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Sixty-eight years after Benavides' time the Teatro Mexicano of the Franciscan Fray Agustin de Vetancurt was published. The third and fourth parts of this important work, namely, the Cronica de la Provincia del Santo Evangelio de Mexico and the Menologio Franciscano, are of the highest value to the history of the Rio Grande Pueblos and of New Mexico generally.
The historical data given by Vetancurt in regard to New Mexico during earlier times are not of great value, but the Menologio, as well as the Cronica, contains a number of details on the missions and on the lives and achievements of the missionaries that become important to an understanding of the Indian himself.
During the seven decades separating the three authors much information had been accumulated, and with greater chances of accuracy than before. Vetancurt made good use of this accumulation of material, and his books are in fact the most reliable sources from which to ascertain the status of the Pueblos at the time the insurrection commenced.
The work of Vetancurt is in this respect a great improvement upon Benavides, and it is interesting to note how his approximate census approaches the figures given by Zárate Salmerón seventy years before. Vetancurt had at his disposal much more precise data than Benavides.
To this indefatigable monk, whose timely warnings were too lightly regarded by the Spanish authorities, are also due the data concerning the lives and the awful fate of the Franciscan priests at the hands of the Pueblo Indians on August 10, 1680. The original of this tragic list is in manuscript in the national archives of Mexico, where Vetancurt made use of it in his Teatro.
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. At the time of the visit of Garaycoechea, in the spring of 1700, he found that the mission had been rebuilt.
The words mean literally "eagle, tiger." These were military titles applied to officers commanding small bodies of troops; figuratively, the words mean control, power, and dignity; also, bravery and virtue. Comp. Agustin de Vetancurt, Teatro Mexicano, Tratado II, cap. 3.
Vetancurt, about 1680, mentions the pueblo under the names Aguatobi and Ahuatobi, and in 1692, or twelve years after the great rebellion, Vargas visited "San Bernardo de Aguatuvi," ten leagues from Zuñi. The name appears on maps up to the middle of the eighteenth century, several years after its destruction. In more modern times various older spellings have been adopted or new ones introduced.