Acoma Feast Days

On Sunday Feb 5^th ( these posts are about a week behind but it is mighty hard to keep up with the amount of driving we have been doing) we drove to Acoma, also known as Sky City. Acoma is one of the most famous Tewa Pueblos and has been continuously inhabited for over 850 years.

Web Photo of Acoma Plaza 

“Acoma Pueblo is built atop a sheer-walled, 367-foot sandstone bluff in a valley studded with sacred, towering monoliths. Since 1150 A.D., Acoma Pueblo has earned the reputation as the oldest continuously inhabited community in North America.  The mesa-top settlement is known worldwide for its unique art and rich culture.

A federally recognized Indian Tribe, Acoma Pueblo has a land base covering 431,664 acres and is home to 4,800 tribal members with more than 250 dwellings, none of which have electricity, sewer, or water. In 1629, construction began on the massive San Esteban del Rey Mission, a Catholic mission.  Both the Mission and the Pueblo are Registered National Historical Landmarks.”

http://sccc.acomaskycity.org/history

Web Photo of  paved road to the mesa top

 I visited Acoma on a cross country trip with my family when I was ten years old and was struck by the desperate poverty, the isolation of the village atop a mesa with only a muddy dirt road for access, and a story we heard about the nearby Enchanted mesa, said to be the original home of the Acoma Pueblo people until the only route to the top was washed away leaving a few people trapped. A giant Thunderbird swooped down and rescued the last survivers flying them to the valley floor. My ten year old mind was blown and I never forgot it.

The Enchanted Mesa (Taken with my I Phone . . .pretty nice little camera) 

Well today the nearby Enchanted mesa remains as mysterious as ever but the village of Acoma has been transformed by the wealth generated by the nearby “Sky City” Casino. It is still a very special and sacred place for the Pueblo people but the village is now accessed by a paved road with vans full of tourists visiting almost daily.

Fortunately for us we were visiting in the winter during their annual feast day weekend so the visitor center was closed and in fact we were pretty much the only pahaanas in attendance.  The central plaza on top of the mesa was full of dancers and well wishers. Part of the feast day festivities includes members of the community lining up with basics of food and treats that are thrown into the waiting observers. We were encouraged to participate and to catch what we could for good luck.

There were multiple groups of Tewa buffalo dancers including one group that were dressed as white buffalo. (The next sentence is borrowed from a previous post. . . . I can do that. . . . its my blog, haha) The Buffalo dance occurs in the winter and is performed throughout the Rio Grand Basin. Early inhabitants used to make long treks to the great plains to hunt buffalo. The dance has many meanings and the power of the buffalo is often thought to cure the sick. According to Tom Bahti, author of  Southwestern Indian Ceremonials “The Buffalo are thought to bring the snow which is so necessary for spring planting. . . . A Buffalo headdress touched to a patient after a dance is thought to have curative powers.” In fact we saw observers reach out and touch the dancers as they left the plaza.


These great quote sums up some of the questions we pahaanas have.

“Why do people continue to dance as we move into the twenty first century? The question is easy to answer. We dance because it is our way of life and it is very important for us as Pueblo people to continue the legacy of our forefathers. Without the dances, our Pueblo villages would be silent. We believe the spirit of our ancestors will always be with us, to protect us, to give us strength through our dances”

(Gary Roybal San Ildefonso Pueblo quoted in Dances of the Tewa Pueblo Indians : Expressions of New Life (second edition) by Jill D Sweet School of American Research Press. Santa Fe, NM. 2004.)

“ In any Tewa performance, music and dance are tightly interwoven. Each song is a prayer. More than mere accompaniment for the dancers, the songs are an integral part of the event, helping to communicate the meanings of the ritual. Ethnomusicolisgists have noted this interdependence in their work with Tewa song composers, who find it difficult to perform a song without also dancing or to comment on silent films of Tewa dance.” p.19

"Tewa village ritual performances are rich with layers of symbolic meaning and messages encoded in songs, gestures, actions, costumes, and paraphernalia. Along with the central theme of a new life, other important Tewa concepts find expression in ritual, including those of subsistence, society, beauty, space, time and humor. Communication of these concepts is directed toward the performers themselves, toward fellow Tewas and toward the supernaturals." p. 21