Antonio de Espejo
In February 1583, Espejo arrived at the territory of the Piros, the most southerly of the Pueblo villagers. From there the Spanish continued up the Rio Grande. Espejo described the Pueblo villages as "clean and tidy". The houses were multi-storied and made of adode bricks. "They make very fine tortillas," Espejo commented, and the Pueblos also served the Spanish turkeys, beans, corns, and pumpkins. The people "did not seem to be bellicose". The southernmost Pueblos had only clubs for weapons plus a few "poor Turkish bows and poorer arrows". Further north, the Indians were better armed and more aggressive. Some of the Pueblo towns were large, Espejo described Zia as having 1,000 houses and 4,000 men and boys. In their farming, the Pueblos used irrigation "with canals and dams, built as if by Spaniards". The only Spanish influence that Espejo noted among the Pueblos was their desire for iron. They would steal any iron article they could find.
Ciénega
Ciénaga habitat in an otherwise arid, resource constrained landscape was the first source of water to be used by Hispanics and Anglos for their livestock. As early as the 1680s, Pima Indians in Sonora were complaining that Spanish livestock were so common that watering places were drying out. The effects of long-term, sustained grazing — particularly during drought episodes — caused reduced plant cover and vigor; increased runoff and sediment transport; fostered desertification, which worsened the deepening of incised channels; triggered water table declines and further loss of wetland vegetation, thereby making ciénagas and their surrounds among the most abused sites on earth.