When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846

I only read the first third of this, the history up through the Pueblo Revolt. (That's what I was interested in.) I learned a lot from the book and really appreciate the scholarship. It's well written and easy to follow. A little dry but way more readable than the usual academic book.

I'm somewhere between curious and skeptical about the author's methods, particularly the way he comes to very specific and detailed conclusions about what various things meant to Pueblo Indians in the 1500s and 1600s. His primary sources are the records the Franciscan friars kept and he's careful at the start to talk about how problematic and biased those are. (And sometimes, clearly fantastical). I respect that it's possible to read through that and come to something like the truth, I just wish he gave us more detail on that process and estimated his certainty.

Concerns aside, as a detailed social-focussed history of early colonial New Mexico it's excellent.