24 THE ACOMA INDIANS 



[ETH. ANN. 47 



There is another account of Alvarado's visit to Acoma by an anony- 

 mous chronicler, who states that Alvarado "started ofl", and 30 leagues 

 from Cibola found a rock with a village on top, the strongest position 

 that ever was seen in the world, which was called Acuco in their 

 language, and Father Friar Marcos called it the 'kingdom of Hacus.' 

 They came out to meet us peaceful^, although it would have been 

 easy to decline to do this and to have stayed on their rock, where we 

 would not have been able to trouble them. They gave us cloaks of 

 cotton, skins of deer and cows (buffalo), and turcjuoises, and fowls 

 and other food which they had, which is the same as in Cibola." 

 (Winship, Coronado Expedition, p. 575.) 



This gives us a picture of Acoma in 1540: A -village of about 200 

 houses, from two to four stories high, situated on an almost inaccessible 

 mesa almost 400 feet high; with cornfields and cisterns on the smnmit; 

 with cotton, deerskin, and buffalo-hide garments; with domesticated 

 turkeys, quantities of turcjuoise, etc' Castaiieda tells us that "they 

 venerate the sign of the cross in the region where the settlements 

 have high houses. For at a spring which was in the plain near Acuco 

 they had a cross two palms high and as thick as a finger, made of 

 wood with a scpiare tu-ig for its crosspiece, and many little sticks 

 decorated with feathers around it, and numerous withered flowers, 

 which were the offerings." This is a very interesting report; it 

 describes, ^\^thout doubt, prayer-stick ritual or usage at Acoma 

 in 1540.- 



\Miere the Acoma people lived before they established themselves 

 so securely on the rock where Alvarado found them is a question 

 concemmg which there are some clues but few established facts. 

 Their origin-migration myth says that they came from the north. 

 Bandelicr states : "... so far as I am able to judge, the gist of Acoma 

 folklore assigns the origin of the tribe to a separation for some cause 

 or other from the tribe of Cia. Thence they drifted to the southwest, 

 across the bleak and imprepossessing valley of the Rio Puerco, and, 

 di\'iding into two bands, established themselves in pueblos of small 

 size to the right and left of the Canada de la Cruz, and on the mesa 



' Benavides, in his Memorial, published in 1630, states that corn was planted on the summit of the 

 Acoma mesa. The Acunia mesa is divided into two roughly equal parts, the village being on the north 

 mesa; the south poition is unoccupied (the largest water reservoir, however, is on the south mesa) . At the 

 present time there is neither room nor soil on the north mesa to grow enough corn for half a dozen families. 

 There is considerable room on the south mesa, but it is so rough and barren and rocky that only a small 

 amount could be utilized for crops. I doubt very much if corn in quantities sufTicient to feed the pueblo 

 was ever grown on the summit. There are other statistics given by Benavides which are of interest here. 

 He says that the mesa is 1,000 estados (an estado is 1.864 yards) high. He says there were 2,000 houses and 

 7,000 people. These, of course, are gross exaggerations, as is his estimate of the length of the mesa being 

 1 league. (See translation of this memorial in Land of Sunshine, vol. xiv, translated by Mrs. E. E. Ayer, 

 edited and annotated by F. W. Hodge.) 



^ Winship, Coronado E.\pedition, p. 544, 



