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GALERÍA
HISPÁNICA:
Tales and Images From The
Spanish-Speaking World
Volume 19: The Conquest of
Mexico, Part II
On an earlier expedition, the
Spanish explorer, Juan de
Grijalva, had sailed his ships
up the eastern Mexican coast,
following its shoreline. When
he arrived at river inlets, he
offloaded parties in small boats
to gather fresh water and fresh
fruits, but the primary mission
had been to find the missing
Spanish sailors from the earlier
de Córdoba
expedition. After leaving
Tabasco, Hernán Cortés followed
the route taken by Grijalva, as
he knew it to be. His goal was
to make contact with the Aztecs,
or at least a relative tribe of
them, somewhere in the interior
of the continent of New Spain.
The land of the Aztecs was
mentioned frequently by the
Indians Cortés had already
encountered during this
expedition. He was anxiously
anticipating his first contact
with them.
Cortés and his expedition
eventually arrived at the island
of San Juan de Ulúa (so named by
Grijalva) off the coast of
eastern Mexico. When he gave
the order to anchor off the
island, the Spaniards saw that
scores of Indians were on the
shores observing the spectacle
of the Spanish armada hauling up
their sails not far from their
shore. Not long after weighing
the anchors, long dug-out canoes
full of natives began making
their way toward the large
Spanish vessel with the most
banners flying from its mast;
that of the captain-general
Hernán Cortés. It was deduced
by Cortés that these natives
presented no threat to the
Spaniards. As they approached
the Spanish vessels, Cortés
could plainly see baskets of
fruits, flowers, and smaller
items that seemingly were
fabricated of gold. They called
out to the Spanish ships in
their own language, totally
unfamiliar to the Spaniards and
even to the expedition’s
interpreter of the Mayan
language, Jerónimo de Aguilar.
The language spoken by the
natives there was Náhuatl, the
Aztec tongue, and not Maya.
Cortés and his lieutenants made
the best effort they could at
communicating with the Indians,
made even more difficult by the
totally unfamiliar language of
the other. Nevertheless,
through the use of hand signs
and gestures, pleasantries were
exchanged and contact was made
for the first time between the
expedition of Hernán Cortés and
representatives of the
indigenous people of the Valley
of Mexico.
La Malinche
Cortés was once again faced with
a dilemma involving
communication. His language
specialist, Jerónimo de Aguilar,
spoke Maya perfectly, but it
served them poorly in the land
of the Aztecs. The Spaniards
were at peril. They were in a
foreign and hostile land without
the ability to communicate with
the natives. This fact was
never, ever lost on Cortés. He
needed to solve the dilemma
quickly.
Earlier, back in the land of
Tabasco, chieftains had
presented the Spanish leaders
certain parcels of female slaves
as gifts. Cortés knew that one
or more of them could converse
in the Aztec language. It was
also his hope that she would be
able to speak Maya. If she were
able to speak both Maya and
Náhuatl, she also would be able
to communicate with Jerónimo de
Aguilar. She then could provide
Cortés with the missing link in
the chain of communication
because Jerónimo de Aguilar, of
course, also spoke Spanish. It
turned out that a certain female
slave by the name of
Malinalli Tenepal, also
known as Malintzín, and
called Malinche by the
Spaniards, spoke both languages.
Cortés once again would have
language capability within the
Aztec land, at least until La
Malinche could learn enough
Spanish and then be able to
converse with Cortés directly.
The chain of interpretation
would work something like this:
-
Hernán Cortés would converse
in Spanish directly to
Jerónimo de Aguilar.
-
Jerónimo de Aguilar would
speak in Maya to La
Malinche.
-
La Malinche would
communicate the messages
from Cortés in Náhuatl to
the Aztecs.
-
The messages from the Aztecs
would flow back to Cortés in
reverse order.
History will always record that
along with the ships, the
cannons, the horses, and the
coincidence of the sun god
Quetzalcoatl’s return, the
discovery of La Malinche as
interpreter was another
singularly important event to
the success of the mission of
Hernán Cortés in Mexico.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a foot
soldier with Cortés, wrote a
detailed account of the person
of Malintzín. He wrote that he;
himself had known the mother of
La Malinche. He recorded that
Malinche was of noble birth.
Her father was a cacique
in the region of Coatzalcualco,
located to the south and east of
the Valley of Mexico. Her
father died when she was young
and the mother married another
cacique. Their union produced
a male to whom the mother wanted
to see bestowed the wealth and
power of the cacique’s family,
excluding any claim Malinche
might have had. The mother
boldly claimed that Malinche had
died, but in reality, the mother
sold her into slavery to
merchants who in turn sold her
to a cacique of Tabasco. It was
in Tabasco that La Malinche was
turned over to the Spaniards as
a gift. The slaves were
immediately baptized by the
Spaniards and upon doing so,
Malinche received the name of
Doña Marina, or the Lady from
the Sea.
La Malinche, or Doña Marina,
began life in 1505 as a princess
of noble birth. Throughout the
conquest of Mexico, la Malinche
was used by Cortés as an
interpreter, was appreciated by
him for her intelligence and
aristocratic bearing, and
eventually was taken by Cortés
as his lover and mistress.
Perhaps even more importantly,
she bore him a child, Martín.
Martín Cortés would symbolically
become the first “mestizo”,
or mixed race (one half
Spanish/European and one half
native Mexican). Sadly for la
Malinche, Martín was taken from
her and sent back to Spain to be
raised there by family. By the
end of the Spanish conquest of
Mexico, La Malinche would be
labeled a traitoress to her
indigenous peoples. On the one
hand, she was serving her
“partner” and master, Hernán
Cortés, and on the other hand,
she was helping him conquer and
destroy her own people.
This is one frame from an Aztec
codex depicting Hernán Cortés
being followed by his translator/interpreter,
La Malinche, who by then had
been baptized, Doña Marina.
This drawing depicts Hernán
Cortés waiting with La Malinche
at the end of a causeway at
Tenochtitlán for the arrival of
the entourage containing the
Aztec emperor, Moctezuma II.
This is one of the rare statues
or monuments to La Malinche
inside Mexico. It is in the
village of Villa Oluta in the
State of Veracruz, said to be
her birthplace.
This is the accompanying plaque
to the statue of La Malinche in
the town of Villa Oluta,
Veracruz. It says: “Malinche,
you walked through here and left
us your history, the village of
Oluta and its municipal
authorities, 500 years after
your birth, pay a deserved
homage to Malinalli Tenepal, a
woman that by means of her great
intelligence and beauty,
contributed to the fact that our
village of Oluta would have a
place in the history of Mexico”.
After the conquest of Mexico, la
Malinche was dismissed by
Cortés. In 1524, when he was
leaving Mexico in order to
continue his conquest south
toward what is now Central
America, he took Malinche with
him, once again to serve as his
guide and interpreter. Sometime
during that campaign, Cortés
married off Malinche to one of
his officers, Juan Jaramillo.
That marriage secured for her an
important position of respect
among the expedition. While in
Honduras, Malinche rediscovered
her mother and her stepbrother.
She forgave her mother for
selling her as a slave when she
was eight years old. When that
campaign ended, Cortés left her
and abandoned her. At that
point, she disappeared into
history leaving behind only
conjecture in regards to her
death. It is reported in
campaign chronicles that she
probably died in 1530. That
would put her age at 25.
The following are excerpts from
“Malinche” and other poems by
the American author Haniel Long
(1888-1856).
She who speaks out to you is
Malinche, whom Hernán called
Doña Marina…
“When my father the cacique of
Oluta died,
I being eight years,
My mother sold me to Tabascan
slave traders
To secure the inheritance for my
half brother.
Yet this was the deed that was
my destiny…
Which from my birth kept me on
the path I was to follow.
When one is eighteen,
one should never be sad in an
ancient world…
of great ceiba trees…lake like
rivers and gay parrots.
But when old and young, rich and
poor,
Forget the Feathered Serpent…
And find no way back into the
earth they were made of…
What is one to do?”
Whatever Cortés says to my
people reaches them through my
lips.
Whatever they say to him reaches
him through my lips.
I am my lord’s mouthpiece and…I
am the mouthpiece of my earth.
I am helping Cortés destroy my
land…
Kill and torture my people.
But if I do not help him, my
land will destroy Cortés.
I have had to choose.
I give my life to Cortés because
of the locket
He bears about his throat and
knows nothing about.
Later, out of his scaled armor
will come Quetzalcoatl.
Later, I shall be justified.
But who knows how much later?
To me, Malinche, gold covered
flowers mean timelessness,
And the come and go of the
streams that are eternity.
I wish that Cortés might gaze at
these golden flowers…
In the red fields and see
them…now…this minute…in the fine
rain.
But there are certain things
about the Mexican earth Cortés
will never see,
Though an old man who is blind
and full of days like Xicotenga,
Chieftain of the Tlaxcalans,
sees them perfectly…
I recommend for further reading
the novel, La Malinche,
by Laura Esquivel.
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