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MESOAMERICA AND FRANCISCAN MISSION 263 gelisers in the New Spain (X). In the Preface Dr J.F. Schwaller pithily delineates the worldview and the underpinning vision of these Franciscan Observant fri– ars as they embarked on their new mission. They saw themselves as champions of the reform movement in their Order and the Observant spirituality formed part of their cultural baggage. They were to bring about the spiritual conquest of the peoples of the New World and establish there Roman Catholicism in its purest form. The glorious expansion of Catholicism into the Americas was read vis-a-vis the deplorable diffusion of Lutheranism in the Old World at the ex– pense of the Catholic faith. Bernardino was born in the village of Sahagun in Spain in 1499 and he joined the Custodia del Santo Evangelo, a small reformed Franciscan jurisdic– tion in Extremadura. Later when some of these friars would form themselves into a province of their Order in Mexico, it would be named the Province of the Holy Gospel as a token of their faithfulness to their tradition of Obser– vance. Bernardino, who began his missionary life in the New World in 1529, would spend the rest of his life in Mexico, dying at the ripe old age of 90. He mastered Nahuatl and for about thirty years he was engrossed in the sundry tasks of a missionary. From 1560 onwards he stayed put in either Mexico City or Tlatelolco, dedicating himself ever more to research and publishing. The book's Preface gives a factual round-up of the chequered story of Bernardino de Sahagun's literary profession: "The later years of his career were marked with bitter disappointment as his materials were confiscated and he found himself running afoul of the Holy Office of the Inquisition for his efforts both at re– covering native history and culture and for translating parts of the Bible into Nahuatl. In his last years he attempted to recover his earlier work, even writing a new all-Spanish version. He also became increasingly involved in and buffeted by Franciscan internal politics" (X). When Miguel Leon-Portilla presents Sahagun as "Pioneer of Anthropol– ogy'', he alludes to the friar's original research methodology and his contribu– tion towards the collection of a remarkable amount of primary testimony in Nahuatl.. The positive attitude of Sahagun towards many forms of the native way of life, in spite of their being at times mingled with horrendous practices like human sacrifice, acquires its full significance when one considers the fact that the people with whom he has relating were "millions of defeated Indians". His project of integrated investigation was in fact the end result of his bowing in 1557 to the wish of his provincial superior in the spirit of holy obedience. "He was a pioneer of Anthropology who, with full surrender, made up his mind to comprehend, till he came to admire the Others, people of a radically