MALINCHE

(EXCERPT)
By: Laura Esquivel
 LAURA ESQUIVEL
Born on September 30, 1950, in
Mexico City, Mexico
Mexican writer and author
 Esquivel began writing while
working as a kindergarten
teacher.
She wrote plays for her students
and wrote children's television
programs during the 1970s and
1980s.
 LAURA ESQUIVEL
 Her first novel, Like Water for
Chocolate, became internationally
beloved and was made into an award-
winning film. Her other titles
include The Law of Love and Between
the Fires.
 Esquivel has continued to show her
creative flair and lyrical style in her
later work. Accompanied by a collection
of music, her second novel The Law of
Love (1996) combined romance and
science fiction.
 LAURA ESQUIVEL
 Between the Fires (2000) featured
essays on life, love, and food. Her
novel, Malinche (2006), explores the
life of a near mythic figure in
Mexican history-the woman who
served as Spanish conquistador
Hernán Cortés's interpreter and
mistress.
 Once married to director Alfonso
Arau, Esquivel is divorced and lives
in Mexico City, Mexico.
 BACKGROUND OF THE STORY
The Aztec Empire had cultural practices
that would make the modern man cringe. They
practiced slavery and blood sacrifice. It is
popularly believed that the Aztecs gave way to
the conquistador Hernan Cortes because they
had an ancient belief that someday, their God,
Quetzalcotl, would come back to their lands in
the form of white man. One of the other reasons
that the Spaniard was able to conquer Mexico
was because of La Malinche, or Malinalli, the
translator and lover of Hernan Cortes, who also
helped in advising Cortes. Today, she is
considered as both a traitor to Mexico and a
temptress.
 BACKGROUND OF THE STORY
The excerpt you are about to read
is from the novel Malinche and follows
the story of titular protagonist, which
in the original meaning was “The
Tongue” of Hernan Cortes. In this
particular segment, we see how
Malinche, also known as Malinalli,
begins to learn of her power,
something which she is alien to, as
she was sold into slavery by her
mother
 BACKGROUND OF THE COUNTRY
In Mexico today, her name
symbolizes the very essence of
treachery and betrayal. For nearly
five centuries the image of this well-
hated figure has been engrained in the
Mexican psyche as the national Judas.
In a country more sensitive than most
when it comes to the subject of its
sovereignty, Malinchismo is the term
applied to everything seen as
injurious to Mexican patriotism,
honour, and national pride.
 Malinalli needed that silence to
create new and resonant words.
The right words, the ones that were
necessary. Recently she had
stopped serving Portacarro, her
lord, because Cortes had named her
“The Tongue,” the one who
transcribed what he said into the
Nahuatl language, and what
Montezuma’s messengers said,
from Nahautl to Spanish.
Malinalli had learned Spanish
at an extraordinary speed, in
no way could it be said that
she was completely fluent.
Often she had to turn to
Aguilar to help her to
translate it correctly, so that
what she said made sense in
the minds of both the
Spaniards and the Mexicans.
 Being “The Tongue” was an
enormous responsibility. She didn’t want
to make a mistake or misinterpret, and
she couldn’t see how to prevent it since it
was so difficult translating complex
ideas from one language to the other.
She felt as if each time she uttered a
word she journeyed back hundreds of
generations. When she said the name of
Ometeotl, the creator of the dualities
Omecihuatl and Ometecuhtli, the
masculine and feminine principles, she
put herself at the beginning of creation.
That was the power of the spoken
word. But then, how can you contain
in a single word the god Ometeotl, he
who is without shape, the lord who is
not born and does not die; whom
water cannot wet, fire cannot burn,
wind cannot move, and earth cannot
bury? Impossible. The same seemed
to happen to Cortes, who couldn’t
make her understand certain
concepts of his religion. Once she
asked him what the name of god’s
wife was.
 Cortes stared intently at Malinalli
and saw the light in the abyss of her
eyes. It was a moment of intense
connection between them, but Cortes
directed his eyes somewhere else,
abruptly disconnected himself from her,
because he was frightened by that
sensation of complicity, of belonging, and
he immediately tried to cut off the
conversation between them, for, aside
from everything else, it seemed too
strange speaking about religious matters
with her a native in his service.
 “God doesn’t have a wife,” Cortes
answered.
“It cannot be.”
“Why not?”
“Because without a womb,
without darkness, light cannot
emerge. It is from her greatest depths
that Mother Earth creates precious
stones, and in the darkness of her
womb that gods and humans take
their forms. Without a womb there is
no god.”
 “What do you know about God! Your
gods demand all the blood in the world in
order to exist, while our God offers His
own to us with each Communication. We
drink his blood.”
Malinalli did not understand all of
the words that Cortes had just uttered.
What she wanted to hear, what her brain
wanted to interpret, was that the god of
the Spaniards was a fluid god, for he was
in the blood, in the secret of the flesh, the
secret of love; that he was contained in the
eternity of the universe. And she wanted
to believe in such a deity.
 “So then your god is liquid?” Malinalli
asked enthusiastically.
“Liquid?”
“Yes. Didn’t you say that he was in the
blood that he offered?”
“No.”
“Aha! Then you shouldn’t believed in
them.”
Malinalli’s eyes filled with tears as she
replied.
I don’t believe that they have to offer
blood. I believe in your liquid god, I like that
he is a god who is constantly flowing, and
that he manifests himself even in my tears.
I like that he is stern, strict, and
just, that his anger could create or
make the universe vanish in one
day. But you can’t have that
without water or a womb. For
there to be songs and flowers,
there needs to be water; with it,
words rise and matter takes on
form. There is life that is born
without a womb, but it does not
remain long on the earth.
What is engendered in darkness,
however, in profundity of caves, like
precious gems and golds, lasts much
longer. They say that there is a place
beyond the sea, where there are
higher mountains, and there, Mother
Earth has plentiful water to fertilize
the earth; and here, in my land, we
have deep caves and within them
great treasures are produced-”
“Really? What treasures? Where
are these caves?”
 Malinalli did not want to answer
him and said that she did not know.
His interruption bothered her. It
proved that Cortes was not interested
in talking about his religion, or his
gods, or his beliefs, or even about her.
It was clear that he was only
interested in material treasures. She
excused herself and went to weep by
the river.
This and many older things made
it difficult for them to understand
each other.
Malinalli believed that words colored
memory, planting images each time
that a thing was named. And as
flowers bloomed in the countryside
after a rainfall, so that which was
planted in the mind bore fruit each
time that word, moistened by saliva,
named it. For example, the concept of
a true and eternal god, which the
Spaniards had proclaimed, in her
mind had borne fruit because it had
already been planted there by her
ancestors.
From them she had also learned
that things came to exist when
you named them, when you
moistened them, when you
painted them. God breathed
through his word, gave life
through it, and because of this,
because of the labor and grace of
the God of All Things, it was
possible to paint in the mind of the
Spaniards and Mexicans new
concepts, new ideas.
 Being “The Tongue” was a great
spiritual duty, for it meant putting all
her being at the service of the gods so
that her tongue was part of the
resounding system of the divinity, so
that her voice would spread through
the cosmos the very meaning of
existence. But Malinalli did not feel up
to the task. Very often, when
translating, she let herself be guided
by her feelings, and then the voice of
fear, fear of being unfaithful, also fear
of power, of taking power.
 Never before had she felt
what it was like to be in charge.
She soon found that whoever
controls information, whoever
controls meaning, acquires
power. And she discovered that
when she translated, she
controlled the situation, and not
only that but that words could
be weapons. The finest of
weapons.
THANK YOU
FOR
LISTENING!!!
SHAINA ADUPE
JENIFER VILLAFRANCA