Coronado did not hesitate, however, to extend the exploration of the country even while the hostilities against the Tiguas were still in full progress. He was impelled to it, not only by the desire to become acquainted with the region, but also by the fear of a general rising of all the natives, which would have been fatal for him and his company. The Pecos had first to be pacified, and with that object he went to the pueblo and gave up to the people, who met him with demonstrations of a peaceful character, their captured officers. By this measure the former friendly relation was restored. After his return to the Rio Grande, he formed connections with a village called “Cia,” situated four leagues, or eleven miles, west of the river; and six Spaniards visited and quieted the Indians of “Quirix,” a group of seven pueblos joining the Tiguas on the north and partly scattered along the great river. Cia, properly Tzia, is not more than twenty miles in a straight line from the Rio Grande. Still nearer, and situated on the same branch (the Rio de Jemez), was the pueblo of Santa Ana (Tâ-ma-ya). The same language is spoken in both, and they are in frequent communication. They belong to the numerous group of the “Queres,” with which the Quirix of Coronado are identical.
It is easy to identify the eight pueblos which Casteñeda mentions. Following the eastern shore of the Rio Grande, we meet first “Oâ-tish-tye” (San Felipe, now, and since 1630, on the west side) and “Gui-pu-i” (Santo Domingo, now called “Tihua,” and formerly situated a mile northeast). On the western shore lies, six miles north of Santo Domingo, “Oô-tyi-ti” (Cachiti). On the Jemez River, six miles from San Felipe, stands “Tâ-ma-ya” (Santa Ana), and farther up Tzia, or Cia. The other three villages may be sought for in the vicinity of Cia, where their ruins are still standing.
Cia is now going down into decay, after having been, till 1688, one of the largest Indian villages in New Mexico. Its inhabitants speak a dialect of the Queres tongue, somewhat like that of Acoma. All the pueblos of the Queres formed, and still form, like the other groups, autonomous communities. The common language does not prevent hostilities between neighboring villages, but should an enemy from without threaten one of them, it has the right to call the others to its aid, and in that case the war-chief of the threatened village, the “Tzyâ-u-yu-qiu,” or _capitan de la guerra_, takes the chief command. The Queres held a passive attitude toward the Spaniards until the insurrection of 1680, in which they were very active.