Sahagún's ethnographic method and the Florentine Codex
Método etnográfico de Sahagún y Códice Florentino
- Date
- 1558-1577 · confidence medium
- Place
- Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, Mexico City, Mexico
- Credited to
- Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators (Antonio Valeriano and others)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Systematic research on Nahua society using questionnaires, informants from different towns and a Nahuatl text with images, recorded in the General History of the Things of New Spain. It is regarded as a forerunner of modern ethnography.
Calling Sahagún 'the first ethnographer' is a historiographical judgement (Klor de Alva, León-Portilla), not a fact; the work developed between Tepepulco, Tlatelolco and Mexico City and the final manuscript (Florentine Codex) dates to c. 1577.
What it led to
- The main source on Mexica culture, religion and medicine
- A model of fieldwork with informants and cross-checking
- Preservation of written Classical Nahuatl