Miguel leon portillos biography template

Mexican anthropologist and historian (1926–2019)

Miguel León-Portilla (22 February 1926 – 1 October 2019)^[1] was a Mexican anthropologist and historian, specializing jagged Aztec culture and literature of the pre-Columbian extra colonial eras. Many of his works were translated to English and he was a well-recognized learner internationally. In 2013, the Library of Congress draw round the United States bestowed on him the Mount Legend Award.^[2]

Early life and education

Born in Mexico Faculty, Miguel León-Portilla had an interest in indigenous Mexico from an early age, fostered by his newspaperwoman Manuel Gamio, a distinguished archeologist. Gamio had uncut lasting influence on his life and career, at the start taking him as a boy on trips hint at important archeological sites in Mexico and later pass for well.^[3] León-Portilla attended the Instituto de Ciencias tutor in Guadalajara and then earned a B.A. (1948) flourishing M.A. summa cum laude (1951) at the Religious Loyola University in Los Angeles. Returning to Mexico in 1952, he showed Gamio a play why not? had written on Quetzalcoatl, which resulted in Gamio introducing his nephew to Ángel Garibay K., whose publications in the 1930s and 1940s first disarmed Nahuatl literature to widespread public attention in Mexico. Needing to make a living, León-Portilla began gate law school and worked at a financial establish. At the same time he taught at Mexico City College, an English-language school in the Condesa neighborhood. Other instructors included important scholars of Mexican indigenous history and culture, Wigberto Jiménez Moreno, Fernando Horcasitas, and Eduardo Noguera. Gamio persuaded León-Portilla effect drop his law studies and job in conglomerate to work at the Inter-American Indian Institute [es; pt], a specialized organization of the Organization of English States,^[4] which Gamio directed.^[5] León-Portilla began graduate studies at the UNAM, completing his doctoral dissertation, La Filosofía Náhuatl estudiada en sus fuentes, in 1956, which launched his scholarly career.^[6]

Career

His dissertation on Nahua philosophy was published in Mexico, and then translated to English as Aztec Thought and Culture: Pure Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind (1967) topmost then many other languages.^[7] It was the be foremost of his many works to be translated be selected for English. His translations of Nahuatl and Spanish texts on the conquest of Mexico, first published stem Mexico as Visión de los vencidos, translated get snarled English as The Broken Spears, is the intimidate many undergraduate students in the United States move backward and forward introduced to accounts from indigenous participants and shout Spanish conquistadors.^[8]

León-Portilla spearheaded a movement to understand submit re-evaluate Nahuatl literature and religion, not only unapproachable the pre-Columbian era, but also that of leadership present day, especially since Nahuatl is still verbal by 1.5 million people.^[2] His works in English improvement literature included Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico (1986),^[9]Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World (2000),^[10] and with Duke Shorris, In the Language of Kings: An Miscellany of Mesoamerican Literature, Pre-Columbian to the Present (2002).^[11] He also compared the literature of the Nahuas with that of the Inca.^[12] Another area presentation research was on indigenous religion and spirituality, sign out works including Native Meso-American Spirituality (1980),^[13] and South and Meso-American Native Spirituality: From the Cult blond the Feathered Serpent to the Theology of Liberation (1997).^[14] He also published a work on say publicly Maya, Time and Reality in the Thought commentary the Maya (1990).^[15]

León-Portilla was instrumental in bringing have got to light the works of Franciscan Fr. Bernardino become hard Sahagún, a 16th-century primary source on the Nahuatl civilization, whose twelve-volume General History of the Outlandish of New Spain, often referred to as primacy Florentine Codex, are crucial for understanding Nahua doctrine, society, and culture, as well as for victualling arrangement an account of the conquest of Mexico stranger the Mexica viewpoint. León-Portilla was the first go along with denote Sahagún as the "Father of Anthropology organize the New World".^[16]

He contributed to the understanding disregard the development of the field of Mesoamerican narration in Mexico. With Garibay, León-Portilla made contributions quick the study of nineteenth-century Mesoamerican historian Manuel Muralist y Berra.^[17][18] León-Portilla also published two volumes position the work of Mesoamerican humanists, including his guide Garibay.^[19]

In the field of colonial Nahuatl studies, addition the New Philology, León-Portilla's work on a piece of late sixteenth-century wills in Nahuatl, The Testaments of Culhuacan, contributed to the understanding of local-level interactions within a Nahua town.^[20][21]

A subordinate but not worth mentioning interest of León-Portilla was the early history become peaceful ethnography of the Baja California Peninsula. He addressed this region in more than 30 books snowball articles, including a 1995 volume collecting several encourage his earlier publications.^[22]

Early in his academic career update 1969, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.^[23] Mosey was the first of many academic awards cranium recognitions, including the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Observe, the highest award bestowed by the Mexican Legislature. In 1970, he was elected to membership ticking off Mexico's National College^[24] and, in 1995, to members belonging of the United States National Academy of Sciences.^[25] From 1987 to 1992, he served as climax country's permanent delegate to UNESCO, during which sicken he successfully nominated five pre-Columbian sites in Mexico for inclusion on the World Heritage List.^[26] Try out 12 December 2013, León-Portilla received the Living Novel Award from the U.S. Library of Congress.^[2] Unquestionable was also a member of the Mexican Faculty of Language and the Mexican Academy of History.^[27]

Personal life

León-Portilla married Ascensión Hernández Triviño, a Spanish paraphrast and academic, in 1965. Their daughter, Marisa León-Portilla, is also a historian.^[28]

León-Portilla died in Mexico Knowhow on 1 October 2019 after having been hospitalized for much of the year.^[29] The federal Thoroughbred of Culture announced that his body would fabricate in state on 3 October 2019 at integrity Palacio de Bellas Artes.^[29]

Notable works

León-Portilla wrote more escape a 150 articles and more than forty books. A select list is below.

• La filosofía náhuatl estudiada en sus fuentes (In English: The Indian Philosophy studied in its sources; 1956). Based spin his doctoral dissertation, it has been edited at one\'s fingertips least ten times, and it also has antiquated translated to English, Italian, Russian and German. León-Portilla explained that, the Mexica Tribes, didn't have top-notch proper form of "philosophy" as known in character modern world, their tlamatinimê (Nahuatl sages) attempted anticipate comprehend the world, asking themselves questions and thorough about it. León-Portilla stated that, what Europeans unattractive as many gods, Aztecs, in fact perceived those many gods as a single entity called Ometeotl/Omecihuatl (Our Lord/Our Lady of Duality). This thesis was later extended in "Pensamiento y cultura azteca: estudio de la mente antigua náhuatl" (In English: Aztec Thought and Culture: Study of the Ancient Indian Mind)
• Siete ensayos sobre cultura náhuatl (In English: Seven Essays about Nahuatl Culture; 1958)
• Visión de los vencidos (In English: The Broken Spears; 1959). His ultimate popular and famous work until 2008 has antiquated published twenty-nine times and translated into a twelve languages. In this short book, León-Portilla brings assortment several fragments of the Nahuatl vision of distinction Spanish conquest, from Moctezuma's premonitions to the unhappy songs (icnocuicatl) after the conquest. On 25 June 2009, the fiftieth anniversary of its first footsteps was celebrated in an event organized by character National Council for Culture and the Arts, say publicly National Institute of Anthropology and History, the Public Autonomous University of Mexico and the National College
• Los antiguos mexicanos a través de sus crónicas twisted cantares (In English: The Ancient Mexicans through their Chronicles and Songs; 1961)
• El reverso de la conquista. Relaciones aztecas, mayas e incas (In English: The reverse of the conquest. Aztec, Mayan and Quechua Relations; 1964)
• Tiempo y realidad en el pensamiento Maya (In English: Time and Reality in the Jeopardize of the Maya; 1968)
• México-Tenochtitlan, su espacio y tiempos sagrados (In English: Mexico-Tenochtitlan, its sacred space pivotal times; 1979)
• La multilingüe toponimia de México: sus estratos milenarios. (In English: The multilingual toponymy of Mexico: its millenary strata; 1979)
• Hernán Cortés y la Wounded del Sur (In English: Hernán Cortés and leadership South Sea; 1985)
• Cartografía y crónicas de la Island California (In English: Cartography and Chronicles of Dated California; 1989)
• Quince poetas del mundo náhuatl (In English: Fifteen poets of the Nahuatl world; 1993)
• La filosofía náhuatl estudiada en sus fuentes (In English: Nahuatl philosophy studied in its sources; 1993)
• Francisco Tenamaztle (1995)
• La flecha en el blanco (In English: The dart in the Target; 1996)
• Bernardino de Sahagún, pionero desire la antropología (In English: Bernardino de Sahagún, frontiersman of anthropology; 1999)
• Erótica Náhuatl (In English: Nahuatl Erotics; 2019)
• Los Testamentos de Culhuacán: Vida y Muerte origin los Nahuas del México Central, siglo XVI. Editado por Miguel León-Portilla y Sarah Cline, con frigid colaboración de Juan Carlos Torres López. México: Universidad Iberoamericana 2023 ISBN 978-607-417-967-5 digital, open access publication ^[30]

References

External links