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  • The new construction of the Acoma Pueblo Visitors and Cultural Center (foreground) is watched over by the ancient community of Sky City perched on the mesa top behind. This image symbolizes the Acoma community's respect for its ancestors, history, and traditions and its commitment to perpetuate its unique and sacred way of life into the future.
    old and new 0017.jpg
  • Acoma history tells that when the people first discovered this valley, they believed the Creator wanted them to inhabit Enchanted Mesa.  Eventually, they discovered their mistake and relocated their community to Sky City mesa: a much better vantage point for admiring the beauty the Creator bestowed on Enchanted Mesa and its surrounding landscape!
    enchanted vista 0981.jpg
  • Acoma people built multi-story houses that included a sacred space, or kiva, on the ground floor. When Spanish conquerors attempted to eradicate Puebloan religious beliefs and practices, kivas were hidden behind high walls or transformed into windowless rooms accessible only by ladder.  Straight pine logs used to build ladders had to be hauled from the forested slopes of Mt. Taylor, many miles away.  This ladder's worn rungs, along with a family's firewood piled nearby, testify to its continued use.
    ladder 0964.jpg
  • Adobe ovens like this one have long been used for baking round loaves of ovenbread, and similar structures are used for firing Acoma's famous pottery. The family that uses this oven has a great view of the inspiring landscape surrounding Sky City.
    adobe oven 0978.jpg
  • A grainite monument shaped as an arrowhead and placed at the Sky City Cultural Center displays the official seal of Acoma Pueblo.  The ring of 11 nature symbols surrounding the center designate the surviving Acoma clans.  The two crossed canes festooned with red and blue ribbons signify the gifts given by the Spanish and American governments recognizing Acoma ownership of Pueblo land and the sovereignty of the Pueblo people.
    seal 0999.jpg
  • Massive boulders and vertical cliff walls helped protect ancient Sky City from Spanish destruction.  The price in daily life activities was high: every building stone, ladder or fire log, and gallon of water people used had to be carried by hand up to the mesa top.
    sky city 0012.jpg
  • Details of adobe pueblo construction show how wood-framed windows are set into the stone-and-plastered walls of the houses atop the mesa on which Acoma Pueblo people built their Sky City hundreds of years ago.  Some Acoma families still occupy such houses year round while others use their Sky City homes only during feast days and other celebrations and ceremonies.
    windows 0957.jpg
  • Vegetation is sparse at the top of Sky City's arid mesa.  Plants need water, and, historically, water for a family's use was hand-carried up the cliff.  Agriculture was only developed in the valley below.  This cottonwood tree, its winter-barren branches awaiting spring's arrival, has been nurtured for decades to provide beauty and shade for its human brothers and sisters.
    moon over pueblo.jpg
  • Macro view of a small snake figure carved on a large rock features fangs protruding from its round head at the left and "ring" lines crossing its tail tip at the right. Its body is drawn with angles of a lightning symbol, signifying the snake's power and speed.  The basalt boulders covering the hillside that Rinconada Canyon Trail traces would have offered prime habitat for rattlesnakes. Was this petroglyph created as a helpful warning to prehistoric Puebloan travelers?
    rattlesnake 0051.jpg
  • This glyph suggests a turkey: Was its carver advertising the presence of this game bird or communicating a clan affiliation?
    turkey 0086.jpg
  • One of the more unusual petroglyphs found along the Rinconada Canyon trail in Petroglyph National Monument suggests a mythical being with two feet and no arms.  Do the three "antennae" signify shamanic power of communication with spirits?
    shaman 0218.jpg
  • This image shows a cluster of three glyphs.  The clearest is the turtle, centered; above the turtle is a bird, and below the bird (left of the turtle) is a dragonfly.
    turtle panel 0042.jpg
  • This image's zia glyph features the characteristic round, solar disk surrounded by radiating sets of parallel lines placed at the four cardinal directions (north, east, south, west).
    zia 0045.jpg
  • This petroglyph of a circle bisected by a straight line is a classic example of the "water glyph" identified by Bob Ford and Dixon Spendlove in their explorations of Anasazi petroglyphs in southern Utah, northern Arizona, and southeastern Nevada. Ford and Spendlove have discovered that such symbols point to and mark water sources.  Did this glyph from Petroglyphs National Monument convey the proximity of the river we know as Rio Grande?
    water glyph 0073.jpg
  • This detailed anthropomorph adopts a dance pose and wears a mask with design elements seen among Hopi kachina.
    kachina 0035.jpg
  • This distinct bear paw image could be a clan marker.  However, for some Puebloans, the bear paw is also a water symbol.
    bear paw 0082.jpg
  • Two versions of the "talking birds" motif are featured on this rock panel.  Each pair of birds seems to represent a unique bird species, with the left pair closely resembling parrots.  Notably, the parrot designates a Puebloan clan; thus, if these glyphs are clan markers, the other pair of birds might signify the Turkey (Turkois) or Roadrunner/Pheasant clan.
    talking birds 0044.jpg
  • This image's enclosed glyph features a central, stepped design with elements associated with the Aztec rain deity Tlaloc. Such similarities between Aztec and Puebloan symbols are believed to indicate cross-cultural communication and trade.  Cloud lines along the glyph's upper-left edge and lightning lines at its lower right may also imply its association with life-giving rain.
    rain glyph 0090.jpg
  • A bird stands inside a circle that appears to issue from its beak.  According to "Pueblo Pottery and Its Symbolism" (http://www.santarosa.edu/~mbond/PuebloSymbols.pdf), "birds...are symbols for prayer."
    encircled bird 0069.jpg
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CWP: Transforming Nature into Digital Art, by Jennifer Nelson

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