There would seem to be no doubt that a mission building was standing at Awatobi before 1680, for Vetancurt, writing about the year named, states that in the uprising it was burned.[65] At the time of the visit of Garaycoechea, in the spring of 1700, he found that the mission had been rebuilt. In this connection it is instructive, as bearing on the probable cause of the destruction of Awatobi, to find that while the inhabitants of this pueblo desired to have the mission rehabilitated, the other Tusayan pueblos were so hostile that the friends of the priest in Awatobi persuaded him not to attempt to visit the other villages. This warning was no doubt well advised, and the tragic fate which befell Awatobi before the close of the year shows that the trouble was brewing when the padre was there, and possibly Garaycoechea's visit hastened the catastrophe or intensified the hatred of the other pueblos. At the time of Garaycoechea's visit he baptized, it is said, 73 persons. This rite was particularly obnoxious[66] to the Hopi, as indeed to the other Pueblo Indians, notwithstanding they performed practically the same ceremony in initiations into their own secret societies. The Awatobians, however, or at least some of them, allowed this rite of the Christians, thus intensifying the hatred of the more conservative of their own village and of the neighboring pueblos. These and other facts seem to indicate that the real cause of the destruction of Awatobi was the reception of Christianity by its inhabitants, which the other villagers regarded as sorcery. The conservative party, led by Tapolo, opened the gate of the town to the warriors of Walpi and Mishoñinovi, who slaughtered the liberals, thus effectually rooting out the new faith from Tusayan, for after that time it never again obtained a foothold.