Malintzin

[MAX R HARRIS]

Dan,

I know of no other sources that call both Cortes and his mistress/translator Malinche. The most persuasive explanation I've come across for the Nahua giving Cortes his female translator's name (assuming Bernal Diaz's account is correct on this detail) is that it was she who spoke for him, i.e. she is his voice, so he bears her name. (Unfortunately, I can't remember the source of this explanation: I suspect it was offered verbally at a conference rather than published anywhere!) Whether it diminished Cortes in the Nahua mind to give him a female interpreter's name, I don't know.

I have, however, made several lengthy attempts to understand the role of Malinche in Mesoamerican danzas. The Malinche of the dances is emphatically not Cortes's translator, but generally either partners Moctezuma (in conquest dances) or is independent. The notion of Malinche as an ixiptla in this context is not a bad one. Her name in the dances may derive, like the mountain in the state of Tlaxcala now known as La Malinche, from a pre-Christian deity, Matlalcueye. But it may also derive from the imported Spanish "deity," the Virgin Mary. "Blessed Maria" becomes in Nahuatl "Malintzin," or, in hispancized Nahautl, "Malinche." That the name Maringuilla, or "little Mary," is often substituted for Malinche in the danzas, perhaps suggests that the link with the Virgin is more likely. But the two derivations are not mutually exclusive.

If you're interested, you can read my developing thoughts on the Malinche of the dances at greater length in:
"Moctezuma's Daughter: The Role of La Malinche in Mesoamerican Dance," The Journal of American Folklore 109 (1996):149-177
"Sweet Moll and Malinche: Maid Marian Goes to Mexico," in Playing Robin Hood: The Legend as Performance in Five Centuries, ed. Lois Potter (Associated University Presses, 1998), 101-110.
Aztecs, Moors, and Christians: Festivals of Reconquest in Mexico and Spain (University of Texas Press, 2000), 237-250
Carnival and Other Christian Festivals: Folk Theology and Folk Performance (University of Texas Press, 2003), 50-64.
The latter pieces modify and (I hope) correct the earlier in ceryain details. 

As for the historical Malinche, my own best guess at this point would be that her baptismal name was Maria, to which the Nahua honorific -tzin was added in recognition of her stature as Cortes's mouthpiece, so becoming, in Nahuatl, "Malintzin," and, in hispanicized Nahuatl, "Malinche." In other words, her name slid from Maria to Malinche just like the Virgin Mary after whom she was renamed at her baptism.

Best wishes,

Max 

Max Harris, Executive Director
Wisconsin Humanities Council
222 South Bedford Street, Suite F
Madison, WI 53703

Tel: 608/262-0706
Fax: 608/263-7970

----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Deneen <drd30 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
Date: Thursday, April 29, 2004 1:40 pm
Subject: Malintzin

> Might I get some of you to weigh in on a question about the name
> Malintzin/Malinche?   The Spanish chroniclers tell us that Cortés 
> and his
> interpreter were both called ?Malinche? (?Malintzin.?)   Frances 
> Kartunnenargued (1997) that both of them may have been seen as 
> ixiptla for a
> previously obscure, or unknown, divine entity itself called, 
> ?Malintzin?.This has been the most interesting and persuasive of 
> the explanations I?ve
> come across, and I?d love to know  if Ms. Kartunnen has had an 
> opportunityto further develop the argument, or if any of this 
> distinguished company
> might have thoughts on the naming.  And, more specifically: are there
> indigenous sources which apply the name, ?Malintzin? to both 
> Marina and
> Cortes?  Are there other examples of prominent linked figures 
> bearing the
> same name?  What of Bernal D del C's note that a soldier (often in the
> company of Marina) named Juan Perez de Arteaga was also called 
> "Malinche?"And finally, what if anything, might have been the 
> grammatical distinctions
> made in speaking third-person about Malintzin (him), Malintzin 
> (her), and
> Malintzin (the god??)
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Dan --a longtime "lurker" on Nahuat-L, finally piping up
> 
> 
> Dan Deneen
> Strafford, Vermont
> www.deneenstreet.com
>