OCR Text |
Show 134 Toward the end of dissipating the possible doubts of those who may judge the humanist focus to be impractical in the integral study of the present cultures, the author demonstrates the way in which the humanist standard and methodology can be offered in university study. Concretely, there is presented the way in which archaeology can be studied from a humanistic viewpoint. Finally, two practical examples of integral investigations carried out with humanistic coordination are cited. The first example is that of Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, who investigated the Nahuatl (Aztec) culture of the Valley of Mexico during the second half of the 16th century. In his time, the social sciences did not yet exist, and with the single methodology of the humanities learned in his student years, he gathered abundant information in the language of the Indians about each and every one of the aspects of their culture, both intellectual and material. In his classic work, "General History of the Things of New Spain," where he sums up the information gathered from the lips of the Indians, he concentrates above all on the specific aspects of the human beings, his myths and religious ideas, his symbolism, moral, educational and even philosophical ideas. Thus first making known specifically the Nahuatl man, he goes on to study the environment in which he lived, his social, political, legal, military, economic and trade organization, his work and family life, as well as his achievements in material culture and various professions. An equally interesting example of integral humanist investigation was again attempted almost 350 years later, this time in the Valley of Teotihuacan, Mexico, by a group of investigators from the Department of Anthropology, headed by Dr. Manuel Gamio. This new investigation, which studies integrally the Teotihuacanos in their pre- Hispanic and colonial past as well as in their present, from every point of view and having as its goal their betterment and integration in the national life, carried out around 1921, can be offered as an example of the way to make use of data contributed by the social and natural sciences toward the end of understanding a human group from the humanist point of view0 Editorial. "El Problema Indigena, La Ciencia y El Arte," America Indigena, XVII No. 3 (July, 1957), pp. 203-206. To raise the still very low ' levels in which many aboriginal groups of the Continent live is a more difficult task than that of raising those corresponding to the groups of a more advanced evolution living together with them, that is, those of Occidental culture and languages of European origin. This is so because those who interest, themselves in achieving the betterment of both groups are generally foreign to the way of being and of living of these aborigenes; they know neither their antecedents |