Helpfully, a through-line that Camilla Townshend makes a case for, in her book, Malintzin's Choices, is that of the liminal character of the life Malintzin led. She had been both 'a part of' and 'not part of' whichever culture she happened to be immersed in at any moment, for most of her life. Her children that she bore Hernan Cortes also came to know that inside-looking-out and outside-looking-in character.
As a child, Malintzin - not her original name - was taken from the place of her birth, probably near the local trade center in Xicallancos, probably Coatzacoalcos, and handed over to a different people, closer to Patonchon, up the Yucatan coast. The reasons for this may have been multiple.
"How had these women come to be enslaved? In some cases, their parents had chosen to sell them, or they had entered the state voluntarily, theoretically with the right to buy back their freedom again someday. People entered into such arrangements ... only when famine or other hard times drove them to it, but there was still a stigma attached to it.... Many girls and women, however, were living far from home, either because they had been sold and then transported by travelling merchants or because they were in fact war captives." [p. 19-20]
Here she was probably a menial servant girl, acting out the roles of a secondary servant. Not a member of a family, not first or second child. Perhaps through prior education, living in a local trading hub - where Nahua was the common language - she had developed an alacrity with languages, having to learn a new one here in her new home, as well, but without status. It may have been very important there to listen very carefully and speak as little as possible. We have no way of knowing for sure.
But certainly, Women protected the hearth, cooked, cleaned and made clothes. Yes, cotton clothes, so that had to be carded and spun and girls were taught to use a spindle at an early age even there [p.24,27]. Women, whether married, with or without children, slave or free often lived their entire lives communally in a courtyard or, by the hearth of a single household. The happenings of the external world came to them through the front door and could be discussed at length. Being one of those who had come from that outside world, Malintze would be in a position to want to know.
Bernal Diaz repeated the story of her being a stolen royal princess. This is probably not the case but writing decades later, he still admired her and such a belief would not have hurt her, in those earlier days, so she could accept such a story, whether it was true or not. Townshend warns us,
"Whatever she did or did not understand about Spanish attitudes toward slaves and slavery, she herself came from a world in which it was shameful simply to have been sold by one's family and to have been forced to live as an outsider in the homes of others." [pp 23-4]When the Spaniards came, year after year, with continuing stories piling up of the bearded men in the house-boats appearing up and down the coast, this had to make an impression on everyone. After the battle of Cintla and hundreds of locals killed, the local chiefs sued for peace. Malintze was one of perhaps twenty women offered as part of a greater peace offering. These women were accepted and then blessed with holy water and all given names. The one they gave Malintze - not her real name - was 'Marina'. Without the hard liquid sound of 'r' in the Nahua tongue, this became 'Malina'. [p. 36]
Cortes gave her to Alonso Puertocarrero, cousin to the Count of Medellin in Extramadura, where Cortes was from. He was one of the inner circle of Cortes and could appeal to the court at home. It is he who went with the first letter addressed to the king in July back to Spain. At first though she probably followed him around, quietly observing, learning their language [p. 37]
Perhaps even the very first time that the Mexica messengers from Motecuhzoma came aboard ship off Potonchon, after the battle of Cintla, translations with Jeronimo de Aguilar broke down. He could speak a dialect of Mayan but not Nahuatl. Malina coud speak both. She could have stayed silent, but soon proved herself willing and able to speak for both parties. It was here that Cortes' secretary Gomara later said that Cortes took them aside and offered her 'more than her freedom' if she could take them to Moctezoma.
Townshend here plausibly speculates that even if her new master was killed, this other chief Cortes might care for her if she proved herself valuable to him [p. 41]. It was not long after that even the Spaniards began calling her Doña Marina. Within a few short months her abilities and sway began to spread. She was shielded by Cortes, but she won a respect which was based on, and coming to her as a result of, her own abilities. When messengers returned to Motecuhzoma they referred to the perosn they spoke to as, 'one of us here', yet she clearly was not any longer. When Alonso Puertocarrero left for Cuba and Spain in July, she apparently became part of Cortes' inner circle and when they all turned inland, she went with them. When they reached Cempoala and the other towns along the way, she negotiated. At one point, as before Tlaxcala, she would be sent ahead to do negotiations without Cortes.
"In addressing her, the indigenous visitors understood that she represented a foreign entity hitherto unknown to them.... When the visitors turned to Cortes and spoke directly to him, despite his lack of comprehension, they addressed him as "Malintze," too..... Malintzin was their initial refernce point; others in her party took on meaning in relation to her.... she was the speaker." [p. 56]They came to need her not just to secure food and water, but for the needs of conquest. If they were to continue into the interior of this place that they knew nothing about, they needed a guide who at least knew the language. A pliant one, better, a child who was quick to learn languages, could gauge the temper of situations quickly, and summon the courage to speak, not as a little girl, but even "a lady of power" for both Spanish and the locals.
"Bernal Diaz... conveys that she spoke to them archly or coquettishly if need be ... she knew how to handle her Spanish male audience.... [H]owever... with her Nahua audiences... she spoke rhetorically, formally, high-handedly. They could accept a noblewoman's having the floor and could even be persuaded by her into action.... She knew this and adjusted her tone accordingly." [p. 59]She was playing both sides, expertly.
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quotes and pagination from Malintzin's Choices: an Indian Woman In The Conquest of Mexico, Camilla Townshend, University of New Mexico Press, as part of the series Dialogos, 2006
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