Again, in the autumn of 1598, Juan de Oñate and his more considerable force of soldiers and priests, after their general tour of formal conquest in the other Pueblo provinces, were met as they approached the Zuñi towns by delegations of singing priests and warriors, and were received with such showers of white prayer-meal on entering that they had to protect themselves from these offerings, as they supposed, of peace. This incident, and that of the ceremonial hunt and feast given them afterward, signifies conclusively the estimation in which, up to that time, the Spaniards had been held by the priestly elders of Zuñiland. Precisely as the returning Kâ´kâkwe, or mythic-dance dramatists, personating gods and heroes of the olden time are received twice yearly (before and after the harvest growth and time), so were these soldiers and friars received, not as enemies nor as aliens, but as veritable gods or god-men, coming forth at the close of autumn from out the land of day, whence come the ripening breaths of the Frost gods! As yet, the Franciscan friars, although sometimes baptizing scores of the Zuñi--much to their gratification, doubtless, as quite appropriate behavior on the part of such beings when friendly,--had not antagonized their ancient observances or beliefs; and the warriors who accompanied them had never, since the first of them had come, and after fighting had laid down their dreadful arms and made peace and left hostages, albeit mortals like themselves, with their forefathers--had never again raised their fearful batons of thunder and fire or their long blades of blue metal like lightning. But all this was soon to change. When, nearly a quarter of a century later still, Fray Alonzo de Benavides became father-custodian of New Mexico, he undertook to establish missions throughout the country. More than twenty missionaries were introduced into the Pueblo provinces by him, and soon afterward Esteban de Perea brought thirty more from Spain and old Mexico. Among the latter were Fray Martin de Arvide and Fray Francisco de Letrado. Fray Letrado was assigned to Zuñi some time after 1628. By the end of the following year the Indians had built for him at Hálona the little Church of the Purification or of the Immaculate Virgin, and at Háwik’uh the church and conventual residence of the Immaculate Conception.