Contemporary Acoma architecture is very well preserved. This has a lot to due with its construction and maintenance that has been done and, in the case of the San Estevan del Rey mission church, it is protected as a historic building. In addition, the buildings are now receiving less wear and tear. This is largely due to the fact that most of the Acoma people no longer live on the mesa. Those who do live on the mesa full time are almost exclusively religious leaders. The rest of the Acoma people mostly live in the small towns in the valley below the mesa. They retain ownership of their property atop the mesa as a second home. Around 90 percent of the contemporary Acoma people practice the religion of Catholicism with pieces of their own traditional religion mixed in. They have essentially created their own hybrid religion.



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    Evan Neal

    As an architecture major learning more about the religion of the Pueblo people, the Spanish influence on their religious architecture was an interesting avenue to take the research down. The Acoma village has, “the finest and most impressive of the Spanish Colonial Mission churches in New Mexico,” so was a perfect fit for my research.