FRAY DIEGO DE LANDA: BIOGRAPHY, WORKS, OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS - ARTE - 2024

Diego de Landa Calderón (1524-1579) was a Spanish missionary and priest who belonged to the Franciscan Order. He has also been considered one of the main Yucatan chroniclers. In addition to all this, within his work as ecclesiastical was that of bishop.

De Landa Calderón dedicated himself to making a kind of chronological reports on the history, literature and culture of the Mayan people. Those writings were a replacement or reproduction of the originals, and he did them without having the approval of the Spanish Crown, nor that of the clerical institutions.

Portrait of Fray Diego de Landa. Source: See page for author, via Wikimedia Commons

Throughout history the goodness of Diego de Landa has been questioned, due to his actions against some indigenous Mayans. For example, the Inquisition that he led in 1562 ended the lives of men and women for their beliefs, in addition to destroying many of their texts.

Biography

Birth of Diego de Landa

Diego de Landa was born on November 12, 1524 in the town of Cifuentes, Spain. No information is known about his family data; however, it has been maintained throughout history that he came from a well-off family.

Landa Education

Diego de Landa Calderón attended his first years of studies in his hometown, in the facilities of the Franciscan convent, between 1529 and 1541. Then he entered the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, located in Toledo. In 1547 he became a friar of the Order of the Franciscans.

Arrival in Yucatan

In 1548 the fray received an invitation from Nicolás Albalate to travel to Yucatán, Mexico, along with other Franciscans. De Landa accepted, and in 1549 he reached the population of the New World. The main work of the fray was to educate and teach the natives about the importance of Spanish values ​​and culture.

Three years after having settled in Mexican territory, de Landa received the position of custodian of the Izamal convent. He also served as guardian of the Mérida monastery; his work was extended to instruct the indigenous Mayans in Christianity.

Observations of the Fray

Fray Diego, during his stay in Yucatán, observed that there were some similarities between Mayan rituals and the Catholic religion. For him, the human sacrifices made by the Indians, and the presence of blood, was comparable to the delivery of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world.

Given his commitment to the Christianization of the Mayas, de Landa granted the population two sculptures of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, which he acquired in Guatemala. He distributed them among the convents of San Antonio de Papua in Izamal, and the Grande de San Francisco, in the town of Mérida.

Landa and his Inquisition

Diego de Landa took advantage of his figure as a priest to establish his own Inquisition in 1562, in the Mayan town of Maní, Yucatán. Its objective was to end once and for all with the rituals and beliefs that the indigenous people had, to impose on them, in a violent way, Christian dogma.

"Burning of Mayan literature by the Catholic Church" mural by Diego Rivera in the National Palace, Mexico City. Source: Wolfgang Sauber, via Wikimedia Commons

Maní's auto-da-fe

On July 12, 1562, Landa led Maní's famous Auto de Fe, because he observed that the Mayans had not left aside their ancient cults and were not dedicated to professing the Christian faith. The action consisted of depriving the chiefs of the various tribes of their liberty and destroying all objects of worship.

During the process, indigenous people were tortured into confessing and accepting to be Christians, and those who refused were killed. They also took down altars, more than five thousand idols, twenty-seven manuscripts and other objects; they also held men and women hostage.

Consequences contrary to Landa's wish

While Mani's Auto-da-fé was a disastrous event, Landa's desire to expand and impose the Christian faith was not materialized. On the contrary, the Mayans continued their traditions and took it upon themselves to protect their ancient cults. After that massacre, the friar had to give explanations for his actions.

The criticism was immediate, and many Spanish colonizers accused Diego de Landa of cruel treatment. When King Felipe II found out, he ordered him to travel to Spain to explain what happened, so in 1563 he embarked for the Old World.

Landa's arguments

Fray Diego de Landa's justification arguments were based on the fact that he believed that the Mayans had a kind of sect, which tried to attack the Catholic congregation. Furthermore, according to him, the natives had not respected the teachings of the Christian gospel.

Another of Landa's explanations was that when the Auto de Fe occurred in Maní, many Indians confessed that they made sacrifices with human beings to idolize their gods. He also exposed that the writings of the Mayans had diabolical features, totally separated from Christ.

Trial against the Fray

Fray Diego de Landa was sent to trial for the events that occurred in Maní: the decision was made by Bishop Francisco de Toral. The act carried out by the priest was worthy of condemnation and rejection and its repercussion was great. The encomenderos complained because because of the friar they murdered many of their Indians.

The bishop had the cooperation of the translator from Landa, Gaspar Antonio Chi, a descendant of the Mayans, who confirmed the acts committed by the priest. Following Chi's testimony, Spain was able to hold a hearing on the case.

Diego de Landa's sketch of the new temple of San Francisco. Source: Fray Diego de Landa, via Wikimedia Commons

Acquitted

After appearing before the Council of the Indies, its members made the decision, in 1569, to leave the priest acquitted, that is, without any charge for which to pay a sentence.

Faced with that determination, Toral prohibited the priest from returning to the province of Yucatán. However, when Toral died, Diego de Landa traveled to that province as bishop.

Death of Fray Diego de Landa

Fray Diego de Landa spent the last years of his life in the New World, specifically in Yucatán, Mexico, dedicated to his work as a bishop, to Christianize the Mayans and learn from their culture. He died on April 29, 1579 in the city of Merida, when he was fifty-five years old.

Plays

Fray Diego de Landa wrote several reports and chronicles about the Yucatan province, especially about the Mayans. However, his best-known work to date has been:

- Relationship of the things of Yucatan (1566).

-Short description of his work

Relationship of the things of Yucatan

This work by Diego de Landa was written in 1566, when he was in Spain for his trial on the events in Maní. In the writing the Fray related the way of life of the Mayans, especially their culture, religion, beliefs, traditions and literature.

Arguments of his work

The idolatry of the Maya

Landa exposed in his text the idolatry that the Mayans had of other gods, even when Christianity had spread in their population. He also let know the type of altars, images and literature that they had, and that in his opinion they were perverse.

At the same time, he referred to the conduct of the Mayan people. He affirmed that, even when living among civilized people, some of the behaviors of the Mayans were brutal.

However, there was a lot of contradiction in Diego de Landa's statements. Perhaps one of the most notorious contradictions was to mention the continence or sobriety of the Indians and then say that they were drunk.

Metals

One of the arguments that the priest developed about the province of Yucatan, territory of the Mayans, was the inexistence of metals. Affirmation that later studies rejected, because culturally the natives were creators of sculptures with different metallurgical materials.

Reproduction of the work

Until today it is known that the original manuscripts of Relacion de las cosas de Yucatán do not exist. However, this work could be made known, through a summary, which underwent several changes in the mid-17th century. The copy of this text, already modified, was discovered in 1862 by the priest Charles Brasseur.

Fragments

"That the Indians were very dissolute in drinking and getting drunk, from which many evils followed such as killing each other, raping the beds, thinking the poor women would receive their husbands, also with fathers and mothers as in the house of their enemies and set fire to houses: and that with all that they lost themselves by getting drunk.

… Until now no kind of metal has been found in this land that it has by itself, and it is scary that, not having what, so many buildings have been carved because the Indians do not give an account of the tools with which they were carved; but since they lacked metals, God provided them with a saw of pure flint…

They had a certain white hoe with a little mixture of gold… and a certain way of chisels with which they made idols… ”.

Other contributions

After his action as inquisitor, the Spanish friar began to investigate the Mayans. Their studies served as the basis for understanding their traditions and culture, and at the same time managed to recover their history as a people and its ethnic value.

Diego de Landa also devoted himself to studying the Mayan calendar and how they applied mathematics. All his research served as a contribution to future generations, so that they would know that the Mexican natives were a people with their own identity.

References

1. Diego de Landa. (2018). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org.
2. Diego de Landa. (S. f.). Cuba: Ecu Red. Recovered from: ecured.cu.
3. Moreno, V., Ramírez, M. and others. (2019). Fray Diego de Landa Calderón. (N / a): Search Biographies. Recovered from: Buscabiografia.com.
4. Fray Diego de Landa. (S. f.). Spain: Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library. Recovered from: cervantesvirtual.com.
5. Fray Diego de Landa. (S. f.). (N / a): History and Culture of Corn. Recovered from: codexvirtual.com.