On Saturdays, when the centre of Coyoacán in Mexico City is full of tourists coming to see Frida Kahlo’s famous Casa Azul, buy souvenirs at the market or simply enjoy the atmosphere of one of the oldest quarters of colonial era Mexico, many locals flee to quieter areas of town. One of these refuges is the Calle de la Higuera, which lies between the hustle and bustle of the famous Plaza Hidalgo with its sweet vendors, organ grinders and street artists and a shady park called “La Conchita”.
In this refuge next to the old chapel, while enjoying the peace of this almost sacred place and the last rays of the day’s sun shining through the leaves of the large trees, one can perhaps hear the distant voice and sobbing of a woman amongst the whispering of the foliage.
Most people dismiss it as a figment of their imagination and perhaps that is all it is. But mention it to an elderly inhabitant of the city and one often gets a knowing, understanding nod. “You heard Malinche. She was Hernán Cortés’ mistress and the mother of the first mestizo.” Mestizos are the result of the mixture of the Latin American native population and the Spanish conquerors and nowadays constitute the majority of the population of Latin America. A few people explain a bit more; they know that Malinche spent her last years in a house directly opposite the park. It was in one of the most prestigious buildings in Coyoacán that Malinche lived with her son Martín. But he was taken away from her and brought to Spain and so she started to cry. To this day she is crying for her son, who was taken from her. “That was what you heard.”
Malinche and her story are relatively well known and many people find her one of the most fascinating figures in Mexican history. As a young girl she was given to the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés as a present. She spoke Náhuatl, the language of the Aztecs, and so she became the official translator for the Aztecs and the Spanish. And Malinche is to this very day, nearly five hundred years later, a symbol for betrayal of the Mexican fatherland – to such an extent that “malinchismo” has become an insulting term for someone who prefers foreign ways to Mexican ones. Malinche is the great traitor in Mexican history who sold her fatherland to the Spanish. That is why there are no memorials paying tribute to her role in the development of modern Mexico and why her house in Coyoacán remains unmarked.
In the nineteen-eighties the city erected a fountain with a statue of Cortés, Malinche and their son Martín. It was, however, removed after protestors organised a march and demonstrated against it with banners such as “Disappear, traitor”. The Mexicans do not want Malinche.
Yet if one takes a closer look at her story, one perhaps wonders if the charge of betrayal is at all justified. Malinche was born in an aristocratic Mayan family on the Yucatán peninsula, but after the death of her father they sold her as a slave. Due to her aristocratic background she spoke Náhuatl, the language of the Aztec empire. However, the inhabitants of Tabasco, where she lived, only spoke Mayan, the language of a subject people. Undoubtedly hoping that the Spanish would free them from the yoke of Aztec oppression, they gave Cortés and his men several women, among them Malinche. When Cortés realised that one of the slave women spoke the language of the Aztecs, he appointed her his interpreter. At first Doña Marina, as she was known by the Spanish, translated via a Spanish priest called Gerónimo de Aguilar, who understood the Mayan language. But because she had such an exceptional talent for languages she quickly learnt Spanish and soon interpreted directly for Cortés and the Aztec rulers. Cortés seems to have been attracted not just by her linguistic capabilities; in 1523 Malinche gave birth to Martín Cortés, the first mestizo, whom the Mexicans do in fact see as the father of their double heritage.
It seems clear that, as a slave, Malinche had no choice but to obey her owners, whether they were natives or Spaniards. The alternative would have been death. What is more, one can assume that she, like most of the subject peoples, saw the Spanish conquerors as allies against the brutal imperial regime. She probably did not know that the rule of the Spanish throne would be even more tyrannical than its predecessor.
It is likely that Malinche’s transformation to a figure of hate has its roots in the Mexican Revolution in the nineteenth century, when the still young nation was seeking to form its own identity that rejected the Spanish influence. In this way Malinche became the iconic image of betrayal of the Aztec empire, although most of the revolutionaries were themselves of Spanish origin.
It has only recently been admitted that she was treated very unfairly in the past two centuries, although in the Mexican collective memory she is still hated. She is, however, now increasingly seen and represented as she was: a talented translator and interpreter, who spoke three languages. Yet her public image will not change overnight.
And so Malinche continues to cry in the park of La Conchita, this refuge of peace, only a few paces away from the loud centre of the heart of Coyoacán. She is crying for the loss of her son, the forgotten father of the Mexican nation. She is crying because of the nation which condemns her to be nothing more than a woman with the curse of having a knack for languages.