“WAYS OF TELLING” IN MISSIONARY CHRONICLES. THE HISTORIAS OF MOTOLINÍA AND MENDIETA

Abstract

Historia de los indios de la Nueva España and Historia eclesiástica indiana written by the missionary friars Toribio de Benavente Motolinía and Gerónimo de Mendieta are chronicles which differ from the rest of the Franciscan corpus in a series of characteristics which conform a specific “way of telling” the novohispanic evangelization and the function of the enunciating self. In this article I analyse these chronicles from a literary perspective and I describe the literary resources and the enunciating position that make these texts unique among the colonial Spanish American chronicle.