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.
History of New Mexico
The retreat of the Spaniards left New Mexico controlled by the Indians. Popé ordered the Indians, under penalty of death, to burn or destroy crosses and other Catholic religious imagery, as well as any other vestige of the Spanish culture. He also wanted to destroy Spanish livestock and fruit trees. Kivas (rooms for religious rituals) were reopened, and Popé ordered all Indians to bathe in soap made of yucca root. He forbade the planting of Spanish crops of wheat and barley. Popé commanded those Indians married by the rites of the Catholic Church to dismiss their wives, and to take others under their traditional ways. He took over control of the Governor's Palace as ruler of the Pueblo, and collected tribute from each Pueblo until his death in 1688.