Acoma Pueblo

[laughs]

Um, first, [speaks foreign language] to all of my other relatives, um, on the Eagle clan side of Acoma Pueblo.

So that's how I'm known, as a Navajo and Acoma woman.

Um, I am, let me see, what is the thing that is, what was that question? [laughs]

Thus far, radiocarbon dating of pollen samples and optically stimulated luminescence have shown that footprints at the White Sands were created in shoreside mud approximately 23,000 years ago before the conclusion of the last glacial maximum, LGM.

The Native American tribes of Acoma Pueblo acknowledge the footprints as reflecting the ancient people in the area.

However, no DNA has been obtained from this group, and investigations of ancient and current indigenous DNA shows that it resulted in no significant relationship to other populations.

It is possible we have not sampled their descendants' lineage, or that they contributed a low proportion of genetic ancestry to ancient North American populations, Potter and Hay told Live Science.

Besides all these accidental impairments of the vigor of the medicine men, there seems to be a gradual decadence of their abilities which can be rejuvenated only by rubbing the back against a sacred stone projecting from the ground in the country of the Hualapai, not many miles from the present town of Kingman on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad.

Another stone of the same kind was formerly used for the same purpose by the medicine men of the Pueblos of Laguna and Acoma, as I have been informed by them.

I am not able to state whether or not such recuperative properties were ever ascribed to the medicine stone at the Sioux Agency near Standing Rock, South Dakota, or to the great stone around which the medicine men of Tusayan marched in solemn procession in their snake dance.

But I can say that in the face of the latter, each time that I saw it, at different dates between 1874 and 1881, there was a niche which was filled with votive offerings.

Before making an examination into the meaning to be attached to the use of hodentin, it is well to determine whether or not such a powder or anything analogous to it is to be found among the tribes adjacent.

The Kunki of the Zuni and Others The term Kunki, as it appears in this chapter, is one of convenience only.

Each pueblo, or rather each set of pueblos, has its own name in its own language, as, for example, the people of Laguna and Acoma, who employ it in all their ceremonies as freely as do the Zuni.

call it in their tongue enawa.

The general ordered Hernando de Alvarado to take 20 companions and go with them, and gave him a commission for 80 days, after which he should return to give an account of what he had found.

Captain Alvarado started on this journey, and in five days reached a village which was on a rock called Acuco, Acoma, having a population of about 200 men.

These people were robbers, feared by the whole country round about.

The village was very strong, because it was up on a rock out of reach, having steep sides in every direction, and so high that it was a very good musket that could throw a ball as high.

The horses stood half buried in it.

It kept those who were underneath warm instead of cold.

The army passed by the great rock of Acuco, note present day Acoma, and the natives, who were peaceful, entertained our men well, giving them provisions and birds, although there are not many people here, as I have said.

Many of the gentlemen went up to the top to see it, and they had great difficulty in going up the steps in the rock, because they were not used to them.

Besides all these accidental impairments of the vigor of the medicine men, there seems to be a gradual decadence of their abilities, which can be rejuvenated only by rubbing the back against a sacred stone projecting from the ground in the country of the Hualapai, not many miles from the present town of Kingman on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad.

Another stone of the same kind was formerly used for the same purpose by the medicine men of the pueblos of Laguna and Acoma, as I have been informed by them.

I am not able to state whether or not such recuperative properties were ever ascribed to the medicine stone at the Sioux Agency near Standing Rock, South Dakota, or to the great stone around which the medicine men of Tusayan marched in solemn procession in their snake dance.

But I can say that in the face of the latter, each time that I saw it, at different dates between 1874 and 1881, there was a niche which was filled with votive offerings.

The Kunki of the Zuni and others.

The term Kunki, as it appears in this chapter, is one of convenience only.

Each pueblo, or rather each set of pueblos, has its own name in its own language, as, for example, the people of Laguna and Acoma, who employ it in all their ceremonies as freely as do the Zuni, call it in their tongue Inawa.

In every pueblo which I visited, and I visited them all, from Orabi of Tusayan on the extreme west to Picuris on the extreme east, from Taos in the far north to Isleta del Sur in Texas, I came upon this Kunki, and generally in such quantities, and so openly exposed and so freely used, that I was both astonished and gratified.