Description
Pérez de Ribas used to be the first permanent missionary to the Ahome, Zuaque, and Yaqui Indians. After fifteen years on the mission frontier he used to be recalled to Mexico City, where he held quite a lot of posts, including Jesuit Provincial. Addressed to novitiates ignorant of the challenges they would face in the field, his Historia was a virtual textbook on missionary work in the New World. Also written to encourage ongoing make stronger of the Jesuit missions, it reflected the writer’s deep grasp of what rhetorically soothed and moved Church and Crown officials.
Perhaps of greatest interest to the modern reader are Pérez de Ribas’s incessantly detailed comments on indigenous beliefs and practices. These firsthand observations provide a rich resource of ethnographic and historical data concerning everything from native subsistence, settlement patterns, and myths to the dynamics of Jesuit-Indian relations. The many cases of conversion that Pérez de Ribas describes are especially rich in ethnographic data, clarifying the values and beliefs from which the Indians were “rescued.”
History of the Triumphs is a primary document of great importance, made more valuable here by an exceptionally fluid translation and painstaking annotations. It’ll be a standard reference for all engaged in research on New Spain and an enchanting read for anyone interested in this chapter of American history.