New Mexico’s Sky City

By Gerald & Sharon Hammon

April 2015

Owning a motorhome allows us to seek out special places, and we frequently choose destinations that have played a role in history. Recently we visited Sky City on New Mexico’s Acoma Pueblo, which, according to scholars, has been continuously occupied since A.D. 1150 and may have been inhabited even earlier.

Sky City is convenient to visit. It is 15 miles south of Interstate 40 in northwestern New Mexico. From spring through autumn, the Acoma Pueblo, a federally recognized Indian tribe, welcomes tourists to this spectacular mesa-top community. This is a dramatic part of the desert Southwest, where mesas jut from the ground toward the vivid blue sky. The orange and ochre sandstone of the mesa walls creates an almost surrealistic landscape when combined with the dull green of the desert floor, and the clear air allows you to see for miles. As you draw near to Acoma Pueblo, you see a cluster of more than 300 structures, including a twin-towered church, resting nearly 370 feet up.

Why did the ancestral Acoma people build a community way up here? In an age long before modern firearms, it was a good defense. Only a few warriors would have been needed to defend the one narrow path that led to the top, and at the time, there was no other way to attack the village. With cisterns to store water and ample food supplies, the community could even survive a siege.

Between approximately 1000 and 1250, primitive but stable American Indian societies experienced population growth and created substantial communities. Unfortunately, lengthy droughts dried up the land and ruined crops. Some scholars think the combination of overpopulation and shrinking food supplies may have caused violence between rival communities, although there is no physical evidence of such conflict. This was the period when Sky City was first occupied, and it may provide the reason for the formation of the village.

Today, the mesa-top village is largely a ceremonial site for the Acoma Pueblo. Few families live there year-round; most tribal members have their primary residences down on the desert floor in modern communities such as Acomita and McCartys, and they maintain their traditional homes on the mesa for periodic visits. Acoma is a matriarchal society, so women own all the homes on the mesa. On major feast days, such as September 2, San Esteban Feast Day, many tribe members return to the mesa top.

Sky City is no ghost town, nor can it be construed as a museum. The structures atop the mesa are mostly current homes that range from one to three stories high. Streets are mainly dirt. Some buildings have been repaired with modern materials, while others show their antiquity in their adobe and sandstone construction.

As you tour the town, you see all kinds of items for sale; mostly, artists display handmade crafts, including stunning pottery and beaded articles. We prize the vases we purchased there on a previous visit. And there are no worries about having to climb your way to this town. The modern world has intruded in the last couple of decades with the construction of a steep road that leads to the top of the mesa, so pueblo members can drive to their traditional residences instead of using the original (and still-existing) narrow, steep path.

Nonresidents are not permitted to drive up onto the mesa, and we can testify you wouldn’t want to in your RV. A tour takes you from the cultural center via bus to the mesa top. Afterward, you can walk the path back down to the cultural center, if you wish.

Living permanently at Sky City can’t be very easy, given that electricity, running water, and even sewers are not available atop the mesa. Three sizable cisterns served as storage for water, but a quick look at the contents today will convince you the water hardly could be called potable. Lengthy stays require portable generators and hauled water.

Some structures on the mesa top date back as much as 400 years. Studies of some of the older houses indicate that the large vigas, or wooden beams, that anchor the ceilings and roofs were cut in the early 1600s. The most amazing aspect of this building process is that the nearest large trees grow on Mount Taylor, more than 30 miles away. Construction of the church, San Esteban del Rey Mission, and priest’s residence, were begun in 1629 and completed in 1640. Tour guides will tell you that the large poles used to accent the altar area had to be carried from Mount Taylor without ever touching the ground!

In 1848 the United States became sovereign over this area. Eventually, most of the Acoma population gave up the centuries-old pattern of living atop the mesa and descending each day to tend their crops and flocks. With security and safety no longer compelling them to live in Sky City, they moved to villages on the desert floor.

Nevertheless, Acoma Pueblo and its ancient village of Sky City still offer unique insights into a history of the United States that we seldom take into account. In addition to strolling along the streets, visitors can enter the church, which is used for worship purposes only twice a year, and walk past its large cemetery, where graves are described as being four deep and dating back to some distant time. A wide space in one of the streets is used for traditional dances on feast days.

The Sky City Cultural Center, where tour tickets are purchased, also contains a small but informative museum. We were in awe of a small, flawless urn on display that was crafted between 900 and 1000, long before our European, Asian, and African ancestors even knew the Western Hemisphere existed. The forebearers of the people who now reside on Sky City were there then, living in ways that are still honored today through ceremony and tradition.

Acoma Pueblo is approximately one hour west of Albuquerque, New Mexico; take exit 102 off Interstate 40. The Sky City Casino and RV Park are located near this exit. If you plan to stay at the campground, it’s best to stop there, unhook your towed vehicle, and use it for the rest of the journey. To reach the Sky City Cultural Center and Haak’u Museum, travel approximately 15 more miles south (follow the signs).

Tours of Sky City depart from the Sky City Cultural Center from March through October. Contact the cultural center before your visit to be sure of the schedule and other details: (800) 747-0181, or visit www.acomaskycity.org. Fees are charged for the tour and for a camera use permit while on the tour.  Inside the cultural center is a shop with Acoma pottery and American Indian crafts for sale, as well as cultural exhibits. The Haak’u Museum, located inside the cultural center, has gallery space and exhibit halls.

Each year, the Acoma reservation is closed to the public on June 24 and 29; July 9-14 and 25; the first or second weekend of October; and the first Saturday in December.

As noted, Sky City RV Park, as well as a hotel and casino, are off exit 102. All of these facilities have a no-alcohol policy. (Alcohol sales may start at the casino this year, but that will not affect the RV park rules.) The RV park opens for the season in April and has 42 oversized pull-through sites with full hookups, a dump station, laundry facilities, free Wi-Fi, a travel center, a clubhouse, and low nightly rates. A shuttle runs between the RV park and the hotel-casino, where restaurants are available.

For more information, contact Sky City RV Park, (888) 759-2489, www.skycity.com.