Bernardino de Sahagún

Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (* 1499 or 1500 in Sahagún , Province of León , Spain , † October 23, 1590 in Mexico City , Mexico ) was a Spanish missionary and ethnologist . He is the author of the most important contemporary work on the life and culture of the Aztecs .

His work was declared a World Document Heritage by UNESCO in 2015 .

Life and works

Born as Bernardino Ribeira in the Kingdom of León , he studied theology in Salamanca from 1512 to 1514 and entered the Franciscan order there from 1516 to 1518 . Ordained a priest in 1524, he was sent to Mexico as a missionary together with 19 other monks in 1529, eight years after the conquest of Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City ) by Cortés , and taught there at the newly founded Franciscan college in Santa Cruz in 1536 Tlatelolco . While he was teaching the eight to ten-year-old students - sons of the country's leading Aztec families, baptized Christian - in Spanish and Latin , religion, natural sciences and music, he himself learned their language, Nahuatl, on numerous trips around the country . He was soon recognized throughout Mexico as an expert on Aztec language and culture. Around 1540 he received from Fray Toribio de Benavente , called " Motolinía ", the order to write an encyclopedia on "all important things in New Spain". Motolinía had prepared "memory books" under the title Memoriales and in 1541 published its own history of New Spain. The provincial of the ecclesiastical province, the future bishop of Campeche and Yucatán , Fray Francisco Toral , renewed the commission, and Sahagún set to work, since 1558 on the official mandate of the Franciscan order. A sumario. a first summary, he sent in 1570 to the administrative president of the Consejo de Indias , the Council of India , Juan de Ovando , in the same year a memorandum ( Breve compendio ) on the Aztec rites to Pope Pius V in Rome.

To the chagrin of Sahagún and Motolinía, Fray Juan de Zumárraga (1468–1548), the first Archbishop of México- Tenochtitlán and at the same time inquisitor , and Bishop Diego de Landa (1524–1579) had all the tangible Maya documents and manuscripts that were in were written in their own writing and had the altars and images of gods destroyed. The highlight of the campaign was Landa's Autodafé from Maní in 1562.

The Spanish conquistadors as well as Bishop Toral sued Landa for usurping their rights and abusing the Inquisition ; Landa traveled to Spain to defend himself, where he was tried. However, in 1569 he was not only acquitted on all points, but his actions were confirmed as mild. After the death of his accuser Toral (1571) he was even appointed as his successor in the episcopate of Yucatán (1573–1579), an office he held until his death.

The Historia general

The twelve-volume work entitled Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España , written bilingually in Spanish and Nahuatl, was completed in 1569, but in view of the resistance of the Inquisition and the Council of India, it was never published because it was feared that the Aztecs might refer to their past reflect and the myths and beliefs, ceremonies and customs described therein could find imitators. Here Sahagún had drawn on the writing of an expert in the field of demonology and an excellent connoisseur of the Nahuátl, the monk Andrés de Olmos , who had assisted Zumárraga in his work of destruction.

In 1575 the Council of India banned all scriptures in the indigenous languages and forced Sahagún to hand over all of his documents about the Aztec culture as well as the results of his research; Sahagún ignored this prohibition and in 1577 presented a copy of the Historia general to his patron Fray Rodrigo de Sequeira , since 1575 general agent of the order in his province and later even censor of the Inquisition for all of New Spain. When this manuscript also disappeared, Sahagún made a third copy for Sequeira, which he took to Spain in 1580.

Working method

Sahagún describes in the prologue to Book 2 how he went about his field research . First he gathered the elders and the village lord, who mostly had a good knowledge of the civil, military, political and religious environment. He explained his plan to this group of people and asked them to name experienced informants who could answer his questions. The next day he met the ten to twelve named people, mostly older people, whom he interviewed together with some of his Latin students whom he had previously taught in Tlatelolco. With these interpreters and informants, who belonged to the leading strata of the country, he spent two years talking and systematic questioning every day, dealing with the strange world from above (gods, creation, myths) to below (animals, plants). Scholastic meticulousness, language skills and impartiality to the foreign culture thus combined into a whole. The models were Pliny ' Historia naturalis , Isidore of Seville and Aristotle . In all of this work he was thus a translator of scriptures from and into the Nahuatl and a (partisan) cultural translator.

After moving to Tepepulco (1565), Sahagún revised, corrected and expanded the material; the 1,700 illustrations ( Codex Florentinus ) were also created here. Although he in no way shared the world understanding of his informants and only collected the material for the purpose of proselytizing, Sahagún got so involved in the lost and destroyed world of the Aztecs that the foreign culture came into its own in their own language.

structure

Codex Florentinus: The Patolli Game

1. Gods and goddesses
2. Celebrations
3. Immortality of the soul, soul places
4. Astrological prophecies
5th sign
6. Rhetoric and moral philosophy
7. Natural philosophy
8. Rulers, their customs and ways of governing the state
9. Merchants, craftsmen
10. Vice and virtues
11. Animals and plants
12. The conquest of Mexico
Appendix: grammar and vocabulary (made in 1569 as a fair copy)

Text history

The genesis of the monumental work was complex

a) the basic principle of his work, the questioning of old indigenous people who are knowledgeable in the individual subject areas with the help of indigenous pupils from religious schools as well
b) the various places of his activity where he had other informants available.

The original concept was continuously expanded and encompassed all areas of knowledge at the time. Decisive for the fate of the work was the ecclesiastical policy, implemented by the state authorities, to suppress all texts in indigenous languages because of the risk of a bad influence on proselytizing. Possible sources of heretical ideas should be destroyed. Specifically, in a cédula from 1577, all of Sahagún's works were called for in Spain.

Codex Florentinus , Book IX, p. 51.31.8 × 21 cm. Text in Latinized Nahuatl

The manuscripts were known in religious circles and were passed on from monastery to monastery. One of the three copies sent to Spain was given to the Grand Duke of Tuscany by King Philip II in 1576 ; This Codex Florentinus is considered to be the most extensive, most complete and last manuscript and is richly illustrated, especially in the area of the Náhuatl language. However, science has long relied on another copy, kept in an archive in the monastery of Tolosa , Spain . It was only discovered in 1800 and published in Mexico in 1829 and in London in 1831. This copy is a version revised by Sahagún with regard to grammar and spelling.

The Codex Florentinus was first described in 1793 by the librarian Angelo Maria Bandini (1726-1803), in 1879 the first further mention was made. At the Americanist Congress in Berlin (1888), Eduard Seler reported that he had looked through the manuscript, and some passages from it were in his posthumously published translations in 1927; the rest was only published by Leonard Schultze-Jena after World War II . It was not until Dibble and Anderson began in the USA with a complete translation of the work from Aztec into English.

The Historia is an outstanding example of early ethnography . It contains illustrated sagas and legends of the Aztecs ( Codex Florentinus ), information about religion and mythology , the Aztec calendar as well as flora and fauna. Part of it also deals with the history of the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés from the perspective of the indigenous people.

Quotes

Sahagún, prologue to the chronicle :

“The doctor cannot prescribe medication to the sick person without first knowing what the body fluids and what caused the disease. ... The preachers and confessors are doctors of souls to heal mental illnesses. It is advisable that they have practical experience with the drugs and the mental illnesses ... Nor is it appropriate for the clergy to be negligent in this conversion on the grounds that there are no other sins in this people than drunkenness, Theft and lust, because there are many other, more serious sins in him that need remedial action. The sins of idol worship and idolatrous rites, idolatrous superstitions, omens, abuses and idolatrous ceremonies have not yet completely disappeared. "
“When this work was started, those who knew about it said you had to make a dictionary. Even now, many still ask me how the dictionary is doing. ... I lacked this basis, since there are neither letters nor a script in this people; therefore it was impossible for me to compile a dictionary; but I have worked out the basics. "
"The twelve books are arranged in such a way that each sheet contains three columns: the first in Spanish, the second in Mexican, and the third an explanation of the Mexican words."
"This book is like a trawl that brings all the words of this language with their own and figurative meanings as well as all the ways of speaking and most of its old customs, both good and bad, to the light of day."
"It seems to me to be certain that at this time of ours, in these countries and with this people, our dear Lord wanted to give back to the Church what the devil had stolen from him in England, Germany and France, in Asia and Palestine."

expenditure

Códice Florentino (Florentine Codex, Codex Florentinus, Tlatelolco 1578–1580?) Náhuatl + Spanish, numerous color illustrations. Final version.

Original: Biblioteca Medica-Laurenziana, Florence (Palat. Col. Cod. 218–220)

Facsimile: Gobierno de la República: Códice Florentino . 3 volumes Mexico 1979.

Náhuatl text and translation: Arthur JO Anderson, Charles E. Dibble (transl.): Florentino Codex . 14 volumes. School of American Research, Santa Fe 1950–1982, ISBN 0-87480-082-X [New editions of individual volumes with changed text and page numbers]

Spanish text: Angel María Garibay K. (Ed.): Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España . 4 volumes Porrúa, Mexico 1956. Fifth edition 1982.

German editions

[Bernardino de Sahagún:] From the world of the Aztecs. The Chronicle of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún . With e. Foreword by Juan Rulfo. Exercised by Leonhard Schultze-Jena, Eduard Seler and Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar-Sáenz. Selected u. with e. Afterword provided by Claus Litterscheid. 2nd Edition. Frankfurt am Main: Insel 1990. (EA 1989).
[Bernardino de Sahagún:] The heart on the sacrificial stone. Aztec texts. From d. Original language transferred by Eduard Seler. Selected u. with e. Afterword provided by Janheinz Jahn. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne / Berlin 1962.
[Bernardino de Sahagún:] Some chapters from the history of Fray Bernardino de Sahagun translated from Aztec by Eduard Seler . Hgb.v. Caecilie Seler-Sachs in cooperation with Walter Lehmann a. Walter Krickeberg. With fig. In the text u. on plate Stuttgart: Strecker and Schröder 1927.

Death, characteristic

Sahagún died at the age of 91 in Tlatelolco , now a district of Mexico City . The city's religious orders and students attended his funeral, as did the indigenous peoples who wept tears. Known as a youth for his good looks and manners, he devoted himself to his religious duties up to ecstasy; personally modest, polite and sociable, he boasted that he had not paused a day in his more than sixty years as a teacher. He was considered an excellent connoisseur of "Mexican", the Nahuatl , and had a broad general education.

Signature of Bernardinos de Sahagún, around 1570

Other works

Individual fonts

Primeros Memoriales (Tepeapulco 1559–1561) Náhuatl, illustrations

Original: Biblioteca del Palacio Real, Madrid

Facsimile: Primeros Memoriales . University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1993, ISBN 0-8061-2533-0 .

Text and translation: Primeros Memoriales. trans. v. Thelma D.Sullivan. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1997, ISBN 0-8061-2909-3 .

Memoriales complementarios / Segundos Memoriales (Tlatelolco 1561–1562), Náhuatl

Fragments in Biblioteca del Palacio Real, Madrid

Memoriales de Tres Columnas (Tlatelolco 1563–1565) Nahuatl + Spanish

Original: Biblioteca del Palacio Real, Madrid (chapters 1–2), Academia Real de la Historia, Madrid (chapters 3–5)

Facsimile: Francisco del Paso y Troncoso: Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España . Madrid 1905-1907. Volume 7 and 8.

Three columns with text in Náhuatl and Spanish as well as lexical and grammatical explanations, only partially carried out.

Memoriales con Escolios (Tlatelolco approx. 1565) Náhuatl + Spanish, fair copy of parts of the Memoriales de Tres Columnas

Original: Biblioteca del Palacio Real, Madrid (chapters 1–7), Academia Real de la Historia, Madrid (chapters 8–11)

Manuscrito de 1569, Náhuatl

lost

Sumario de 1570 (Mexico City May 20, 1570) Spanish (Table of contents of the final version)

Originally brought to the Council of India in Spain, lost

Breve Compendio de los rytos ydolatricos… (Mexico City December 25, 1570)

Original: Vatican Library

Text: Livario Oliger. Breve compendio de los ritos idolátricos… auctore Bernardino de Sahagún . Rome 1942.

Addressed to Pope Pius V with a request for financial support for the completion

Manuscrito de Enriques (Tlatelolco 1575–1577), Náhuatl + Spanish

lost

Memoriales en Español (Mexico City, 1569–1571 or later) Spanish. Only books 1 and 5 of the later versions

Original: Biblioteca del Palacio Real, Madrid

Facsimile: Francisco del Paso y Troncoso: Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España . Madrid 1905-1907. Volume 7.

Manuscrito de Tolosa (Tlatelolco?, 1577– after 1580?) Spanish

Academia Real de la Historia, Madrid, Colección Muñoz vol. 50.

Contemporary copy of the Spanish text of the Florentine Codex

Religious writings

Bible translations into Nahuatl
Coloquios y doctrina cristiana con que los doce frailes de San Francisco, enviados por el Papa Adriano VI y por el Emperador Carlos V, convirtieron a los indios de la Nueva España ( Spanish and Nahuatl , exchanges between Indian nobles and missionaries on questions of Christian faith , not authentic)

Facsimile, Náhuatl text and commentary: Miguel León-Portilla. Coloquios y doctrina cristiana: con que los doce frailes de San Francisco, enviados por el papa Adriano VI y por el emperador Carlos V, convirtieron a los indios de la Nueva España . UNAM, Mexico 1986, ISBN 968-83782-3-2 .

Editions and German translation: Bernardino de Sahagún (translated by Walter Lehmann, ed. By Gerdt Kutscher): Dying gods and Christian message of salvation. Exchange speeches by Indian gentlemen and the Spanish apostles of the faith in Mexico in 1524 . Source works on the ancient history of America, Volume 3. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1949

Prayers and songs

Cantares / Psalmodio cristiano (Tepepulco 1564–83) Náhuatl

Published in Mexico 1583

Manual del Cristiano (1578) Náhuatl

Original: Newberry Library, Ayer Collection Ms. 1484. unpublished

Linguistic studies

Arte (de la lengua mexicana) - (1569, expanded revision 1585) - Grammar of the Náhuatl

lost

Vocabulario trilingue (1584?) Náhuatl - Latin - Spanish dictionary

Similar manuscript: Newberry Library, Ayer Collection (Ms 1478), unpublished

literature

Miguel León-Portilla : Bernardino de Sahagun - First Anthropologist. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 2002.
Miguel León-Portilla: Bernardino de Sahagún, Pionero de la Antropología. (= Series Cultura Náhuatl, Monografías. 24). UNAM / El Colegio Nacional , México, DF 1999.
Ascensión Hernández de León-Portilla: Bernardino de Sahagún: Diez estudios acerca de su obra. Fondo de Cultura Económica . México, DF 1997.
Serge Gruzinski : L'Amérique de la Conquête peinte par les Indiens du Mexique . Unesco / Flammarion, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-08-012155-3 .
J. Jorge Klor De Alva and others: Work of Bernardino de Sahagún: Pioneer Ethongrapher of Sixteenth-Century Aztec Mexico . State Univ. of New York at Albany, Inst. for Mesoamerican Studies, Albany 1988.
Karl Braun (Ed.): “They look for gold like pigs”. The conquest of Mexico-Tenochtitlan from an Indian perspective. Compiled and edited from images and texts by Bernardino de Sahagún. AS, Tübingen 1982, ISBN 3-88773-010-0 .
Roland Bernhard: History myths about Hispanic America. Discovery, conquest and colonization in German and Austrian textbooks of the 21st century. (= Eckert. Die Schriftenreihe. Studies of the Georg Eckert Institute for international educational media research 134) V&R Unipress, Göttingen 2013, page 118ff.

Web links

Commons : Bernardino de Sahagún - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ The work of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590). UNESCO Memory of the World, accessed September 1, 2017 .
^ After Garibay: Historia. P. 12, Bernardino probably came from a former Jewish Konversen family .
↑ The school, with around 70–300 students, did not achieve the results hoped for, and in 1540 the Franciscans considered their task done; only in 1570 - after the epidemics of 1545/46 and 1564 - did they take over the management of the much smaller school again; http://www.answers.com/topic/colegio-imperial-de-santa-cruz-de-tlatelolco
↑ ^a ^b ^c Claus Litterscheid: Afterword. In: B. de Sahagún: From the world of the Aztecs. 1990.
↑ Landa laid the foundations for deciphering the Mayan script by reproducing the Mayan “alphabet” he misunderstood in his defensive text “ Relación de las cosas de Yucatán ” from 1566.
↑ Treatise on sorcery and witchcraft ; [André de Olomos:] Georges Baudot (ed.): Tratado de hechicerias y sortilegios [Nahuatl and France] (Traité des sorcelleries et sortilèges) Ed. del texto Nahuatl con trad. y notas en frances. MAEFM, México 1979. (Études mésoaméricaines II, 1.)
↑ ^a ^b Juan Rulfo : Foreword. In: B. de Sahagún: From the world of the Aztecs. 1990.
↑ The school in Tlatelolco had produced about a dozen excellent students who were equally proficient in European and Nahuatl cultures; they became close collaborators of the Franciscans as translators, missionaries, co-authors and teachers of the younger friars ( Antonio Valeriano , teacher of Juan de Torquemada , Alonso Vejarano and Martín Jacovita ); http://www.answers.com/topic/colegio-imperial-de-santa-cruz-de-tlatelolco#ixzz1ISAr2wO0
↑ Klaus Zimmermann: Translation for colonization and christianization: The practice of bilingual edition of Bernardino de Sahagún. In: Klaus Zimmermann, Otto Zwartjes, Martina Schrader-Kniffki (Eds.): Missionary Linguistics V / Lingüística Misionera V: Translation theories and practices. John Benjamin, Amsterdam / Philadelphia 2014, pp. 85–112.
^ Bernardino de Sahagún. In: Catholic Encyclopedia.
^ Characteristics based on Bernardino de Sahagún. In: Catholic Encyclopedia.
↑ Luis Nicolao d'Olwer, Howard F. Cline: Sahagún and his works. In: Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources. Part 2 (= Handbook of Middle American Indians. Vol. 13). University of Texas Press, Austin 1973, pp. 186-206.

personal data
SURNAME	Sahagún, Bernardino de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Spanish missionary and ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH	1499
PLACE OF BIRTH	Sahagún, Spain
DATE OF DEATH	October 23, 1590
Place of death	Mexico

[1] The work of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590). UNESCO Memory of the World, accessed September 1, 2017 .

[2] After Garibay: Historia. P. 12, Bernardino probably came from a former Jewish Konversen family .

[3] The school, with around 70–300 students, did not achieve the results hoped for, and in 1540 the Franciscans considered their task done; only in 1570 - after the epidemics of 1545/46 and 1564 - did they take over the management of the much smaller school again; http://www.answers.com/topic/colegio-imperial-de-santa-cruz-de-tlatelolco

[nachwort-4] Claus Litterscheid: Afterword. In: B. de Sahagún: From the world of the Aztecs. 1990.

[5] Landa laid the foundations for deciphering the Mayan script by reproducing the Mayan “alphabet” he misunderstood in his defensive text “ Relación de las cosas de Yucatán ” from 1566.

[6] Treatise on sorcery and witchcraft ; [André de Olomos:] Georges Baudot (ed.): Tratado de hechicerias y sortilegios [Nahuatl and France] (Traité des sorcelleries et sortilèges) Ed. del texto Nahuatl con trad. y notas en frances. MAEFM, México 1979. (Études mésoaméricaines II, 1.)

[vorwort-7] Juan Rulfo : Foreword. In: B. de Sahagún: From the world of the Aztecs. 1990.

[8] The school in Tlatelolco had produced about a dozen excellent students who were equally proficient in European and Nahuatl cultures; they became close collaborators of the Franciscans as translators, missionaries, co-authors and teachers of the younger friars ( Antonio Valeriano , teacher of Juan de Torquemada , Alonso Vejarano and Martín Jacovita ); http://www.answers.com/topic/colegio-imperial-de-santa-cruz-de-tlatelolco#ixzz1ISAr2wO0

[9] Klaus Zimmermann: Translation for colonization and christianization: The practice of bilingual edition of Bernardino de Sahagún. In: Klaus Zimmermann, Otto Zwartjes, Martina Schrader-Kniffki (Eds.): Missionary Linguistics V / Lingüística Misionera V: Translation theories and practices. John Benjamin, Amsterdam / Philadelphia 2014, pp. 85–112.

[10] Bernardino de Sahagún. In: Catholic Encyclopedia.

[11] Characteristics based on Bernardino de Sahagún. In: Catholic Encyclopedia.

[12] Luis Nicolao d'Olwer, Howard F. Cline: Sahagún and his works. In: Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources. Part 2 (= Handbook of Middle American Indians. Vol. 13). University of Texas Press, Austin 1973, pp. 186-206.