[3] They were separated from the rest of the larger Salinas Pueblo group (Tenabó, Abó, Quarai, Tajique and Chilili) which lie north of Chupadera Mesa.
The Jumanos Pueblos were a center of the salt trade prior to the Spanish incursion into the region and traded heavily with the Jumanos to the south in the area of modern Presidio, Texas and other central Rio Grande areas.
They subsisted primarily on agricultural crops (corn, beans, and squash), but also hunted game and collected wild plants.
Subsequently, the area suffered from introduced European diseases, expropriation of resources by the Spanish and then from droughts in the 1660s, as well as attacks by the Apache.
Today these villages consist of large masonry room block groups whose walls are mostly delineated by rows of cobbles with kivas shown in some cases by depressions and associated middens or trash dumps, shown by surface pottery shards.