Nueva Coleccion de Documentos para la Historia de Mexico. Relacion de Tezcoco and Breve Relación de los Señores de la Nueva España and Varias Relaciones Antiguas

xxxix+289 pages. Octavo (9 " x 6 ¾ ") bound in full leather with black and red spine labels on raised bands and gilt lettering. From the library of George M Foster. Reprint.

Juan Bautista (de) Pomar (c. 1535 – 1590) was an historian and writer interested in pre-Columbian Aztec history. Based on references by Fray Juan de Torquemada, we can estimate that he was born in 1535 at Texcoco. He was the great grandson of Nezahualcoyotl, and was half-Spanish on his father's side. Considered noble by the Spaniards, he was able to obtain one of his great-grandfather's royal houses, known as the Netzahualcoyotl, in Texcoco. Pomar was raised as a Christian but learned Aztec tradition from his mother. He was bilingual and spoke and wrote in both Spanish and the native language of the Aztecs, Nahuatl. He is credited with one of the most important compilations of Nahuatl poetry, Romances de los señores de Nueva España. Pomar's major work includes an account of the Aztecs and Tlatelolcas Relación de Juan Bautista Pomar completed in 1582. He interviewed aged Native Americans, who recounted memory of the older and lost customs of their people. His account, written at the suggestion of the protomedic of Phillip II of Spain, complements with the works of Bernardino de Sahagun and Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl. Pomar also wrote an account with the intention of claiming his rights to the legacy of Nezahualcoyotl.

Zurita, or Zorita, Alonso, Spanish statesman, born in New Castile about 1500; died in Seville about 1570. He studied law, was appointed in 1544 auditor of the audiencia of Santo Domingo, and was sent two years later to organize the administration of New Granada at Santa Marta and Cartagena. Returning to Santo Domingo in 1549, he was transferred a few months later to the audiencia of Los Confines or Comayagua, and, visiting nearly the whole country, organized courts of justice everywhere during a sojourn of three years. He was promoted member of the audiencia of Mexico in 1553, retired from active service about 1564, and then returned to Spain. He studied in America the early history and antiquities of the Indians, and addressed several interesting memorials to the king, one of which was printed in the 2d volume of Joaquin Garcia Icazbalcetas Coleccion de documentos para la historia de Mexico (Mexico, 1858-66). Another memorial, preserved in the archives of San Francisco in Mexico, was utilized by Lorenzo Boturini and Father Clavigero, and is also mentioned in Jose Mariano Beristain's ratalogue, under the title of Breve y sumaria Relacion de los Caciques y Señores y sus maneras, y diferencia que habia de ellos en la Nueva España, Leyes y Costumbres de los Indies y Tributes que pagabart sus Principes. An abridged copy of it was published in Jose F. Ramirez's Coleccion de Documentos ineditos relatives al Descubrimiento, Conquista, y Colonizacion de las Posesiones Espanolas en America y Oceania, but the original narrative was for the first time printed in its entirety in a French translation in Henry Ternaux-Compans's collection, under the title Rapports sur les differentes classes de chefs dans la Nouvelle Espagne (Paris, 1840). Zurita wrote also a treatise on taxation and, according to Boturini, a Narrative of Facts concerning New Spain, which is lost.

George McClelland Foster, Jr born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on October 9, 1913, died on May 18, 2006, at his home in the hills above the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, where he served as a professor from 1953 to his retirement in 1979, when he became professor emeritus. His contributions to anthropological theory and practice still challenge us; in more than 300 publications, his writings encompass a wide diversity of topics, including acculturation, long-term fieldwork, peasant economies, pottery making, public health, social structure, symbolic systems, technological change, theories of illness and wellness, humoral medicine in Latin America, and worldview. The quantity, quality, and long-term value of his scholarly work led to his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1976. Virtually all of his major publications have been reprinted and/or translated. Provenance from the executor of Foster's library laid in.

Condition:

Lacks Foster's stamp but date of acquiry (10/1/44) on front end paper, light extremity wear else a very good copy.