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            [file_content] => Treatment of Women in Mexican Culture

The choices for women have, across both time and space, almost always been far more constrained than the choices of men. They have in fact all too often been reduced to a single pair of opposing choices: The pure or the corrupt, the white or the black, the chaste or the sexual - the virgin or the whore.

Mexican culture is certainly not exempt from this tendency to place women on one side of this dichotomy or the other, but in the case of Mexican images of women this division of the female half of the population into the chaste, good woman and the terrible promiscuous one becomes complicated by issues of race (and racial purity), by the historical condition of colonization and post-colonization, by the partial displacement, partial incorporation of native belief systems by Catholicism.

These many complications and elaborations of this essential and essentializing dichotomy about the true nature of woman can be seen to come together in the character of La Malinche, a figure not well-known outside of Mexico (except to those whose families originally came from Mexico). This paper explores the figure of La Malinche, a figure who representations have over the years become at least in general more positive as Mexicans have regained a sense of themselves as a people worthy of self-respect - and as Mexican women have refused to see themselves as meriting only the role of a traitor condemned to silence.

Woman of Many Guises

La Malinche's image has changed substantially over time in the years since the conquest of the Aztec empire by the Spanish to the current day. This in large measure reflects changes in the ways that the Mexican people view themselves, but the various incarnations of the figure also result from the fact that she has different regional representations and has also been joined in a form of cultural syncretism at other times. Octavio Paz demonstrates in his The Labyrinth of Solitude how shifts in the perception of La Malinche reflect larger shifts in self-perception by Mexicans - although such shifts in the perception of La Malinche may help to cause as well as simply to reflect such shifts.

Her figure permeates historical, cultural, and social dimensions of Latin American cultures. In modern times and in several genres, she is compared with the figure of the Virgin Mary, La Llorona (folklore story of the weeping woman) and with the Mexican soldaderas for her manly valor. The soldaderas were women who fought beside men during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920).

While her life has most certainly become mythologized, it also seems clear that there was a real, historical person called La Malinche, a template upon whom a number of cultural texts have been written. However, while something is known of her real life, much is not. She may have been called Malinitzin or perhaps Malinali. She is also called by the name she received when she was baptized into the Catholic faith - Dona Marina. According to the legend told by Bernal D'az del Castillo, a contemporary of La Malinche, she was born in the first years of the 16th century as a princess of the Aztec empire, a sufficiently high social position that she was given an education far more extensive than that of most girls and indeed even many boys.

After her father died, her mother remarried and bore her new husband a son. La Malinche was now merely a stepchild of the family, and was sold into slavery by her parents to the Mayan-speaking people of the south, who traded her to the Tlaxalteca tribe in Tabasco. When she was 14, the people of Tabasco gave her as one of a score of women to Hernan Cortes, who in turn doled them out to his captains. Given first to Alonzo Hernando Puertocarrero, Dona Marina later became the companion of Cortes himself when Puertocarrero returned to Spain (Castillo 100).

La Malinche - not unlike Sacagawea - was useful to the colonizers became she spoke a number of different languages and used them to help Cortes draw a number of different Indian nations to his side against the Aztecs:

Malinche became one of Cortes' greatest assests: "Without the help of Dona Marina we would not have understood the language of New Spain and Mexico" (Diaz 101). Malinche would stand beside Cortes and translate his words or even issue instructions of her own. She was a key to success in convincing other Indian nations to join them in their quest to destoy the great Aztec nation. For instance, she was an interpreter between Moctezuma and Cortes.

La Malinche was for many years seen as nothing but a traitor, a woman her gave her body - and her mind and intellectual talents - to the enemy. Little acknowledgement was given to the difficulty of her own life - her enslavement by her parents, her being given as chattel to whatever Spaniard might be amused by her, her rejection by Cortes when his Spanish wife joined him, her death at the age of 24.

The word "malinchista" has been identified with La Malinche as a person who betrays his/her race and country; this person mixes his/her indian blood with white European blood. Since the historical Malinche had a child with Cortes, she is considered the mother of the "meztizo" race (children born to Spanish-Indian parents).

But while for many years the figure of La Malinche has been seen unequivocally bad and even evil terms, she has begun to be reclaimed in the last generation by especially feminists who she her original depiction as an attempt to blame her, Eve-like, for the weaknesses and self-hatred of men.

It is time that women discover the Aztec Indian woman called Dona Marina by the Spaniards and La Malinche by her fellow Indians and demand recognition of her as a true heroine. She certainly had as great an impact on the history of the New World as any woman, yet has been belittled and defamed by male Mexican historians.

This analysis argues that La Malinche was blamed by Mexicans for betraying the Aztecs because Mexicans have been reluctant to admit that the Aztec empire would not have fallen (and thus Mexico would not have come under Spanish colonial authority) if the other Indians in Mexico had not collaborated with the Spanish.

The historians of Mexico have wished to be able to write the history of their country as that of a people who fought bravely against the foreign invaders and who were in the end unable to succeed not through any lack of courage or any lack of a sense of their own cultural imperative but through that age-old, Biblically nuanced story of men betrayed by a woman.

One can in fact see the appeal of such a narrative - which lends to the Mexicans all of the virtues in the fight. Not only is it probably natural for people to want to consider themselves to be brave and virtuous but given the terrible cultural and political consequences that attended on the people of Mexico in the wake of colonization, it is easy to understand how the Mexicans of later generations would want someone to blame for the terrible cultural dislocations that followed colonization. And who better to blame - and has this not historically always been the case - than a woman?

Perhaps unwilling to admit that the fall of the Aztec Empire was caused largely by a revolt of the tribes they oppressed, they have made Dona Maria a scapegoat. Some have painted her as a traitor, others as a harlot. Today, she is ignored. Information about her is scarce but digging into the Spanish Archives we find the words of Hernando Cortes, conqueror of New Spain and the man she served faithfully as interpreter, secretary, confidant and mistress.

But there is another element to the original and long-enduring disregard and even hatred that has been cast upon La Malinche, one that Paz explores in nuanced analysis. La Malinche has been hated by many Mexicans until the most recent generation not because of her betrayal of the Aztecs but because of her engendering of the entire race of Mexicans.

It is because Mexicans have for so long hated themselves, hated their own mixed heritage, that they hate La Malinche, Paz argues. It is only when Mexicans come to peace with their own mestizo heritage that they can possibly come to terms with La Malinche and revere her as the founder of the race. It seems fairly certain that she was indeed Cortes's lover - but also that she was faithful to him. This should hardly brand her as a whore.

She also bore Cortes a son whom he acknowledged. Baptized Martin Cortes, he is the first "Mexican," ie, a mixture of Spanish and Indian blood, whose name and history we know.

As time went by, Cortes was offered many women. Always, he gave them to other Captains. Her&#8230;
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            [file_content] =>  Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of America, edited by Miguel Leon-Portilla (Beacon Press, 1992).

Broken Spears tells the Aztec peoples' account of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

Throughout history, the conquest has been told from the viewpoint of the conquistadors -- the Spanish victors. Broken Spears was the first book to tell the story of the conquest from the Aztecs' perspective.

It was originally published in Spanish (in 1959), and was only published in English in the year 1962.

The book begins a few years before the conquest by telling of the Aztecs' perceived omens of the conquest, and the remainder of the book gives a chronological account of the conquest.

The primary impetus of the book is not historical data gathering but, rather, is of the storytelling and human emotion behind the Spanish conquest.

Background

Hernando Cortes' army arrived in Mexico in the early 16th century and defeated the Mexicans in relatively short order.

Cortes had originally been sent to Mexico by the Cuban governor to search for gold, but when he was asked to withdraw and return to Havana, he gathered 11 ships and 600 troops and made his way to Mexico.

Previous Spanish expeditions had been sent to Mexico as early as 1517, but Cortes was a very powerful, persuasive leader and was able to rally the troops, so to speak. Also, the Indians turned out to be very susceptible to the Spaniards' superior weapons, as well as the new European viruses such as smallpox, chicken-pox, and measles.

Of crucial importance was the Aztec leader's (Moctezuma) indecisiveness about Cortes' motives and confusion as to whether Cortes' arrival was a spiritual arrival or a spiritual sign - a major mistake. Finally, the Mexican Indians were internally divided and there was much internal resentment about the Aztec domination in Mexico. Therefore, the Tlaxcaltecs and others - the Aztecs' enemies - became the Spaniards' allies.

Cortes arrived in the Yucatan Peninsula in 1519 and marched to Tenochhtitlan. In September of that year, his army battled with the Tlaxcaltecs, and the Tlaxcaltecs, defeated, became Spanish allies.

After an October 1519 massacre in Cholulam, Cortes and his troops arrived in Tenochtitlan, and the next month Montezuma was made prisoner of Cortes' army.

However, in May of 1520, Cortes left Tonochtitlan to confront Panfilo de Narvaez and during that time a massacre occurred in the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs were then able to force the Spaniards to their quarters.

By June, Cortes returned to Tenochtitlan (after defeating Narvaez) and in that same month, Montezuma died.

The Spaniards were forced to flee Tenochtitlan when they fell under attack, and in July of 1520, the Battle of Otumba took place.

By April 1521, numerous Spanish reinforcements had arrived to support the Cortes army, and Indian towns began to help the Spaniards.

Finally, in August 1521, Cuauhtemoc was captured and the Aztecs surrendered. The once great Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, was now in ruins and their once strong leader, Moctezuma, was dead.

The Spanish defeat of the Aztecs was of great historical significance. First, the greatest Indian civilization in history had been decimated. Second, the Spanish victory created a new race of people - created by the mix of the Aztecs and the Spaniards - that resulted in today's Mexican race.

Essay

The importance of this book is that it finally introduced the conquered peoples' viewpoint of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs.

Many commentators and readers have applauded the book precisely for this reason.

The subject can become very emotional for many readers because of the racial and cultural implications. For example, some have commentated that "conquest" is too loose a term, and that the term "holocaust" or "mass murder" of the Aztecs, the most powerful tribe at that time in Mexico, should instead be used when describing what occurred when the Spanish Europeans invaded Mexico.

They no longer had nor could find any arrows, javelins or stones with which to attack us, and our allies fighting with us were armed with swords and bucklers, and slaughtered so many of them on land and in the water that more than forty thousand were killed or taken that day. So loud was the wailing of the women and children that there was not one man among us whose heart did not bleed at the sound.

Cortes

The Aztecs called themselves the Mechica. They were originally nomads, and they came to the Valley of Mexico in 1276. Although they were originally subjugated under the Toltecs, they were strong mercenaries, and eventually were able to begin to build their great city -- Tenochtitlan. It was a gigantic city of great efficiency and a marvel in its time for its system of canals and waterways.

While many commentators portray the Aztecs as indigenous victims of violent European bloodshed and colonialism, it is also important to understood that because of the power and advancement of the Aztec civilization, the Aztec became an incredibly powerful ruling tribe among the Indian populations in Mexico. And they were not peaceful rulers. They were known as violent dictators - perhaps a natural result of their mercenary pasts - and they engaged in great numbers of human sacrifices of their conquered victims.

Indeed, it could be argued that Broken Spears has an indigenous, pro-victim bias, as it was published to give voice to the perspective of the conquered.

However, the more revealing stance is to instead examine the Aztec account not from the perspective of the author -- who is merely the instrument by which the story is being told -- but rather, to scrutinize and criticize the two different perspectives (the Spanish and the Aztec) at issue.

Domination Engendered through Assimilation

While many critics scathingly accuse Cortes of being yet another Colonial conqueror who decimated an indigenous culture with no regard for its native people or native attributes, such an account overlooks the important fact that one of the primary reasons Cortes was able to defeat the Aztecs was because he first learned how to become one of them. In short, he learned to assimilate into their culture.

For example, when Cortes first arrived in Mexico, he freed a Spaniard held in captivity by the Indians, Geronimo de Aguilar. Aguilar has been shipwrecked (in Cozumel) eight years before Cortes' arrival in Mexico, and the Indians had forced him into slavery. As a slave, he learned the Mayan language of his Indian captors. Aguilar became crucial to Cortes' strategy, as Cortes was now able to communicate in the language of the Indians.

After leaving Cozumel, Cortes and his ships sailed up the east cost of Mexico, fighting and defeating thousands of Indians along the coast. At Tabasco, he quickly defeated the Indians and when they made peace offerings, food, gifts and women were presented.

These Indians were known as the Caciques, and did not speak the language of the Mayans, the language spoken by Aguilar, Cortes' comrade. However, a woman named Dona Marina - who had been presented as a gift, understood the Mayan language and translated Cortes' words of gratitude. Dona Marina was an Aztec princess who had had the misfortune of becoming a slave to the Tabascan Indians; this is how she had come to know the language of the Aztecs (Nahuatl) as well as the Tabascan and Mayan languages.

Marina and Aguilar proved to be Cortes' ultimate weapons, because Cortes was now able to communicate with all of the Indian tribes that he encountered, including the Indians in the capital city of the Aztecs -- Tenochtitlan.

But beyond this assimilation of the Indians' language through his ships' crew, Cortes assimilated the Indian culture in other crucial ways.

Dona Marina and Cortes had a passionate love affair, and she became his ultimate ally. She was his ear on the ground, so to speak, and would warn him of plots against his army and against his life. Later, even though she had been given as a gift to one of Cortes' captains, Marina bore Cortes a son.

This son was Don Martin Cortes.

Don Martin Cortes was both literally and figuratively the beginning of the Mexican race, and the result of Cortes' successful assimilation into the Indian culture - an assimilation which would ultimately prove to be their defeat.

B. Heroine or Traitor: The Role of Dona Marina in the Conquest

Commentators have debated the role of Dona Marina in the conquest of Mexico. Some describe her as a traitor to the Aztecs. Others describe her as the symbolic mother of a new race of people -- the Mexicans, or the mestizos.

Certainly, if Broken Spears is unique precisely because it is an account of the Aztec conquest from the Aztec perspective, then Marina -- as an Aztec princess -- might be properly viewed as a traitor to the Aztec people. However, it should be reiterated that the point of this essay is to take into account the two perspectives, the Aztec and the Spaniard -- the conquered&#8230;
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