274 THE ENCHANTED MESA 



Acoraas durino; their wanderings from the mystic Shipiipu in 

 the far north to their present loft}^ dwelling place. 



Native tradition, as distinguished from myth, when uninflu- 

 enced by Caucasian contact, may usually be relied on even to 

 the extent of disproving or verifying that which purports to be 

 historical testimony. The Acoma Indians have handed down 

 from shaman to novitiate, from father to son, in true prescrip- 

 torial fashion for many generations, the stor}^ that Katzimo was 

 once the home of their ancestors, but during a great convulsion 

 of nature, at a time when most of the inhabitants were at work 

 in their fields below, an immense rockj' mass became freed from 

 the friable wall of the cliff, destroying the only trail to the sum- 

 mit and leaving a few old women to perish on the inaccessible 

 height. What more, then, could be necessary to enwrap the 

 place forever after in the mystery of enchantment? 



This tradition was recorded in its native purity some twelve 

 years ago by Mr Charles F. Lummis, who has done so much to 

 stimulate popular interest in this most interesting corner of our 

 country, and the same story was repeated by Acoma lips to the 

 present writer while conducting a reconnaissance of the pueblos 

 in the autumn of 1895. During this visit, desiring to test the 

 verity of the tradition, a trip was made to the base of Katzimo, 

 where a careful examination of the talus (especially where it is 

 piled high about the foot of the great southwestern cleft (PL 32, 

 33) up which the ancient pathway was reputed to have wound 

 its course) was rewarded by the finding of numerous fragments of 

 pottery of very ancient type, some of which were decorated in a 

 vitreous glaze, an art now lost to Pueblo potters. The talus at 

 this point rises to a height of 224 feet above the plain, and there- 

 fore slightly more than half-way up the mesa side. It is com- 

 posed largely of earth, which could have been deposited there 

 in no other way whatsoever than by washing from the summit 

 during periods of storm through many centuries. An examina- 

 tion of the trail to a point within 60 feet of the top exhibited 

 traces of what were evidently the hand and foot holes that had 

 once aided in the ascent of the ancient trail, as at Acoma today. 

 Even then the indications of the former occupancy of the En- 

 chanted Mesa were regarded as sufficient and that another one 

 of many native traditions had been verified by archeologic proof. 



Enchanted Mesa has become celebrated during the last sum- 

 mer through the reports of the expedition of Prof. William Libbey, 

 of Princeton, who, after several days of effort, succeeded in seal- 



