; even the wild Apaches and Coyotes did not escape. Then many of the people of Zuni rushed to the lofty mesa, but many more perished in the waters. Night came, and yet the waters rose higher and higher, until they reached the water-mark still distinctly visible high up on the cliff wall. The great Spirit was very wroth with his people, and must be appeased by a fitting sacrifice. So the son of the cacique and the most beautiful maiden in the tribe were bound and lowered down into the seething flood; then the waves abated, and the remnant of the people were saved. The young man and the maiden were transformed into two lofty pillars of stone, which rise from a natural battlement on one part of the summit. Time has worn these two pillars into four. They are still greatly venerated by the people of Zuni.
After building a town on the lofty mesa, they lived there for many years; but as it was far removed from their fertile bottomlands, and as no second flood visited their country, they returned to their present abode. When the Spaniards, however, made war against them, they fled for a second time to their ancient stronghold, and, according to their own account, made a fierce resistance, by fortifying the only two approaches by which the summit could be gained, and by hurling huge stones upon their assailants; the enemy, however, was victorious.
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adapted from A. W. Bell
"On the Native Races of New Mexico"
1869 (Journal of the Ethnological Society of London)
