Introduction
In the cause of 1500s, there was a woman who always changed the direction of the history of Mexico. She provided her services to Herman Cortes in the capacity of being her translator and mistress. Had there been no help from her, there could have been the defeat of the Spanish conquistador. This woman possessed several names. At the time she was a youth, she was called Malintzin and at the point she was christened, she was called Dona marina (Cypess, 2). However, nowadays people remember her with the name Malinche or La Malinche. This name of hers has turned out to be associated with contempt and extreme dislike. There was a general belief among people that La Malinche was a traitor to her people and she played a major role in the conquest of these people (Stoll, 120). This has made her name to be infamous among some people. This paper is going to carry out the demonstration of how Malinche was a traitor to her people in helping Cortez with translation.
La Malinche: An Overview
Basing on the history of La Malinche, she is believed to have been born in a noble family. The father ruled a village by the name Paynala. The people of this village spoke a language called Nahuatl. La Malinche is believed to have been born in the year 1505. She is also believed to have died in the year 1527. However, these dates are not very clear and there is a possibility that she might have lived for a longer time than this (Stoll, 118). Malinche was lucky enough to acquire an education as a woman which was something that was not common during those days. This privilege of getting an education is attributed to the position the father held. Unluckily, the father died at the time she was still a very young girl and this caused her life to change drastically for the rest of the days she lived.
To make matters even worse, her mother got married again and she bore a son for the new husband. She was not allowed to stay in this new home with the step-father and therefore she was given out in to the hands of the Maya traders who bought and sold slaves (Stoll, 118). It is not clear as to whether she was sold or given out for free. In the year 1519, Cortes together with his men was able to emerge winners in a war that they fought against a Mayan settlement in the region which is today known as Tabasco.
As a way of giving out a mark of respect, twenty slaves who were Indians were given out to the Spaniards and among these Indian Slaves, Malinche was one of them. The attention of Corte was drawn by the knowledge of its own kind that Malinche had in the Aztec language (Nahuatl), and also in the Mayan dialects. At that time, Corte had another translator by the name Geronimo de Aguilar who was a Spanish priest.
It did not take long after Corte’s attention being drawn by the language skills Malinche had before this current translator was taken to prison in which he had to serve several years and he had learned their language. And therefore this translator turned out to be of no value to Corte. However, it had come to a point, not after a long time, when they came across the Indians who did not know any other language other than Nahuatl.
In the initial stages, it was the priest who played the role of carrying out translation of Mayan in to the Spanish language. Malinche served as a translator in which she translated Nahuatl to Mayan for the benefit of Montezuma and Aguilar. In turn, the priest carried out the translation of Mayan in to Spanish. This was for the advantage of Cortes.
Soon thereafter, Malinche was able to learn the Spanish language and thus turned out to be Cortes direct interpreter. Cortes capitalized on the language skills Malinche had in order to gain advantage especially in the course of carrying out negotiations with the empire of Aztec. In these negotiations, Malinche served as a translator and she played a big role in carrying out mediation of the introductions as well as meetings that were held between Cortes and Montezuma.
The capability Malinche she had of carrying out negotiations and communicating effectively with several people from various languages origins enabled the Spanish people to comfortably enter in various territories without any problem. They were able to take up the converts as they moved on. Several people who were indigenous ganged with Cortes and engaged in battles along with him. They developed motivation to join the Spanish people. This was for the reason that by doing this they would be able to defeat the Aztecs that were their long term foes. The Aztecs were defeated.
La Malinche as a traitor to her people
According to Hurtado (55), Malinche is taken by people as a woman who would turn out to be infamous in the history of Mexico. This is not only for the reason that she turned her back on her own people but as well started working together with the white people and became part of the society of the white people. Following this, she turned out to be assimilated and helped the white people in guiding them and also serving as their interpreter and offering them support in the conquest.
Other than Malinche being a translator to Cortes, she turned out also to be his mistress and bore him a son. Following this, she has always obtained a description as being the most loathed woman in the Americas. This follows the belief that had it not been for her lack of loyalty to her people, betraying her own people by serving Cortes, there would have been no occurring of the conquest.
According to Karttunen (353), the current days focus on Malinche’s betrayal that is deemed to be carried willingly centralizes on the occurrences that brought about the Spanish massacre of the Chluba people to the Spanish occupation of Tenochtitlan. Karttunen (353) puts that, according to Castillo and Lopez, an opportunity was given to Malinche to abandon the Spaniards from the protection of the Cholulans, even to the extend of engaging in to marriage with a nobleman of the Cholulan origin but instead of this, Malinche came up with a different choice of giving information to Cortes about the plans of the Cholulans to attack the Spaniards.
More so, the role Malinche played in the interrogation of Cuauhtémoc who was the last ruler of the Mexica in the course of his imprisonment and carrying out the interpretation of the confession this former ruler made before he was executed in the course of the expedition to Honduras is regarded as evidence enough to take her to be a traitor. Karttunen (354) concludes that whatever the personal history Malinche had and the circumstances in regard to the Spanish people, all the acts she had involved in are ones that are taken to be of free choice.
Malinche is regarded as a big traitor to her people, a humiliation to her people. At the time Mexico achieved independence and at the time there was surfacing of the identity problem, there was the changing of the name from Dona Marina to La Malinche. This turned out to be a symbol of humiliation, what was regarded by Lester as “the rape of an indigenous people and the act of treachery that would lead to their oppression” (290).
Lester (290) goes ahead to put forward what Marina is taken to be. She is taken as a figure that has turned out to be a symbol of those females who are of the Indian descend who got attracted to the Spanish people, or who were also either raped or seduced, the same way a young person can’t give out forgiveness to his or her mother who abandons the child to go seeking his or her father, there can be no forgiveness to Malinche by the people of Mexico for the crime she committed. Malinche embodies the open, the raped as opposed to the Indians who are stoic, unemotional and closed.
Conclusion
As it has been seen, by Malinche serving Cortes as an interpreter, translator and his mistress, she ended up becoming a traitor to her own people. She played a major role in the conquest. She joined the white people and worked together with these people against the desire of her people. She even became a mistress to Cortes and went to the extend of having a son with him. Without her cooperation with the white people the conquest would not have taken place. Following this, she is viewed by some as being a humiliation to her people; one who served against the interest of her own people. It is taken that Malinche’s association with the Spaniards that led to the defeat of her people is something that she chose to even if she was offered an opportunity to break from this association.
Works Cited
Cypess Messinger Sandra, La Malinche in Mexican literature from history to myth. University of Texas Press, 1991. ISBN: 0292751346, 9780292751347
Hurtado, Aída. The color of privilege: three blasphemies on race and feminism. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1996.
Lester J. Rebecca, Jesus in our wombs: embodying modernity in a Mexican convent. University of California Press, 2005. ISBN: 0520242688, 9780520242685
Karttunen, Frances. La Malinche and Malinchismo. Concise Encyclopedia of Mexico (2001): 352-355.
Stoll K. Anita. A Different reality: studies on the work of Elena Garro. Bucknell University Press, 1990. ISBN: 0838751660, 9780838751664