In the first decades after the Conquest, some Indigenous families in the new Christian communities kept images of their old gods at home. In Tepeaca, Puebla, the friar Bernardino Minaya used boys who had been raised as Christians to find them. The chronicler Motolinía wrote that he “envió a aquellos niños a que buscasen por todas las casas […] los ídolos” (sent those boys to search all the houses for the idols).
According to México Desconocido, the boys searched for several days, entered the homes and took the images away.