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Episode 24-28, 31-33, 35 - She was the evil villainess of
MCoG but what is the story of the real Malinche?
Here is a link
to a paper I wrote myself about the real Malinche, if anyone is interested.
The Story of La Malinche:
"The Mexican Eve:" A Woman of Historical Contradictions
Anne Smittle
La Malinche, the "Mexican Eve," is the popular work of the
modern age in the form of plays and folklore and is compared with such
legendary figures as the Virgin Mary, La Lorna and even Medea.
Her name can vary from Malinitizin Tenepal, Malinitizin, Malinali and
her baptized name, Dona Marina.
The essential meaning of the modern word "malinchista" has
been derived directly from her name, a term used by [Mexicans]to describe
a person who has turned their back on their own culture, a "traitor."
Mother of an ethnic group "mestizo" in Mexico named for children
born of Spanish and Indian parents, Malinche played a significant role
in the conquest and settlement of Spain in the New World.
She proved to be an indispensable translator, advisor and guide to the
conquistador, Hernando Cortes. Without her, the diplomatic maneuvering
which was made as much the part of the Conquest as the fighting would
have been impossible.
La Malinche was born circa 1500 in the village of Painalla, near the
town of Coatzacualco and the daughter of cacique parents-according to
legend, born a princess. In line with her wealthy status, Malinche was
allowed to be educated. (Ashby and Ohrn, page 41) In her youth, her
father died and her mother remarried and bore a son. Now an inconvenient
stepchild, in the night Malinche's parents gave her to strangers from
Xicalango. Undiscovered with their plot, their son now stood to inherit
what Malinche stood to impede-his parents honor and wealth.
The Indians in turn gave her to people in Tabasco. It was during her
time as a slave that Malinche learned several local dialects, including
Nahuatl, Mayan and later, Spanish.
The Tabasco people gave this unordinary slave and a number of women
to Hernando Cortes in 1519. "Cortes allotted one of the women to
each of his captains and Dona Marina, as she was good looking and intelligent
and without embarrassment, he gave to Alonzo Hernando Puertocarrero."
(Diaz 113) Cortes recognized her abilities and when he made Puertocarrero
his messenger to Carlos V of Spain, took Malinche for himself.
Using her education and talent with languages, Malinche was able to
prove her value to the Spaniards as translator. Cortes at first doubted
her loyalty. While Cortes was in Cozumel, he made the addition to his
band a Jeronimo de Aguilar, a priest who had been shipwrecked on the
coast eight years before and kept as a slave by the Yucatan Maya. He
therefore spoke his native Spanish and Mayan.
Cortes would speak to Aguilar in Spanish, Aguilar would speak to Malinche
and she would translate in the needed dialect of their present location.
She would eventually speak Spanish, learning from Aguilar.
Malinche was one of Cortes' greatest assets. "Without the help
of Dona Marina we would not have understood the language of New Spain
and Mexico." (Diaz 117)
Not only did she serve a great purpose as translator, but she also
"showed sympathy toward the conquered races and remained faithful
to the countrymen
of her adoption. Without her it would have been Cortes who was conquered
for her
knowledge of the language and customs of the Mexicans, and often their
designs,
enabled her to extricate the Spaniards more than once, from the most
embarrassing
and perilous situations." (Adams 212)
It is stated in many accounts by Cortes' men how much Malinche would
stand beside Cortes and translate his words or issue instructions of
her own. She was the key to success in convincing other Indian nations
to join them in their quest to destroy the great Aztec nation.
"Dona Marina" was the name given to Malinche when she was
baptized and as a sign of respect by the Spaniards. She was an interpreter
between Montezuma and Cortes and a faithful nurse to the wounded soldiers
after La Noche Triste. One soldier described how after the battle he
recognized his life was saved by the actions of another, "Dona
Marina who, although a native woman, possessed such manly valor that,
although she heard every day how the Indians were going to kill us and
eat our flesh with chili and had seen us surrounded in the late battles,
and knew that all of us were sick and wounded, yet never allowed us
to see any sign of fear in her, only a courage passing that of a man."
(Adams 214)
Bernal Diaz also reported of La Noche Triste, "how happy we were
to see Dona Marina still alive." (Diaz 426)
Through Malinche, the Indians were led to believe that the path of the
Spanish conquest was the right one to follow. Malinche used her knowledge
of customs and culture to convince allied Indians that the destruction
of their temples was a good idea. The practice of human sacrifice, Cortes
decided, needed to be stopped. As confidant and translator, she accomplished
her tasks through a series of threats. encouragement and flattery.
Malinche eventually gave birth to two children by Cortes, one was Martin
Cortes, whose Spanish half brother bore the same name. (Martin, the
cleverest of the mestizo children Cortes recognized, later fought in
North Africa and Germany.) Cortes took Malinche everywhere and in 1523
when "Cristoval de Olid revolted in Honduras and Cortes was on
his way there, he passed through Coatzacoalcos."
(Diaz 116) In her home village, Malinche met up with her mother and
half brother. These two were afraid she meant to put them to death,
but Malinche consoled them and told them she forgave them.
Bernal Diaz told how she said "God has been very gracious to her
in freeing her from the worship of idols and making her a Christian
and letting her bear a son to her lord and master Cortes and in marrying
her to such a gentleman as Juan Jaramillo, who was now her husband."
(Diaz 117)
Malinche eventually settled down with Jaramillo in the town of Ostotipec.
Cortes bestowed upon her many plots of land, one of which belonged to
Montezuma. Her house still stands in Mexico City, on Higuera Street.
Without her help and diplomatic skills, Cortes may never have fulfilled
his goal of conquest in the New World. Malinche, Mother of the Conquest,
was one of the keys to Spanish success over the Mesoamerican peoples.
Despite this fact, she is portrayed as a woman of historical contradictions.
To this day, many xenophobes connect "malinchismo" with opening
Mexico up to outsiders, rendering the purity of Indian life and culture
undone. In many cases she is a betrayer, a traitor to her people. "Malinche
is a symbol of a nation still not entirely comfortable with its European
or its Indian roots." (Krauss 1) She is seen as the "Mexican
Eve" as the mother of the mestizaje and has a tie with the "La
Lorna" legend, "for she is sometimes said to be seen as a
white ghost who utters lament on dark nights, the soul of Malinche,
who walks in pain for having been a traitor to her country." (Ashby
and Ohrn 42)
The Aztecs whom Malinche "betrayed" were not her own people,
yet all the Indians of Mexico were eventually conquered by invaders
she helped support. Was she acting in response to her own childhood
betrayal? Did she not have a tie to her own race? A similar case could
be made in regards to the African slave trade-did not their own countrymen
and race sell their fellow man into slavery for white profit? Has not
modern history condemned these mediators as well?
La Malinche witnessed the end of an old civilization and the birth of
a new, becoming the symbolic mother of a new ethnic group that prevails
in Mexico today. The "Mexican Eve" remains one of the most
controversial figures in Mexican history.
http://home.earthlink.net/~wsmittle/malinche.htm
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Episode 26 - While looking for the Second City built by the
Winged Serpent, the group takes time out for a lunch comprised of Iguana.
Mendoza says it tastes like chicken...I think I'll take his word for
it!
Iguana, common name for the larger lizards of the iguana family.
These reptiles are known for their impressive courting and defensive
displays, such as raising their bodies and bobbing their heads vigorously.
They are found mostly in the Americas and, outside the western hemisphere,
only in Madagascar, Fiji, and Tonga. Lizards of the iguana family are
similar to the agamine lizards of Eurasia, except that their teeth are
solidly joined to the inner edge of the jaw instead of to the margin
of the jawbone.
Iguanas are diurnal. They have distinct eyelids, large external eardrums,
and often conspicuous throat pouches, or dewlaps. Each limb has five
free toes ending in sharp claws. Unlike most other lizards, iguanas
are vegetarians. Their habitats vary: Some live in trees, some near
water, and some in arid habitats.
The green iguana is abundant throughout tropical America, living in
trees often overhanging water. Adult males are grayish or orangish,
with dark bars on the sides of the body and broad black circles ringing
the tail; the females are generally greenish. Green iguanas grow to
about 1.8 m (about 6 feet). They have a row of leathery spines along
the back from the neck to the tail. The long, powerful tail is usually
slightly flattened. Both the flesh and eggs of this species are valued
as food. The rhinoceros iguana, a terrestrial species found in Haiti
and Puerto Rico, gets its name from the three horns on its forehead.
Two iguanas are confined to the Galápagos Islands, including
the marine iguana, the only lizard that regularly inhabits the sea.
It lives on beaches and enters the water to forage on seaweed. The monitor
lizard is sometimes called an iguana (see Monitor).
Scientific classification: Iguanas belong to the family Iguanidae. The
green iguana is classified as Iguana iguana, the rhinoceros iguana as
Cyclura cornuta, and the marine iguana as Amblyrhynchus cristatus.
Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.
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Episode 26 - While traveling through the swamps, Esteban
and company are attacked by alligators.
Alligator (Spanish el lagarto, "the lizard"), common
name for two carnivorous reptiles in the crocodilian order. Alligators
and their close relatives the caimans have broad, flat, and rounded
snouts, as opposed to the longer, sharper snouts of other crocodilians;
also unlike other crocodilians, their lower teeth cannot be seen when
their mouths are closed. Alligators feed on fish, frogs, snakes, turtles,
birds, mammals, and carrion. In North America they are also known to
attack humans occasionally. Alligators can survive a wider range of
temperatures than other crocodilians, and they are found in more temperate
regions. Their breeding season is generally restricted to spring.
When alligators search for a mate they bellow often, perhaps to announce
their presence to females and to warn other males to stay away. Unwanted
intruders are confronted with ritual gaping, lunging, and hissing, but
courtship behavior is sedate. After mating, the male seeks his own territory
while the female builds a nest of mud and plants nearby, above flood
level. The eggs, from 30 to 60 in a clutch, are covered with mud and
vegetational debris. The female stands guard as the eggs incubate in
the heat from this decaying vegetation and from the sun. When the eggs
are ready to hatch, in about 60 days, the young begin to croak softly
within the egg. The female may then assist the young in escaping from
the nest and may even carry them in her mouth to the water's edge. The
female may remain near her young for a year or more. A young alligator
in distress will give a series of sharp croaks that may quickly bring
the female to investigate.
Only two species of alligator exist: the Chinese alligator and the American
alligator. The Chinese alligator makes its home in the Yangtze River
Basin of China. It is more timid and much smaller than the American
alligator, seldom exceeding 2.5 m (8 ft) in length, and is considered
little threat to humans. The American alligator lives mainly in freshwater
swamps, lakes, and bayous in the southeastern United States, but it
ranges as far west as the Río Grande in Texas. It is larger,
reaching up to about 6 m (about 20 ft) in length, and is potentially
dangerous to humans. Attacks occur infrequently, usually in areas where
humans have recently encroached on alligator habitat or where alligators
have become accustomed to the presence of humans. Hunted for generations
both for sport and for its hide, populations of the American alligator
dwindled until, in 1967, it was declared an endangered species. Under
this protection it made a strong comeback and, little more than a decade
later, hunting of the American alligator was again allowed in some states.
Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.
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Episode 26-27 - After traveling through the swamps, our heroes
encounter the gigantic statue of the Rain God.
Chac was the god of rain. He was a benevolent god for the Mayans who
often sought his help for their crops. Chac was associated with creation
and life. Chac was also considered to be divided into four equal entities.
Each division represented the North, South, East, and West. Chac was
also apparently associated with the wind god, Kukulcan.
"Lightening," "the Cutter," "Lord of the nine
generations." Rain god. One of the four Bacabs, the Lord of the
East. Portrayed as a red man with a long nose. Revered particularly
by farmers. Bacabs - The gods of the four points of the compass, who
hold up the sky. The lords of the seasons.
The awesome statue of the rain god Tlaloc occupies a place of honor
outside the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. The monolith
stands some twenty-three feet high and weighs at least 168 tons. One
of the oldest - if not the oldest - of the gods of Mesoamerica, Tlaloc
is also one of the most persistant. Altars of recent construction and
dedication to him are found in rural Mexico even today. The statue was
originally found in Teotihuacan.
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