The Days of a Man 1898 



Foreign and fascinating as we found Acoma to 

 be, it was not the chief end and aim of our pilgrim- 

 age. Three miles away and still higher rises "Kat- 

 z i' mo> " the Enchanted. This primordial strong- 

 hold, austere, silent, deserted but unforgotten for 

 a thousand years, dominates the plain and chal- 

 lenges every eye. For from bottom to top of its 

 430 feet it presents a curving succession of sheer 

 rock walls with only a single break and that ap- 

 of parently inaccessible. Tradition nevertheless in- 



Katumo s j sts ^^ J t wag J Qn g a g Q ^ s j te Q f an ancestra l 



Queres pueblo, access to which was destroyed one 

 day when a mighty cloudburst swept away in an 

 instant the ladder-like trail ascended by toe-holes 

 cut in the rock. Aghast at the destruction, and 

 confounded by what they took to be the wrath of 

 the gods, the frightened workers in the fields below 

 dared make no attempt to regain their homes. 

 So abandoning to their fate the three old women who 

 had been left that morning on the top, they moved 

 over to the next mesa, where in time they developed 

 the present settlement of Acoma. 



So goes the legend. Accepting it as genuine, a 



belief justified by intimate knowledge of the people, 



"Disen- Lummis printed the interesting story. Its credi- 



chanting" biii t y was t h en questioned by Professor William 



the mesa T*II r T i r i i 



Lib bey ot rnnceton, who forthwith set out to in- 

 vestigate the uninhabited rock. Employing a mor- 

 tar, he succeeded in throwing a stout rope across 

 Katzimo at its narrowest part, and by means of 

 this was himself pulled to the top in a boatswain's 

 chair. There, during a hasty examination, he found 

 C 632 ] 



