Hillary Clinton Tours Ancient Indian Village

ACOMA PUEBLO, N.M. â€”  Hillary Rodham Clinton, decked out in a cowboy hat and turquoise, toured an ancient Indian village atop a sandstone mesa Friday to promote the preservation of America’s past, including a 360-year-old mission church.

“After all, at the time of the first millennium, you were the only Americans here,� Mrs. Clinton said, drawing enthusiastic applause from a crowd of 800 people at the Acoma Pueblo. “And when we talk about saving America’s treasures, we have to begin by saving the first Americans’ treasures.�

Mrs. Clinton visited Acoma, Santa Fe and Albuquerque on Friday on a tour of the Southwest. She visited Arizona on Wednesday and then headed later in the day to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado for a Saturday tour of Cliff Palace.

At Sky City, the Acomas’ ancient village atop a 367-foot mesa, she toured the water-damaged San Esteban del Rey, a massive adobe Roman Catholic mission built in the 17th century. She collected handmade pottery from more than a dozen Acoma artists and watched two traditional dances.

A 93-year-old potter, Concepcion Faustine, is among 30 people who live year-round atop the mesa, which has no electricity and only three cisterns to collect water. Most residents haul water from a pool 14 miles away.

Mrs. Clinton and the tiny, bent-over woman embraced, and the potter, tears in her eyes, kissed Mrs. Clinton on the cheek.

“No other first lady or president has ever come to our sacred place,� former pueblo Gov. Ron Shutiva said.

Mrs. Clinton was in the Southwest to promote the Save America’s Treasures program, a public-private partnership between the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the White House Millennium Council.

It has raised more than $60 million, including $30 million in federal funds, to protect threatened cultural treasures, including documents, maps, art, journals and historic structures.