Diego Durán

Diego Durán (c. 1537 in Seville, Spain, † 1588 ) was a Dominican of Spanish descent in Mexico and the author of one of the earliest works on the pre-Hispanic history of the Aztecs.

Life

Durán was born in 1537 in Seville. With his family, he still traveled to Mexico as a child, where he grew up in Texcoco and also learned Nahuatl. A little later the family moved to Mexico City. With about 19 years, he entered the Dominican Order.

Work

Durán has become particularly well known for his historical masterpiece. Belonging to this book illustrations have been at least partly cut out of an earlier work and connected with 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 1581st The original is not received, the closest to this standing handwriting is the " Códice Durán " in the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid. The various writers of this manuscript have had substantive precipitation, so you should actually speak of editors. This work has been completed by a person standing on end specification in 1581
• Libro de los ritos y Ceremonias ( Book of Rites and ceremonies ), actually the first part of the above-mentioned work. According to the description of Topiltzin and Huemac in Tula chapters follow to Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc sowi the God of Camaxtli Tlaxcallan. Then follows a description of individual festivals and other deities. In this book, two Indian calendar are included, the first with a very extensive description of 18 months referred to as the hard sections. These texts are not authentic representations of the mechanics of the calendar, but artifacts, hostile to each other are also congruent.

Swell

Undoubtedly, Durán was growing up many impressions and knowledge through contact with members of the Indian upper class. In the Dominican Order he met among others the friar Francisco de Aguilar, who had written a report on the conquest of Mexico, in which he had participated as a soldier. Him quotes Durán often.

The main source of historical work is the repeatedly mentioned by Durán "Historia ", whose authority he necessarily familiar. This " Historia ", an apparently penned in Náhuatl extensive work, also has the Indian historian Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc been present who has used it extensively for his Crónica Mexicana. The American historian Robert Barlow for this hypothetical plant the name " Crónica X" shaped .. However, Durán and Tezozomoc have set significantly different priorities in their handling of the template: Durán is long-winded, especially in historical anecdotes, more descriptive in religious ceremonies ( which his attention was in his other work ) and ausschmückend. The speeches and conversations of the Emperor in particular with the Cihuacoatl Tlacaelel are far more detailed, but not necessarily richer in content.

Own ingredients radiodurans, for example, the references to the Bible and his opinion that the Indians "lost" by the ten tribes of Israel descended, at its time a widely held view.