Home > Bernardino de Sahagún

Unlike most missionaries of the period, he researched Nahua culture and Nahuatl linguistics and compiled an unparalleled work in Spanish and Nahuatl.

Leon Portilla claims for Sahagun the title of "the first anthropologist", because his methods were ahead of his times.

He assembled three groups of nahualt "tlatimines" or wise men, from different cities. He would ask questions, compare the answers of the three independent groups, and ask more questions to clarify the differences. All this was done in nahuatl.

The origin of this is known in manuscript as the Florentine Codex . After being questioned by the Spanish authorities, he wrote a Spanish version The General History of the Things of New Spain,. But even this was too much, and his work was confiscated. Fortunately he had a copy, since the original was lost.

Only recently the nahuatl part had been completelly translated.