Reinterpreting
Malinche
John Taylor
Several conquistadors and indigenous participants
have written about the conquest of Mexico, which commenced in 1519 and ended
with the capitulation of Tenochtitlán on 21 August, 1521. They described how Mexico was conquered with
fewer than 600 conquistadors who took advantage of an antiquated Aztec system
of rule, as well as of their own superior technology. However, throughout most of their descriptions and
interpretations, one voice by intent has been noticeably absent: that of
Malinalli Tenepal, Malintzin, Doña Marina, or La Malinche.[1] She was the only woman to figure prominently
in the conquest, serving as translator, guide, strategic advisor, mistress, and
confidante to Hernán Cortés. What
happened to her voice? Why has it been
carefully muted? Notwithstanding her
mention in the original accounts of the conquest by Francisco López de Gómara
and Bernal Diaz, and besides both her prominent illustrations in the Florentine
Codex by native artists and writers and the heroic role attributed to her in the
seventeenth and eighteenth century accounts, she still remains too distant, as
if she was couched in a veil of ambiguity.[2] The untenable position for the historian
trying to find the “real” Malinche is further exacerbated by the spurious
accusations against her of the last two centuries. Not only has her voice been comfortably eschewed from the
historical record, but also a mythical component has been added to the
mix. As a result, a fictional Malinche
was constructed. The opprobrium that
her name evokes is only one of several obstacles, however, that have to be
overcome in order to achieve a more lucid understanding of her.
The best way to achieve a
sane and discernable interpretation of Malinche is to attempt to evaluate her
role after separating her from the myths and mistaken identities that have
slandered her image. This places
Malinche in her proper context, a sixteenth century woman. By doing this we can give Malinche a voice,
an active role in the narrative, where she is less a result of posthumous
revision and more a product of her own actions.
Through analysis of the
primary sources and of the current debates among historians, I will argue that
the myths surrounding Malinche are scurrilous accusations begun by the
nationalists after independence, and that the images surrounding her, whether
real or imaginary, are due to the patriarchal system and its definitions of
women and gender roles. To do this, it
is important to understand how Malinche’s image has changed over time. Therefore, I will begin by looking at what
is written about Malinche in the primary sources, especially in Gómara’s and
Diaz’s accounts; then I will examine the myths the nationalists created and how
they were supported and ingrained into the general population; finally, I will
attempt to debunk these fictional accusations, while framing Malinche as the
victim that she was, and attempting to restore the “true” or “real” Malinche to
history.
Not much is known about
Malinche’s life, especially prior to 1519 and after 1524. What historians know is based largely on the
accounts of Diaz and Gómara, which are sometimes contradictory. Diaz, a soldier during the conquest, makes
Malinche into a true heroine in The
Conquest of New Spain, and praises her with affection at every opportunity. He called her a “most excellent” woman, but
his book was written more than forty years after the events and largely in
reaction to Gómara’s account.[3] Gómara’s description of Malinche, on the
other hand, was heavily influenced by Cortés, since he never knew her
personally. Cortés does not give
Malinche much credit for her role in the conquest, mentioning her only twice in
his letters to Charles V. In the second
letter he called her “my interpreter, who is an Indian woman,” and it was not
until the fifth letter that he even mentioned her name.[4] Obviously, since Cortés de-emphasized her
role, Gómara, who was not a part of the expedition, does the same. In his 1552 Historia de las Indias, he praised Cortés’ role in the conquest and
had little time to deal with Malinche.
Gómara’s work, however, is inaccurate, an example of patriarchal
history, where the author focussed on the male as hero and the female was
relegated to a subordinate role. Even
when he does deal with Malinche, he treats her impersonally, calling her “slave
girl” or “our Indian woman interpreter.”[5] The historian Sandra Messinger Cypess wrote
that, “Gómara never sees La Malinche as anything more than an objectified
extension of the will of Cortés.”[6] Therefore, Gómara’s and Diaz’s histories of
the conquest come from notably different perspectives, which leaves the
historian questioning which source can be trusted and whether or not an
accurate depiction of Malinche’s life can be written. Despite a multitude of questions, nevertheless, historians agree
that enough is known to portray what type of woman she was as well as how
important she was to the Spaniards.
Although both her birth date
and city of birth are unknown, it is believed that Malinche was born in 1502 or
1505 on the day called Malinal (or Malinalli), hence her Indian name.[7] It is believed that she was the first
daughter of a cacique and so a member
of the privileged, educated class.
Gómara wrote that she was “the daughter of wealthy parents, who were
related to the lord of that country,” while Diaz wrote that her “father and
mother were lords and Caciques.” [8] Although some historians do not believe
that she was of noble birth, her knowledge and cultured ways at the time of her
transfer to the Spanish conquistadors should convince them otherwise, since
only noble women could attend school and have access to more than one language.
When Malinche was very
young, it is believed her father died and that her mother remarried another cacique, whom she bore a son. According to Diaz, in order to protect this
boy’s inheritance and right to rule, his parents sold Malinche into slavery “to
some Indians from Xicalango.”[9] Gómara’s account was somewhat
different. He wrote, “that, when she
was a child, she had been stolen by certain merchants during a war and sold in
the market place of Xicalanco.”[10] In any case, these Mayan traders who owned
her were just the first step in a long life of thralldom. Soon she was sold to the Tabascans, who
eventually gave her to Cortés and the Spanish along with nineteen other women
in Potonchán in order to stave off war, avoid being conquered themselves, and
to encourage Cortés to move on.
This practice of exchanging
women was common for Amerindian societies.
And Malinche’s case was no different since she was sold into slavery
twice prior to being given to the Spaniards.
Neither the Spanish nor the Indians saw this as an unusual custom. These women were “trained” to be submissive
at all times to whoever their masters or owners were. For the role of women in Amerindian society was, as in Europe, a
submissive one. Maria Rodriguez-Valdés
wrote:
It was no different when
they were under Spanish control. Cypess
wrote that, “it would be expected, then, that Malinche would already have been
conditioned by her socialization as a slave among the Amerindians to obey the
commands of her new masters.”[12] This is important because, ironically, her
Indian culture, having taught her how to be a second class citizen, made her
transfer to European culture that much easier.
Immediately upon receiving
these twenty women, Cortés had them baptized and then handed them out among his
favored soldiers.[13] Malinche, baptized Marina, was given to
Alonso Hernández de Puertocarrero, a prominent conquistador, for his use. After realizing she had the ability to speak
Nahua, the Aztec language, Cortés soon claimed her for himself.[14] He was in dire need of a new translator,
since Jerónimo de Aguilar had been rendered useless once the Spaniards reached
the Nahuatl-speaking region of Mexico.[15] Gómara wrote that Malinche was “promised by
Cortés more than her liberty if she would establish a friendship between him
and the men of her country, and he told her he would like to have her for his
interpreter and secretary.”[16] Hence, she became Cortés’ primary translator
for the remainder of the Spanish journey to Tenochtitlán, the Aztec
capital. Throughout, she and Aguilar
were his only trustworthy interpreters.[17]
After her loyal service to
Cortés during the campaign, she bore him a son, Don Martín, who was taken away
from her and raised in Spain. At first
glance, this seems like cruel treatment from a man who depended on this woman
so much during the conquest, but it fits the treatment of woman as “bought
property.” Besides, it is directly in
line with the restrictive and intractable culture of a patriarchal
society. It has also been argued that
Cortés used this woman only to serve as his mistress and give birth to his
child. But, this can be dismissed by
the fact that Cortés called upon her again during the 1524 Honduran campaign. She would serve once more as his guide,
translator, and strategist. Then after
the campaign he no longer had use for her, so she once again disappeared from
history. This demonstrates further her
importance to him as a strategist.
During the Honduran episode,
several events took place regarding Malinche that deserve mention. Although Gómara and Diaz differ on how it
occurred, Malinche and Juan Jaramillo, one of Cortés’ trusted soldiers, were
married. Gómara only briefly mentioned
this event when he wrote, “Juan Jaramillo married Marina while drunk,” while
Diaz wrote that, “she married a gentleman.”[18] Why would Cortés have her married off if she
had only been of importance to him as a mistress? Wouldn’t he have wanted to keep her for himself if that were
really the case? Instead, this
demonstrates her significance was more than that of a mistress to him. In fact, by entering her into a marriage
with a conquistador, Cortés gave her a sense of legitimacy and honor. It indicated “the respect she enjoyed among
the Spaniards.”[19] Malinche also encountered her mother and her
step-brother along the campaign. Diaz
wrote that they “feared that she had sent for them to put them to death, and
they wept.”[20] But instead she forgave her mother for
selling her and spoke to them of her pride in herself and her “satisfaction”
with her position.
Yet after the campaign, she
disappeared again and where and when she died still remains a mystery. However, she is believed to have died very
young, most likely around 1530. For
almost three centuries, she enjoyed a mostly positive role in the history
books. After the accounts of Gómara and
Diaz, nothing new was added about her life.
The typical seventeenth and eighteenth century colonial interpretation
was that Malinche was “the valuable and faithful interpreter of Cortés.”[21] So, how did this apparently simple woman who
seems to have had everything chosen for her, and who had been viewed for nearly
three centuries in a favorable light, become such an anathematized and vilified
historical figure?
Mexico’s independence from
Spain marked a watershed in Malinche interpretation. Elizabeth Salas wrote, that, “her status as a great conquistadora declined at exactly the
same time that the Mexican’s threw out the Spaniards in 1821. From that time onward, her reputation
dwindled to that of a traitor.”[22] The reasons for this change were
numerous. The nationalists, who began
to infiltrate the Mexican government, set out to forge a new national identity,
which began with the rejection of Spain and everything it represented,
including the common signs and symbols of society, while glorifying the
pre-Hispanic Amerindians. These
measures, by which they reinterpreted the conquest, muted Malinche’s voice in
history.
The nationalists purpose was
to indoctrinate women into accepting a subordinate position to men, making them
socially, physically, and psychologically dependent, and transforming them
“into invisible, lifeless, worthless, devalued objects.”[23] Thus, the nationalists created a paradigm
for Mexico with polarized perspectives of women: Malinche represented pure
evil, the ‘Mexican Eve,’ on one side, and Mary the mother of Jesus represented
supreme good, La Virgen, on the
other. Virginity and fidelity were the highest womanly virtues; Malinche,
therefore, was used as an example of a woman who deviated from expected female
behavior. She was wrapped in negative
symbolism and imagery, and associated with the negative aspects of national
identity and sexuality. Her name became
synonymous with “treason,” “betrayal,” and “sell-out.” Malinche was suddenly portrayed as the
beautiful temptress who conquered and destroyed her own people. She was objectified and “sexualized as the
Indian woman who could not get enough of the white man.”[24] They effectively built this language and
imagery around her in a deliberate campaign, with purely political objectives:
to promote the Indian heritage of the Mexican people, while making Malinche
into an “anti-heroine, a national Judas,” and the scapegoat for three centuries
of colonial rule.[25]
The role historians have
taken in the campaign to slander Malinche has been prominent. Ignacio Paz rewrote the military and
political exploits of the conquest, in the 1870s and 1880s, in terms of a
“sexual encounter,” which fit into the social and political ideologies of his
time. His son, Octavio Paz, continued
this trend when he wrote in 1950 that Malinche was a representative of the
“cruel incarnation of the feminine condition” as the violated mother, the
passive figure in the conquest, and the original La Chingada (a term which is still used today in reference to her,
and which literally means she’s “fucked”).
Yet she was characterized as the mother of the nation, who sold Mexico
out to the white man.[26] This was the typical line on Malinche, that
she betrayed Mexico sexually, and if only she would have been loyal to her own
people the conquest would have never happened.
The historian Frans Blom wrote in 1936, that “had it not been for her
devotion to Cortés and his various and sundry captains, she could well have
caused the total destruction of the small Spanish army by inciting the Indians
to united resistance and attack.”[27] All three historians, although writing at
different times, saw her break with the ideals of Marianismo, which called for women to follow the model of the
Virgin Mary through suffering and submissiveness to men. Their works contributed to the image of
Malinche as the “Mexican Eve,” by further characterizing her betrayal. From her name the term malinchismo was coined. The
historian Fernando Horcasitas wrote that, “a Malinchista is a person who disdains the native ways of life and
always favors the foreigner for profit or because of a feeling of inferiority.”[28] Thus, Mexican historians played a large role
in the nationalists’ indoctrination program, creating the language and building
the negative image that still scathes her name today.
These images of Malinche as la chingada, the “Mexican Eve,” and malinchista all have contributed to the
substandard, mangled history that the nationalists created. Due to this heavy indoctrination since
independence, Mexicans have despised Malinche as a symbol of betrayal to Indian
values and of servile submission to Spanish culture. Hence, they will not forgive her for her “sexual betrayal.” Karttunen wrote that, “in a wink she was
demoted [after independence] from crucial interpreter and counselor to lover
and wily mistress of Cortés, traitor to her race, mother of mestizos.”[29] It is this type of interpretation, which for
two centuries has been hammered into the Mexican psyche, that historians must
rid themselves of in order to establish a more authentic picture of Malinche
and reestablish her as a role model for all of Mexico.
The nature of Malinche’s
role as mistress to Puertocarrero and Cortés, and later as wife to Jaramillo,
seems to make this so-called “sexual betrayal” plausible. But what choice did
she have? Being handed from man to man
was not her choice, but her fate. She
was the victim of the patriarchal view of the time, that women were objects for
man’s exploitation. Her story was surely one of rape and misuse, first by the
indigenous people and later by the Spanish.
What could she have done? What
would she have accomplished by resisting?
So, she used her ability as a translator to remain visible, and stood
strong as a woman in a man’s world.
Therefore, to accuse her of “sexual betrayal” is to misrepresent the
evidence.
Not only did the
nationalists encourage the image of sexual betrayal, but they also
characterized Malinche as a sell-out and a traitor to all of Mexico. They accused her of abandoning her
ethnicity, especially during the Cholulan affair, which occurred along the road
to Tenochtitlán (the Aztec capital).
From various first-hand accounts, including those of Diaz and Gómara, it
is plainly evident that Malinche saved the Spaniards from the Cholulan plot to
massacre them. A Cholulan noblewoman,
wife of one of the generals who knew of the clandestine plan, attempted to save
Malinche by offering her son in marriage if she left the city with her
immediately. Instead of sneaking away
with this woman, she adeptly extracted the plan from her and then rushed to
tell Cortés about it, proving her loyalty to the Spanish.[30]
Her quick actions saved the Spanish,
but fueled Cortés’ unrelenting and merciless retaliation in which hundreds of
Cholulans were massacred. The
nationalists saw this as a clear and unequivocal example of Malinche’s
treachery and used it to exploit their political agenda.
However, Malinche was not
the only one to warn Cortés of the possibility of an ambush. According to Diaz, the Tlaxcalan chiefs,
bitter and sworn enemies of the Cholulans, had warned Cortés, “to beware of the
Cholulans and of the might of Mexico.”[31] Gómara wrote that the Tlaxcalans told Cortés
that, “Cholula was a friend of Moctezuma, although a disloyal one, and it might
happen that the Cholulans would attack Cortés when they had him in their city.”[32] Both Gómara and Diaz noted that several of
the Tlaxcalan slave women reported suspicious activities to Cortés prior to Malinche. Gómara said “the women who had been given to
the Spaniards upon their entrance into Tlaxcala heard of a plot to kill them
[the Spanish] in Cholula.”[33] Diaz wrote that they told him:
Be careful, Malinche, for
this city is hostile. We know that they
sacrificed last night to their god of war.
They offered him seven persons, five of them children, so that he should
give them victory over you. And we have
seen them moving all their baggage and women out of the city.[34]
Yet the nationalists deliberately did not portray
these women or the Tlaxcalan chiefs as traitors to Mexico, only Malinche.
Fiction and art, like
history, also played an important role in reinforcing the nationalist’s
aims. An anonymously written 1826
novel, Xicoténcatl, made evident the
Malinche paradigm. Malinche was
compared with the heroine Teutila, a fictional character who rejected European
attempts to seduce her and remained true to her Indian roots. Meanwhile, Malinche was portrayed as La Chingada, who rejected her Indianness
and betrayed a “united” Mexico, by informing Cortés of the Cholulan plot. Thus, she was depicted as choosing the white
man over the Indian (whom she rejected when she refused the Cholulan woman’s
proposal to marry her son). These
negative images were placed upon her using fiction, and by no means represented
the truth. The artist José Clemente
Orozco’s continued this trend in his crude 1926 painting, which portrayed
Malinche and Cortés embracing in the nude on top of the corpses of the
massacred natives. This painting hangs
in the stairwell at the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City, and
thus, to this day, continues to indoctrinate Mexicans with the nationalists
image of her. These fictional
representations of betrayal are even present in children’s stories, starting
the brainwashing at an early age. Anita
Brenner, who wrote The Boy Who Could Do
Anything, accused Malinche of falling in love with Cortés and “persuading
the Mexican kings to give him everything.
Everything. Gold and jewels, and
fine feathers, and chocolate, and all the best things in the land.”[35] By labeling and portraying Malinche as a
traitor and a sell-out to Mexico, the nationalists, supported by artists and
writers, were able to place the blame for the collapse of the great Aztec
empire solely on Malinche, while defining gender roles and the symbols they
wished to enforce on Mexicans.
These mythical views of
Malinche can easily be debunked. First
of all, it is important to remember that at that time the idea of nationhood
was non-existent. Even if most of what
is now modern-day Central Mexico was dominated by the Aztecs, Mexico was not united,
and it certainly was not a nation.
There were several tribes who despised the Aztecs and grew tired of
their tributary system, including the Cempeolans and the Tlaxcalans, who
provided Cortés and the Spaniards with a large army to accompany them to Tenochtitlán. Yet they are not seen as traitors or
sell-outs, even though it is apparent that they played a much larger role than
Malinche in the military defeat of the Aztecs.
(The explanation for this is simple; to the nationalists, Malinche
represented both political and sexual betrayal, where as Tlaxcala only
represented the political side.) Yet
the Spanish had taken advantage of their hostility and resentment of the
Aztecs. Secondly, the people of Mexico
did not identify themselves as one entity.
They had no sense of themselves as Indians united in a common cause
against Europeans. Instead, they
identified themselves as Mexica’s (as the Aztecs were known), Tlaxcalteca’s,
Choloteca’s, etc. Since Malinche was
none of these, how could she be seen as a traitor to all or any of them?[36] She definitely would not have considered
herself Mexica, for her “people were not the Mexicas and her homeland was
outside the jurisdiction of the Mexica tributary system.”[37] And how was she to know that the Cholulan
woman was not trying to deceive her and separate her from the Spanish? Malinche was not one of them either. Thus, ethnic and national loyalty cannot be
legitimately raised here either. To
accuse her of betrayal, we have to view the Indians as one people, and that
simply was not the case. The Amerindian
peoples were separate and distinct; to lump them all together is yet another
misrepresentation of the evidence.
Throughout the centuries
Malinche has also been accused of being one of the perpetrators of Spanish
cruelties after the conquest. She has
been “denounced by nationalistic Mexican writers not only for being a mistress
to Cortés and traitor to the Mexican nation, but also for being a Spanish
accomplice in the death, torture, and enslavement of her own people” on an encomienda that she received from the
Spanish crown for her services.[38] Although not much is known about her life
after the Honduran campaign of 1524, it is evident that she was not a slave
owner and that she has been falsely accused.
Joanne Danaher Chaison clearly illustrated this as a case of mistaken
identity, writing that over the years Malinche has been confused with Mariá de
la Caballeria (also known as Doña Marina), the wife of New Spain’s treasurer
Alonso de Estrada.[39] After the conquest, Estrada and Doña Marina
left Spain and settled in New Spain.
They owned a very large encomienda
and many Indian slaves. She ruled with
an iron hand, committing numerous atrocities even after her husband’s death.[40] This blatant act of mistaken identity has
proven detrimental to the image of Malinche, while the guilty Doña Marina has
been erased from Mexico’s memory.
Clearly, if more were known and said about Malinche’s life after the
conquest and the date of her death, these issues would have been avoided. Yet, they still can be understood if the
facts are separated from the fiction; this is necessary, in order to give
Malinche a just and unbiased representation.
These interpretations, made
since the independence of Mexico, have altered the image of Malinche. She has become muddled and lost in these
brutal, slanderous accusations and descriptions. Yet, they can be easily refuted.
Unfortunately, we are still left with a murky view of the real
Malinche. We know little about her life
outside of the conquest itself, but her presence and functions during this time
are well-documented. Although her voice
itself is missing, we can, from the available primary sources, reconstruct a
well-rounded picture of a strong woman living and excelling in a man’s world. Even though much about her is debated, we
know that Malinche was well-respected, loyal, brave, and that her language
skills were an integral and valuable part of the conquest. All of these characteristics pierced the
constraints placed upon her by her society, and are attributes of someone that
deserves some amount of respect and honor.
Both the Spaniards and the
Mexicas who knew Malinche held her in the highest esteem. The Nahua writers of the Florentine Codex,
which was written after the conquest, accord her name the honorific “–tzin”
every time they mention her.[41] They also gave Montezuma, the Aztec king in
1519, this same status. Thus, it is
clear that neither resistance to the Spaniards nor ultimate surrender deprived
an individual of honor in their eyes.
Malinche also appears in pictorial documents and maps from the sixteenth
century, which portray Malinche as powerful, not evil or immoral, clearly
demonstrating that she never lost the respect of the natives even after the
conquest. Diaz wrote about her using
the respectful title Doña prior to her name, and was very aware of how the
indigenous felt about her. He stated
that, “Doña Marina was a person of great importance, and she was obeyed without
question by all the Indians of New Spain.”[42]
He also wrote that she was so
well-respected by the Indians that they called Cortés “Malinche,” testifying to
the impact of her personality and presence.[43] But Diaz also realized her importance to the
Spaniards and wrote after the Tlaxcalan campaign, on the way to Tenochtitlán,
of her unrelenting loyalty and courage:
But let me say that Doña
Marina, although a native woman, possessed such manly valour that though she
heard every day that the Indians were going to kill us and eat our flesh with chillis, and though she had seen us
surrounded in recent battles and knew that we were all wounded and sick, yet
she betrayed no weakness but a courage greater than that of a woman.[44]
Not only was she brave and
courageous in the face of sheer terror, but she showed a total commitment to
the Spaniards. She saved them on at
least two occasions from destruction due to her perceptiveness, alertness,
decisiveness, and loyalty. At Tlaxcala,
she warned Cortés of the danger of spies among them, and then later helped him
negotiate the alliance with the Tlaxcalans, which ultimately sealed the Aztec’s
fate. She also saved the Spaniards at
Cholulu by uncovering the treacherous plot against them. Diaz wrote that he had heard her say during
the Honduran campaign that she would “rather serve her husband and Cortés than
anybody else in the world.”[45] He respected this unwavering service and
loyalty to the Spanish. Thus, as Karttunen argued,
rather than the embodiment
of treachery [as the nationalists portrayed her], her consistency could be
viewed as an exercise in total loyalty.
The problem for Mexican national identity after Independence was that
the object of her loyalty had been a conquistador.[46]
But since she was no more a Mexica than she was a
conquistador, she cannot be seen as a traitor at all.
Malinche was not merely a
translator, but played many vital roles in the campaign, which should not be
underestimated. As Cortés’ guide and
strategic advisor, she provided him with important information on the geography
along the road to Tenochtitlán, as well as intelligence on the strengths and
weaknesses of the Aztec state, and facts about their religion and customs.[47] She also procured food, supplies, and
shelter for the Spaniards, which made her very popular with the soldiers. Gómara wrote of Malinche’s usefulness and
strategic importance and her ability to communicate with prisoners and
interrogate spies. He credited her with
informing Cortés of the several vassal Aztec states who grew weary of
Montezuma’s tyranny and were ripe for rebellion. This included the Cempoalan’s, who only obeyed and recognized him
“because they were forced.”[48] It was this type of information that was
vital to Cortés and allowed him to take advantage of situations he would have
otherwise been unaware of; this made Malinche invaluable to him. Diaz wrote that she was so important to
Cortés that he called for her to come along on the 1524 Honduran campaign. “As Doña Marina had proved such an excellent
person, and a good interpreter in all the wars of New Spain, Tlascala, and
Mexico … Cortés always took her with him.”[49] Cortés himself indicated her importance to
him when he wrote, in a letter to Charles V, that she “traveled always in my
company after she had been given me as a present.”[50] Put rather plainly, without her it would
have been very difficult for Cortés and the Spanish to have done so well in the
New World.
Although the primary sources
characterize her courage, loyalty, linguistic skills, and importance to the merging
of two worlds, the language and symbols used by Mexican nationalists have
altered these traits to fill their own agenda.
Instead of being seen as a model of female strength and inspiration in a
misogynist world, Malinche has been labeled “la chingada” and the “Mexican Eve.” She has also been used to keep the definitions of gender roles
and the patriarchal system that oppresses women in place, rather than being
used to challenge it. Only in the last
three decades have Chicana writers and some historians attempted to alter this
oppressive and denigrating stereotype.[51] These writers, like myself, wish to
re-evaluate Malinche’s interpretation in order to make known that Malinche was
the victim, the one who was betrayed, deceived, enslaved, and raped during
life, and then betrayed again and slandered after death. It has been my aim to challenge the myths
surrounding her and begin to restore her true history and identity.
Carmen Tafolla argued along
these lines in a recent poem about Malinche.
She attempted to give Malinche a voice, allowing her to tell her own
story in order to question the credibility of the dominant discourse and
challenge the authority of the patriarchal system.
Yo soy la Malinche.
The Spaniards called me Doña
Marina
I came to be known as
Malinche
And Malinche came to mean
traitor.
They called me –chingada
¡Chingada!
Ha –Chingada! Screwed!
Of noble ancestry, for
whatever that means, I was sold into slavery
by MY ROYAL FAMILY –so that my brother could get my
inheritance
…And then the omens began –a
god, a new civilization, the downfall of our
empire.
And you came.
My dear Hernán Cortés, to share your
“civilization” –to play god,
….and I began to dream…
I saw,
And I acted!
I saw our world
And I saw –
another.
And yes –I helped you
–against Emperor Moctezuma Xocoyotzin himself!
I became Interpreter,
Advisor, and lover.
they could not imagine me dealing on a level with you-
so they said I was
raped, used,
chingada
¡Chingada!
and your world
and another.
No one else could see!
Beyond one world, none existed.
And you yourself cried the night the city burned,
and burned at your orders.
The most beautiful city on
earth in flames.
You cried broken tears the
night you saw your destruction
My homeland ached within me
(but I saw another!)
Another world –
a world yet to be born
And our child was born …
and I was immortalized Chingada!
Years later, you took away
my child (my sweet mestizo new world child)
to raise him in your world
You still didn’t see.
You still didn’t see.
And history would call me
chingada.
But Chingada I was not.
Not tricked, not screwed, not traitor.
For I was not traitor to myself-
I saw a dream
and I reached it.
Another world……
la raza.
La
raaaaaaaa-zaaaa…..[52]
In this poem, we see an active Malinche, an agent
with a voice, who challenged the society she lived in and the roles she was
supposed to play as a woman. Although
this is fictional, Tafolla only highlights Malinche’s many strengths, which are
visible in the primary sources. In
doing so, her message is simple: Malinche was clearly a strong woman and should
be seen, not as a traitor, but as a role model for future generations.
In overcoming the oppressive
nature of her situation as a slave, a sex object and asa woman in sixteenth
century Mexico, Malinche “rejected the passivity of her sex, grasped her own
destiny, and transformed herself from a slave to a history maker.”[53] She did what survivalists today would
advise: exploit her only assets, her loyalty and her ‘multilingualism,’ to
survive. As a victim of the patriarchal
system of her time, the labels previously thrust upon her are unfair. She is a
model for challenging the patriarchy and the definition of gender roles. Malinche deserves to be looked at through
new eyes, to be seen as the strong, gifted woman that she was, and for
surviving under impossible circumstances.
The slanderous language and writings that further denigrate women need
to be kept in check and her real identity needs to be restored. Since the Mexican Government led the
original slanderous campaign, they ought to be at the forefront of this one as
well. However, this is unlikely and
thus it is up to historians, who have also played an integral part in
denigrating Malinche, to follow the lead of many Chicana writers and begin the
task anew.
John Taylor received his B.A. in history in 1993 from Holy Names
College in Oakland and a California secondary credential in 1994 from St.
Mary's College in Moraga. After teaching for three years, John returned to
school to work towards his M.A. in modern European history at San Francisco
State University. His interest is in diplomacy during the National Socialist
period.
[1] At birth, she was given the name Malinali, or Malinalli, one of the twenty days in the Mexica calendar. The name Tenepal was added afterward, according to the prevailing custom of adding a second name later in life. Tenepal is derived from the root tene, which means in a figurative sense one who has a facility with words, a person who speaks with animation, which perfectly describes her role. The Spanish baptized her Marina. The Aztecs had no letter “r” in their alphabet, so they substituted the letter “l” for it, and added “tzin” as a sign of respect. Thus, Malintzin was equivalent to Doña Marina, but became Malinche when the Spaniards mispronounced it. I will refer to her throughout as Malinche, only because it is what she has been commonly referred to throughout history, and so as not to confuse the reader by switching back and forth with her name from quote to text.
[2] Malinche’s case demonstrates the immense problem in tackling this subject: sources. What sources are used? How can they be trusted? How can an accurate history be written when historians must rely on European sources written in a colonial context? It forces the historian to think differently, considering time and place. There are very few sources depicting Malinche available to scholars, but those that are available need to be looked at from a new perspective, not one blinded by patriarchal stigmatizations. There are also several inconsistencies in these sources, which means that historians must be very careful with what they trust. See Amanda Angel, La Malinche: The Conquistadora of Mexico Thesis (San Francisco: San Francisco State University, 1991), 6. She argued that in order to find out more about Malinche, the “historian must search through scattered fragments of information, and take an interpretive approach.” This is because Diaz and Gómara, the most used primary sources, differ on so much, that it is hard to know which story is accurate. See Bernal Diaz, The Conquest of New Spain, J. M. Cohen trans. (London: Penguin Books, 1963), and Francisco López de Gómara, The Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary Lesley Byrd Simpson trans., (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964). See also Frances Karttunen, “Rethinking Malinche,” Indian Women of Early Mexico Susan Schroeder, Stephanie Wood, and Robert Haskett, eds., (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), who writes that “most of what we think we know about doña Marina we owe to Diaz,” 299. But we still must be very careful of trusting Diaz wholeheartedly because his account may be blinded by his desire to praise her. For example, he wrote that she told her mother and brother when they met in 1524 of her supposed “heartfelt satisfaction with her situation.” Karttunen questioned how he could have known what she was telling them since her words were most likely “addressed to her kin, and they would have been uttered in Nahuatl,” which clearly Diaz did not understand. Although Diaz did make some errors such as this, we can not throw out all of what he writes, for he proves to be very useful in other areas. He still is the most reliable, even if he wrote forty years after the fact.
[3] Diaz, 80. Diaz was the only colonial writer to make a woman a major figure in historical events in the Spanish Americas. He also was the only eyewitness to write of Malinche’s role. Angel wrote that “it is Gómara’s many errors and distortions, his glorification of Cortés, and his neglect of the other participants, which drove Bernal Diaz to complete his work despite advancing age,” 7.
[4] Anthony Pagden, trans., Hernan Cortes: Letters from Mexico (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 73, 376.
[5] Gómara, 57, 62. Gómara was Cortés’ private secretary and chaplain from 1541-47, and afterwards his biographer. However, he never set foot in the New World, and therefore never knew Malinche personally.
[6] Sandra Messinger Cypess, La Malinche in Mexican Literature: From History to Myth (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991), 32f.
[7] Gómara, Diaz, and Cortés all wrote that she was from a different village. Gómara wrote that she was “from a village called Viluta {Olutla};” (Gómara, 56) Diaz wrote that she was from “a town called Paynala;” (Diaz, 85) and Cortés wrote to Charles V that she was “an Indian woman from Putunchan.” (Pagden, 73) Although the exact location is uncertain, all of these villages were near the town of Coatzacoalcos, as Karttunen wrote, “between Nahua central Mexico and Maya Yucatan,” 299.
[8] Gómara, 56f. Diaz, 85. See also Hilde Krueger, Malinche or Farewell to Myths (New York: Storm Publishers, 1948), who wrote that “it seems her parents were nobles, caciques of their village; yet even this is not certain,” 20. Krueger is extremely pro-Malinche and dismisses many of the negative stereotypes surrounding her.
[9] Diaz, 85.
[10] Gómara, 57.
[11] As quoted in Elba D. Birmingham-Pokorny, “La Malinche: A Feminist Perspective on Otherness in Mexican and Chicano Literature,” Confluencia II, 2 (Spring 1996), 131. See Maria Rodríguez-Valdés, La Mujer Azteca (Mexico D.F.: UNAM, 1988), 62.
[12] Cypess, 33.
[13] Diaz and Gómara both say these women were the first in all of New Spain to be baptized.
[14] In a footnote in Cortés’ letters to Charles, Pagden wrote that Malinche “was given to Cortés with some Indian women after the battle of Cintla, and given by him to Puertocarrero. She returned to Cortés when Puertocarrero was sent to Spain, and acted as his mistress and translator during the conquest,” 464.
[15] Aguilar, according to Gómara, had been shipwrecked in an earlier Spanish attempt to reach New Spain, and had lived among the Mayan for several years eventually learning their language, 32f.
[16] Ibid., 56.
[17] It is argued by historians that Aguilar was kept on with Malinche because he was Spanish and a man, and so as not to offend him by replacing him with an Indian woman. He remained with Cortés for the rest of the conquest.
[18] Gómara, 346, and Diaz, 86. Gómara also wrote that “Cortés was criticized for allowing it, because he had children by her.” How did he know if she was criticized? Is this statement a reflection of the author’s opinion, since we can find no mention of this elsewhere, including in Diaz?
[19] Cypess, 37. He also argued that this was what later came “to be condemned as her capitulation to the foreign culture,” but that she had no choice.
[20] Diaz, 86.
[21] See Angel, 10. See Antonio de Solis, History of the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards I, 3 Thomas Townsend, trans., (New York: AMS Press Inc., 1993), and Antonio de Herrerra, The General History of the Vast Continent and Islands of America, commonly called the West Indies, from the first Discovery Thereof: With the Best Accounts the People could give of their Antiquities II John Stevens, trans., (London: Wood and Woodward, 1740). They were the most respected historians of this time on New Spain and the conquest.
[22] Elizabeth Salas, Soldaderas in the Mexican Military: Myth and History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 14. Although she makes a mistake in writing that Marina did not accompany Cortés to Honduras, she makes very insightful comments about her role as a conquistadora and model of female strength.
[23] Birmingham-Pokorny, 125f.
[24] Karttunen, 297. She writes that it is time to think about Malinche anew.
[25] Angel, 82.
[26] Cypess, 11. This author writes that Malinche has been treated unfairly. She agrees with the Mexican psychologist Juana Armanda Alegría who wrote that “`La Malinche was the only important woman during the conquest of Mexico, and in that role, she deserves to be reconsidered,’” 2.
[27] Frans Blom, The Conquest of Yucatan (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1936), 41. Blom is obviously out of touch with reality, since many of the Indian groups had a long history of animosity and would not have allied even if they had perceived the threat the Spaniards represented. But Blom is a clear example of the nationalists indoctrination … He also wrote, that “most great captains in history found their defeat in the arms of a tender morsel – not so Cortés, he conquered Malinche and thus the New World.” Preposterous!
[28] Fernando Horcasitas, The Aztecs: Then and Now (Mexico, 1979), 74. He does however describe her as a “remarkably shrewd woman,” although he does not give her much attention other than that.
[29] Karttunen, 297.
[30] See Diaz, 195ff and Gómara 126ff for the accounts of the Cholulan episode. Both praised Malinche for her skill, bravery, and loyalty. We also see in their accounts that Malinche saved the Spaniards at … due to her language skills.
[31] Diaz, 188.
[32] Gómara, 123f. Moctezuma was the Nahuan word for Montezuma.
[33] Ibid., 124.
[34] Diaz, 193.
[35] Anita Brenner, The Boy Who Could Do Anything: and other Mexican Folk Tales (Hamden: Linnet Books, 1942), 125. This story also labels Malinche “La Llorona,” the wailing woman who haunts Mexican nights grieving for her children and leading unwary men to their deaths, 128. See also Karttunen, 295.
[36] See Karttunnen, 304.
[37] Salas, 14.
[38] Angel, 72. It is still heavily debated whether or not she even received an encomienda from Spain, and when that land was passed on to the other Doña Marina.
[39] See Joanne Danaher Chaison, “Mysterious Malinche: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” The Americas, 32, 4 (April, 1976), 519. She examined these mistaken identities and provided significant evidence to certify each myth as fraudulent. Angel also argued that Malinche was falsely accused and that many sources identified the wrong Doña Marina. See 72f.
[40] Chaison argued that this mistake was cleared up by records indicating that these cruelties occurred in the 1530s and 40s, after Malinche’s death. (Although the exact date has not been determined, it is widely believed that she died prior to 1531.) Even if she had lived, there is no record of a divorce from Juan Jamarillo, which would have been necessary before she could have remarried.
[41]See Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex, General History of the Things of New Spain: Book 12 – The Conquest of Mexico, Arthur Anderson, trans., (Santa Fe: The School of American Research, 1955), 25. This is very important to historians not only because it provides an Aztec perspective on Malinche, but because it corroborates Diaz’s account of the events.
[42] Diaz, 86.
[43] Ibid., 171f. See also Sahagún, 42.
[44] Ibid., 153.
[45] Ibid., 86.
[46] Kartunnen, 304.
[47] Angel, 79. She also wrote, that Malinche “interpreted, gave counsel, procured supplies, uncovered plots, helped build alliances, and gave Cortés the upper hand in all his dealings with Nahuatl-speaking tribes,” 80. Salas wrote, “She was a mociuaquetzque –an unarmed woman who accompanied a warrior into battle not as a fighter but as a strategist or coach,” 120. Karttunen wrote, “Among the Totonacs, the Tlaxcalans, and the Cholulans, Doña Marina was set the task of assisting Cortés in playing people off against each other, misleading them to keep his potential enemies off-balance and acquiring allies through a mix of sweet talk and intimidation,” 303.
[48] Gómara, 62. See also Gómara 77, 106, and 127 for recognition of her additions to the campaign. Krueger argued that it was her eloquence and persuasion which benefited the Spaniards. (38)
[49] Diaz, 85f. See also Angel, 80.
[50] Cortés, 376.
[51] Chicana writers have taken up issue with the, “on-going cultural revisionism in Mexico and the rest of Latin America in regards to the image of women and their role in society, as well as with the extent to which these images and roles respond to a given political agenda and to the cultural needs of a patriarchal society, and to a set pattern or perspective on race, sex and Otherness in Mexican, Chicano, and Latin American society.” See Birmingham-Pokorny, 134.
[52] Ibid., 128ff.