[Illustration: (_Forest Service, U.S.D.A., by John Whiteside_) Tent Rocks in Jemez Mountains] Acoma is noted for its excellent pottery. The ware is fashioned from clay of fine quality, is very well fired, and is carefully decorated in typical Acoma designs. Here is an excellent example of Indian artistic ability. Some weaving, such as belts and headbands, is engaged in and a few baskets are produced, but Acoma is most famous for its pottery. One of the landmarks at Acoma is the great church which brave Fray Juan Ramirez toiled to create in the early seventeenth century. Surely there are few memorials of the Spanish epoch in the Southwest that present such a picture of dauntless faith in spiritual ideals as does this fortress church silhouetted high against the sky above the bare-rock mesa. It measures 150 feet in length and has walls that are 60 feet high and 10 feet thick. Timbers 40 feet long and 14 inches through support the roof and make a handsome ceiling. There are, of course, no seats and little decoration. And what a location for so magnificent a spiritual center it is! From there one may lift his eyes in rapt admiration of the splendid panorama of the great plain and the encircling mountains, and thereby appreciate more fully the work of the Deity. The Acoma are agriculturists, cultivating their lands by irrigation; they raise corn, wheat, melons, squashes, and hay. Now, however, most of the people of Acoma do not live on their mesa which protected them for so many centuries. The dangers of attack are no longer present, and the farmers find it more advantageous to live closer to their irrigated plots. The result is that the people of Acoma are now scattered throughout several villages. Their great culture, their traditions, their fierce pride, and their deep reverence for their spectacular history is visible in their faces and manners. Acoma, the Sky City, remains the eternal city of New Mexico. Cochiti Pueblo The Indians of Cochiti Pueblo claim the famed cave dwellings and ruins of the Rito de Frijoles (Bandelier National Monument) as their ancestral home. Failure of timber and water resources plus the constant attack of the various Apache Indian tribes over several centuries caused the residents of the Rito de Frijoles to seek a better home. This probably occurred about 1200 A.D. In 1598, when Juan de Oñate, colonizer of New Mexico, arrived, the Indians of Cochiti were living in their present village. For a short time following the reconquest of New Mexico by de Vargas after the Pueblo Revolt, the people of Cochiti lived in Cañada de Cochiti, which was in a better position for defense against Spanish reconquest. In 1694, de Vargas took the canyon village by storm, burned it, and forced the people to return to the older village of Cochiti where they remain to this day.