MANUALS CREATED IN NEW SPAIN FOR MISSIONARIES

The Franciscans soon began to create textbooks and other didatic materials. Usually, the language of instruction used in the didactic materials was Nahuatl. The Friars thought that the use the Aztec's own language would ensure that their students' understanding would be "más inteligente y más hondo de la fe católica." In other words, they thought that by teaching them about Christianity in their own language there would be no room for misinterpretation and somehow the religion would be promulgated in a "pure" form, thereby avoiding any potential heretical interpretation of the Bible.

The Franciscans developed a primitive printing press out of wood and they would print on maguey paper and other materials, traditionally used in making the ancient codices. Pedro de Gantes' "Catecismo de la Doctrina Cristiana" is the oldest of these materials. The book is replete with images representing the Sign of the Cross, Our father, the Hail Mary, the Creed, diverse poems, the sacraments, and so on.

Pages out of Pedro De Gantes' Catecismo. Figures represent Padre Nuestro, Ave Maria and el Credo. (In Bravo, 1977 p. 27)

Images such as those that appear above in Pedre Nuestro not only appeared in books, but were also drawn on paper or deer skin and posted. Or else, artists or students painted these symbols directly on the walls. It was said that these images, that were nearly identical to those painted in the ancient Aztec codices, linked the Euro-Christian doctrine to the history of the indigenous students. "Seeing the images and hearing the teachers, Aztec students picked up in mind and heart cultural, religious and literary content that would stay with them for the rest of their lives..." (Garibey, in Bravo, 1977, p. 26)

Pedro de Gante later wrote the trilingual (Latin, Nahuatl, and Spanish) Cartilla para Ensenar a Leer (published in 1569 in Mexico). As the name implies, this material was used to teach people how to read in any of the three languages mentioned above. The catequists to learn Latin; the children of the elite, Spanish; and the rest, including the Spanish Friars and any other Indigenous students, Nahuatl. Both the Cartilla and the Catecismo were inspired in the indigenous codices.

Pages out of Pedro De Gantes' Cartilla. (In Bravo, 1977 p. 36, 39)

The technique of application went something like this: the teacher placed the book to the side and with a wooden stick went along pointing to each figure, while he explained the facts behind it. To the friars this method proved that students would learn the material. Bravo writes: "Tales recursos se asemejaban en mucho a los que acostumbraban los indigenas, por lo que se confiaba, "conociendo el material genio de los indios, [...] que mejor [que] por los oídos, les entraría la Fe por los ojos. [Los misionarios] hicieron y ordenaron [...] representaciones materiales de los misterios de ella, pa[ra] que vieran y más fácil persivieran, lo que en la continua tarea de su Predicación les esplicaba, y aun con las más expressibas vozes de su Idioma se les hacía duro de entender el sermón."

Wood engravings of the border of the title page of Juan de Zumarrága. (MET, 1990)

Juan de Zumarrága, a Franciscan, was appointed as the first bishop of Mexico and protector of the Indians in 1527 and was soon embroiled in a bitter dispute with the corrupt judges of the First Audiencia. An early proponent of Erasmian thought (but this later changed when the Inquisition came to New Spain), Zumarrága published in Mexico, circa 1540, two treatises that advocated the application of humanist-Christian ideas in Mexico: "Doctrina breve muy p[ro]vechosa delas cosas q[ue] p[er]tenecen ala fe catolica y a n[uest]ra cristiandad" (a manual for missionaries) and Doctrina Cristiana (a catechism for Christianized Indians).

Juan de Zumarrága's copy of the Frobenius edition of Utopia. (MET 1990)

A copy of Thomas More's Utopia was said to have been on Juan de Zumarrága's bookshelf. The friars also read books by or about Erasmus, Aristotle, Thomas de Aquinas, to name a few. Of course, they also had on hand the Bible, which in the early 16th century, was written in Latin. Based on many accounts, in New Spain the Franciscans had probably translated it, or at least parts of it, into Spanish and possibly even into Nahuatl. They did so based on their belief that they could avoid misinterpretation of the doctrine by those who could not read Latin, by writing it in the native tongue. If the Bible had been translated into any other of these languages it would have been in direct violation of the Catholic Church in Europe. It was not until later in the second half of the sixteenth century that the Church allowed the Bible to be tranlated.