Struggle is as prominent a feature of the New Mexican landscape as its mountains and deserts. For centuries the successive inhabitants of the upper Rio Grande have resisted each other's attempts at social subjugation and cultural conversion. This history has produced one of the most culturally diverse regions in North America. Such conflicts find direct expression in folk traditions, whose evolution reflects the course of inter-ethnic relations between Hispanics, neighboring Pueblo Indians and the nomadic Indian groups, who were the Pueblos' traditional enemies.