Malinche: The Voice of a Nation
35
Bartolome de Olmedo baptized her in 1519. She helped Christianize the
indigenous people, and lived her life as an exemplary Christian. Diaz
always referred to her respectfully as Dona Marina.
Bernardino Sahagün, a Franciscan friar, arrived in New Spain in
1529 and spent fifty years studying Aztec culture. He wrote The War o f
Conquest: How It Was Waged Here in Mexico based on oral interviews,
Codices, and pictoglyphic books o f the Aztecs. Sandra M essinger Cypess,
Professor o f Latin American Literature at the University o f Maryland,
considers him the first ethnographer and anthropologist (La Malinche
15). Sahagün related this poignant Observation: “Then word came which
pierced M ontezuma’s heart: that a woman o f our own race was bringing
the Spaniards toward Mexico, was interpreting for them, a woman named
Marina” (20).
The illustrations in Sahagün’s account place Malinche in the
center o f the scene. Stylized tongues indicate she is the Speaker. She
wears her hair in the style o f an upper d ass Aztec woman. Her
omamented huipil reinforces her Status. The Aztec artists clearly
depicted her role in the Conquest as one o f leadership.
William Prescott, the English Historian, relied on the writings o f
the Chroniclers for his History o f Mexico (1843). He depicted the consort
o f Cortes as charming and generous, a “lively genius” who leamed
Spanish in four days. He declared: “She leamed it more readily, as it was
the language o f love” (296). His account stated that the Spaniards
“always held her in grateful remembrance for her aid” and that the
“natives appreciated the kindness and sympathy, she showed them in
their misfortunes” (333). After this assertion, he dropped any discussion
o f Malinche in favor o f a detailed analysis o f the military prowess o f
Cortes.
Historians generally agree that Malinche was bom around 1502.
Her father was the cacique (chief) o f a Nahuatl (Aztec) speaking village.
She enjoyed a comfortable life and education befitting a member o f the
m ling dass. This all changed when she was seven or eight years old. Her
father died. Her mother remarried and had a son. M alinche’s mother sold
her as a slave to the leader o f Potonchan, a Mayan Settlement, to clear the
way for her new son’s inheritance.
Cortes landed in the Yucatan in 1519. He used flintlocks,
crossbows, cannons and mounted horsemen to frighten and demoralize a
much larger force o f warriors from the city o f Potonchan. In defeat, the
indigenous people presented the Spaniards with food, gifts, and twenty
women, among them seventeen-year-old Malinche.