Case file · Folklore / legend
Po'pay's spirits at Taos
Planning the August 1680 Pueblo Revolt from Taos Pueblo, Po'pay said, according to testimony later given to the Spanish, that spirits had appeared to him in a kiva and told him to drive out the Spanish and restore the old ways.
1680 CE · 36.44, -105.55 · status: account
The account
Runners carried knotted cords to count down the days to the rising, which killed some 400 colonists and drove the Spanish out of New Mexico until 1692. A statue of Po'pay stands in the US Capitol.
The sceptical view
The spirit account comes through Spanish interrogations of captured Pueblo men in 1681, which shaped what was recorded.