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Large octavo, pp xxiv, 445. This important work, more generally known under the title Apostolicos Afanes de la Compania de Jesus en su Provincia de Mexico, consists actually of three works, and is so divided. The latter two works are continuations of the first. It is the basic source for this period for the province of Gran Nayar, comprising Sinaloa, Nayarit, Sonora, Arizona and California, which was at this time in the control of the Jesuit fathers. Volume I the editor tells us is definitely by Fr. Ortega, book 2 was compiled by Fr. Baltasar from the work of Fr. Kino and Consag, and book 3 is by Fr Baltasar. It is the story of the indigenous peoples of this vast, arid region, and the almost incredible efforts of the Jesuit fathers to missionize them. The first author, Father Jose Ortega (1700 - 68), was a native of Tlaxcala, and a Jesuit missionary in Narayit province for 30 years; Beristain ascribes to Fr. Ortega the authorship of the entire work: Ortega also wrote a confessional, a grammar and sermons in the Cora language, as it was among the Coras that he spent most of his life. Pimeria Alta was largely the evangelizing work of Fr. Kino, and included southern Arizona: for this section, the compiler, Fr. Baltasar, drew heavily, but not exclusively, on Kino's "Favores Celestiales" (which Prof. Bolton translated in 1919 as "Kino's Historical Memoir of Pimeria Alta"). The section on California is taken from Fr. Consag's diary of his trip up the coast as far as the Colorado River, which he entered, and, incidentally, again proved that California was not an island: this diary has also been published. Interestingly, Fr. Baltasar was Swiss, though he served many years in Mexico, rising to be the head of the Jesuits in Mexico' Consag was Hungarian, Kino was from Trent -- truly an internation effort! [Wagner Spanish Southwest 407-10: Palau 204880; Beristain iv:57.] It has been very nicely bound in a Mexican full calf, tooled binding, with the original wrappers bound in. Very nice copy. Seller Inventory # 6951
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