When the Spanish came to the New World four hundred years ago they brought many changes. Catholicism is one of the most lasting. This faith spawned a Northern New Mexican traditional art form, wood carvings depicting saints. Santos or painted and carved images of saints, helped the missionary priests explain the stories of saints and the Passion of Christ to the native peoples. The first statues were brought from Spain and Mexico but the responsibility for making santos soon feel to the local craftspeople and artists.  Santos have lived in the homes of Hispanic New Mexican as well as Native American families for hundreds of years. Gradually santeros, the artists who made the images of saints, began to carve and paint the popular saints to supply New Mexican churches, homes, and moradas (village worship space for the Penitente Brotherhood). Santos were made either two dimensionally (retablos), or three dimensionally (bultos).