Fray Diego Durán [ca. 1537-1588]

Definition: Fray Diego Durán was a Spanish clergyman, who was brought to Mexico as a child, and grew up in the Aztec capital city of Texcoco, where he learned to speak Nahuatl, the Aztec language. Durán joined the Dominican Order in 1556, and spent his life chronicling the religion and customs of local people, in order to eventually convert them to Catholicism. He spent many years talking to native informants and studying manuscripts, including the history of the Aztecs called Cronica X. Durán was a terrific ethnographer, particularly considering his time and purpose, and his books and records are considered an irreplaceable record of pre-Conquest and early Colonial Mexico.