Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España (Cambridge Library Collection - Latin American Studies) (Volume 3)

by Bernardino de Sahagún, Bernardino De Sahag N., Carlos María de Bustamante (Editor)

Friar Bernardino Sahagûn was in 1529 one of the first Catholic missionaries to the Aztecs. During his sojourn in Mexico he came to speak Nahuatl (the native language) fluently and to understand the Aztec culture, customs, religion and infrastructure intimately. He compiled the largest and most richly detailed record of the Aztecs and their history before the civilisation was wiped out by the Spanish conquest, and Sahagûn is sometimes considered 'the father of ethnology', as his study was the first to derive from the subjects' own point of view, through using native informants in his research. The work, written in 1540, was originally an illustrated manuscript of twelve books in a combination of Nahuatl and Spanish; this version, in Spanish only, was first published in 1829. This final volume contains a full natural history and geological description, general Aztec history, and a catalogue of spirits, demons and religious figures.

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1577

Reviews

[Giovanni Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Demencial Sahagún.

[Lidiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some people consider it the first anthropological study made about the natives of the New World. It is an interesting reading, differs from most of the previous speeches from the colonial universe, yet there is a lot lacking still in terms of politics and understanding of indigineous culture.