Juan Bautista (de) Pomar (c. 1535 – after 1601) was a

mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ...

descendant of the rulers of

prehispanic In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...

Texcoco, a historian and writer on prehispanic

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

history. He is the author of two major works. His ''Relación de Texcoco'' was written in response to the Relación geográfica ca.1580. According to references by

Fray Juan de Torquemada Juan de Torquemada (c. 1562 – 1624) was a Franciscan friar, active as missionary in colonial Mexico and considered the "leading Franciscan chronicler of his generation." Administrator, engineer, architect and ethnographer, he is most famo ...

, he was born around 1535 at Texcoco. He was the great grandson of Nezahualcoyotl, and was of mixed indigenous and Spanish heritage on his father's side. Considered noble by the Spaniards, he was able to obtain one of his great-grandfather's royal houses, known as the Nezahualcoyotl, in Texcoco. Pomar was raised as a Christian but learned Aztec tradition from his mother. He was

bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Eu ...

and spoke and wrote in both Spanish and the native language of the Aztecs,

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...

. He is credited with one of the most important compilations of

poetry, '' Romances de los señores de Nueva España''. Gibson, Charles and John B. Glass. "Prose sources in the Native Historical Tradition", article 27B. "A Census of Middle American Prose Manuscripts in the Native Historical Tradition". ''Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources'' Part 4; ''Handbook of Middle American Indians''. University of Texas Press 1975, census #1087, p. 356. Pomar's major work includes an account of the

Aztecs The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl l ...

and Tlatelolcas ''Relación de Juan Bautista Pomar'' completed in 1582. He interviewed aged

Nahuas The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, a ...

, who recounted memory of the older and lost customs of their people. His account, written at the suggestion of the protomedic of

Philip II of Spain Philip II) in Spain, while in Portugal and his Italian kingdoms he ruled as Philip I ( pt, Filipe I). (21 May 152713 September 1598), also known as Philip the Prudent ( es, Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from ...

, complements with the works of

Bernardino de Sahagún Bernardino de Sahagún, OFM (; – 5 February 1590) was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain (now Mexico). Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he ...

and Fernando Alva Ixtlilxochitl.

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* 1530s births 17th-century deaths Colonial Mexico Nahuatl-language writers Novohispanic Mesoamericanists Historians of Mesoamerica Aztec scholars 16th-century Mesoamericanists Mestizo writers Indigenous writers of the Americas People from Texcoco, State of Mexico {{mesoamerica-stub