Here we were met by Francisco, our guide's son, the governor, matadores, alguazils, and other functionaries of the Pueblo. This is as good a place as any other to say that the governor and all other officials are elected annually. They were dressed in the usual Pueblo fashion. Their heads were uncovered. They were draped in large blankets, which gave them a very dignified appearance.
We received a most cordial reception. The commandant had been a good friend to the Acomas—had protected them in their little trading operations, and helped them in the long, hard winters when their granaries were empty. The entire male population was assembled in the Plaza or central square. The squaws and children were at their front doors, that is to say, on the roofs, for the entrance to a Pueblo's dwelling is from above.
A fire for the dragoons to cook their rations by was made in the centre of the Plaza. The horses were picketed around. A contribution of corn and firewood was levied by the governor for the use of the escort. [pg 709] The Indians came in cheerful, laughing groups, bearing their costals of corn or their bundles of wood. The escort being provided for, we went to the house of Francisco, the most comfortable house in the Pueblo; for Francisco was the wealthiest member of the little community. The governor's dwelling was a poor one, and himself a poor man who was unable to entertain us as comfortably as Francisco could. He accompanied us thither.
Francisco's dwelling, like most of the others in the Pueblo, was a two-storied adobe building, whitewashed inside and out. The mode of access was a ladder placed against the outer wall of the lower story. Having reached the top of this, you walk across the roof and enter the house by a door on the second story, the façade of which is somewhat retired from the front line of the first.
Here we found some rosy, apple-faced squaws, engaged in culinary and other domestic operations. One was kneeling grinding corn with the primitive matata. They smiled with all their countenances on us; and a half-dozen of the whitest sets of teeth, that dentist or dentifrice never touched, gleamed a bright welcome to us. They wore the usual dark woollen robe, made of two pieces, about five feet long and three broad, sewed together at one of the narrow ends, but with an aperture for the head to pass through. The robe is then gathered round the waist and tied with a string. Their nut-brown arms were bare, and encircled at the wrist by from one to a dozen brass rings; their feet were bare. The thick swathing of buckskin, with which they wrap their lower limbs when journeying, and which gives them the appearance of being terribly swollen, were laid aside, much to the furthering of a graceful effect.
We were invited to descend to the sitting-room, situated beneath, through a very narrow trap-door. Don Juan walked fearlessly toward the aperture. We begged him to pause before he rushed into a place whence he could never hope to return. The Indians understood the joke, and enjoyed it hugely.
So the Don entered the aperture, and by judicious squeezing actually succeeded in passing. His coat-tails got through about the same time as his head. The others, being of the lean and hungry-looking kind, had no difficulty in descending.
From the room into which we had descended ventilation was completely excluded. Light was only admitted through one or two small panes of glass in apertures like port-holes in the walls.
We took seats on sheep-skins spread in a circle around the floor. The commandant made known his business in passable Spanish; the governor replied, through Francisco, as interpreter. The worthy Don intervened, from time to time, between the high contracting parties, when there was a lack of language or danger of misunderstanding. The business was completed satisfactorily and in short order.
While the floor was being set for dinner—tables not being in vogue here—we endeavored to obtain the Acoma's idea of the antiquity of the Pueblo. Francisco, though he had learned to read and write, had not got beyond the Indian idea of time, space, or number. There is no medium between “many” and “few”—very far, muy lejos; and near, cerca.