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.
Questa, New Mexico
Agriculture, especially the cultivation of alfalfa, hay, and winter wheat has experienced renewed interest along with the expansion of agriculture to historic crops and crops of high value. Agriculture in Questa is strongly dependent on irrigation, supplied from the Red River and Cabresto Creek. The system of ditches or acequias which supply water to the fields are of great community and social importance; the burning of the ditches on the first weekend after the vernal equinox is a major community event. Two major 'ditch associations' control the distribution of water by controlling the outflow from the Cabresto Lake dam: the Acequia Madre and the Llano ditch.