The characteristics of Alonso de León and Fr Vicente de Santa María as narrators of chichimec mitotes in northeast Mexico

Abstract

History have taught us that the richness of Mexico’s cultural heritage came as a result of a mixture between a number of cultures and worldviews that collided and adapted to each other for centuries. However, history always has two sides, and there is a hazard of one of them being manipulated by groups, for or against it, with the aim of using it according to their discourse. On this essay, two mitote (indigenous party) narrations made by Spaniard conquerors would be analyzed, taking in consideration the social and cultural backgrounds where they come from, in order to understand their point of views and to eradicate prejudices and taboos that these kinds of documents had carried along time in Mexico’s history, being that, once they are eliminated, the complexity in the making of contemporary mexican identity could be better appreciated.