Ácoma, the sky city

The first effect of the desert upon any human being must be one of surprise—surprise at the contrast between the preconceived idea which the word suggests and its variety of bea...

Ácoma is in point of site not only the most remarkable but the most ancient of New Mexico pueblos to-day ... a formidable cliff in an exceptional situation, a site isolated and...

In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Spain occupied perhaps the most prominent position on the theatre of Europe.... The Spaniard came over to the New World in the true sp...

There are few figures in the early history of this country so gallant or so picturesque as that of Juan de Oñate, son of Cristóbal Oñate, the man who discovered the rich mines o...

The missions were agencies of the state as well as of the Church. If the Indian were to become either a worthy Christian or a desirable subject, he must be disciplined in the ru...

_Though an host of men are laid against me, yet shall not my heart be afraid; and though there rose up war against me yet will I put my trust in Him._—PSALM 27.

Between Fray Juan’s departure for New Spain and the great Pueblo Revolt of 1680, we have such unsatisfying scraps of information about Ácoma that the hope is ever present of mak...

I choose the glorious St. Joseph for my patron, and I commend myself in all things singularly to his intercession. I do not remember ever to have asked of God anything by him wh...

Once only Indians lived in this land. Then came strangers from across the Great Water. No land had they. We gave them of our land. No food had they; we gave them of our corn. Th...

The aboriginal migrations of man in the Southwest may be roughly likened to the spread of vegetation or to the stocking of regions by animals from a center of distribution. Two...

Katzímo—a towering isolated mesa with vertical sides several hundred feet in height and utterly inaccessible. It is one of the most imposing cliffs in that portion of the Southw...

That the present town-building tribes are the descendants of the ancient peoples is indicated by tradition, by skeletal evidence, and by material culture. The past connects with...

What does the name imply? The ‘lore of the Folk.’ But the ‘folk’ are the backward people among ourselves, and from their unwritten sagas and stories, their customs and beliefs,...

Curiosity and credulity are the characteristics of the savage intellect. When a phenomenon presents itself, the savage requires an explanation and that explanation he makes for...

The theatre of the world is the theatre of necromancy: and the gods are the primaeval wonder-workers. The primitive religion of every American Indian tribe is an organized syste...

The Pueblo peoples, ancient and modern, grew up under a hard environment; shadowed ever by the specters of famine and thirst, they were exceptionally impressed by the potencies...

While the common and secular object of the games of the North American Indians appears to be purely a manifestation of the desire for amusement or gain, they are performed also...

At the period of discovery, art, at a number of places on the American Continent, seems to have been developing surely and steadily through the force of the innate genius of the...