Diego Duran

Diego Durán (* around 1537 in Seville , Spain; † around 1588 ) was a Dominican of Spanish origin in Mexico and the author of one of the earliest works on the pre-Columbian history of the Aztecs .

Life

Durán was born in Seville around 1537. As a child he traveled with his family to Mexico, where he grew up in Texcoco and also learned Náhuatl . A little later the family moved to Mexico City . When he was about 19 years old, he entered the Dominican Order.

plant

Illustration of the historical work, sheet 48: Moctezuzma looks at a comet, which he sees as a sign of impending doom

Durán is best known for his major historical work. The illustrations belonging to this book have been at least partially cut out from an earlier work and connected to this book. There are also several smaller fonts.

• Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e Islas de Tierra Firme (History of the Indians of New Spain and the islands of the continent), written in 1581. The original has not survived, the manuscript closest to this is the “ Códice Durán ” in the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid . The different writers of this manuscript also had a substantive impact, so that one should actually speak of editors. According to a statement at the end, this work was completed in 1581.
• Libro de los ritos y ceremonias (Book of Rites and Ceremonies), actually the first part of the aforementioned work. After the description of Topiltzin and Huemac in Tula , chapters on Huitzilopochtli , Tezcatlipoca , Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc as well as the god Camaxtli of Tlaxcallan follow . This is followed by a description of individual festivals and other deities. This book also contains two Indian calendars, the first with a very extensive description of the 18 festival periods known as months. These texts are not authentic representations of the mechanics of the calendar, but rather artifacts that are not congruent with each other.

swell

Undoubtedly, Durán received a lot of impressions and knowledge as a boy through contact with members of the Indian upper class. In the Dominican Order he came across the confrere Francisco de Aguilar , who had written a report on the conquest of Mexico, in which he had participated as a soldier. Durán quotes him frequently.

The most important source of the historical work is the “Historia”, which Durán repeatedly mentions and whose authority he trusts absolutely. This “Historia”, an extensive work apparently written in Náhuatl, was also available to the Indian historian Hernando de Alvarado Tezozómoc , who used it intensively for his Crónica Mexicana . The American historian Robert Barlow coined the name "Crónica X" for this hypothetical work. However, Durán and Tezozomoc set clearly different priorities in their processing of the template: Durán is more elaborate, especially with historical anecdotes, more descriptive in religious ceremonies (which he focused on in his other work) and decorative. The speeches and conversations of the rulers, especially with the cihuacoatl Tlacaelel, are far more detailed, but not necessarily rich in content.

Durán's own ingredients are, for example, references to the Bible and his opinion that the Indians descended from the "lost" ten tribes of Israel , a widespread view in his time.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hanns J. Prem : Manual de la antigua cronología mexicana . México, Ciesas 2008, ISBN 978-968-496-694-9 , pp. 180-184.
2. ^ Robert H. Barlow. La "Crónica X": Versiones coloniales de la historia de los mexica-tenochca , en Monjarás-Ruíz, Jesús; Mª Cruz Paillés y Elena Limón (coords.): Obras completas de Robert H. Barlow , vol. 3, México, 1990 INAH - UDLA. Pp. 13-32. Reprint of the original edition from 1945
3. ↑ José Luis de Rojas Una historia: dos versiones. Durán, Tezozomoc y el pasado mexica , en Itinerarios , no. 5, pp. 143-152. ( PDF ( Memento of the original from November 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ) 

expenditure

• Diego Durán: Historia de las Indias de Nueva España y islas de Tierra Firme . ed. by José F.Ramírez. 2. Vol. México, Ignacio Escalante, 1880 Historia de las Indias de Nueva-España y islas de Tierra Firme , in: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.
• Diego Durán: Historia de las Indias de Nueve España e islas de la Tierra Firme . Edited by Angel Ma. Garibay K., México, Editorial Porrúa, 1967.
• Diego Durán: The history of the Indies of New Spain (English translation with introduction and notes by Doris Heyden). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8061-2649-3 ; ISBN 0-585-12511-2 .
• Diego Durán: Historia de las Indias de la Nueva España e islas de la tierra fierme . Edited by Rosa Camelo, José Rubén Romero. México, CONACULTA 1995.
• Diego Durán: Book of the gods and rites and The ancient calendar . Translated and edited by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden. Foreword by Miguel León-Portilla . Norman, University of Oklahoma Press 1971, ISBN 0-8061-0889-4 .