by David Bowles
All seems lost.
But here we stand, do we not, a testament to the triumph of order and creation.
Much was torn down, many lives obliterated, many words erased. Yet something new would be built, a new hybrid people would emerge, a valiant and enduring tongue would be forged in the crucible of oppression.
Mexicans. Mexican-Americans. Chicanos. Proud inheritors of this Fifth Sun.
And if you look closely at our palimpsest souls, you can see the ghostly tracings of all we ever were, indelible if faint, ready to be read again by open hearts and minds. Ready to be emblazoned on banners like the incomparable features of Princess Donají, on seals like the noble profile of Emperor Cuauhtemoc, in paintings like Erendira upon her rearing steed.
We are their descendants, heirs to their unyielding souls.
These final stories are ours, mestizo missives and manuscripts and music. We wrote them down, recited them, shared them mind to mind. They live on in our histories, in our poetry, on our lips, in our hearts.
And we will never forget.
Malinalli and the Coming of Cortés
Thirteen years after the death of Tlacaelel, a girl was born in Coatzacualco, a coastal vassalage located in the borderlands between the Triple Alliance and the Mayan kingdoms of the Yucatan Peninsula. The day was chicome malinalli, 7-Wild Rye, one of the few auspicious times associated with that sign of twisted grain. The baby’s parents, nobles in the city of Olutla, had adopted, like most aristocrats throughout the region, the language and traditions of their Nahua overlords, layering these atop their Popolucan culture. As a result, in addition to the girl’s later baptismal name (which the world has forgotten entirely), she was called by her day sign, often shortened simply to Malinalli.
The day of Malinalli’s baptism was like that of any baby girl in Mexico. A midwife offered her to heaven, then bathed her carefully, cleaning away the vice with which all are stained when they descend. Swaddling Malinalli, she entered the house and laid her in the cradle, a symbol of the Divine Mother, to whom the midwife addressed a prayer.
“You who are mother to us all, Yohualticitl, Enchantress of the Night with your cradling arms, your ample lap—the baby has arrived. She was created there above us, in the Place of Duality, in the highest of the heavens. Our beloved grandparents, Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, have winged her down to earth, where she will face trials and suffer fatigue. But we leave her with you, dear lady, so that in your lap, cradled in your arms, she may find the strength to endure the tribulations prepared for her by the Lord of the Night and his dark specters. Receive her, Mother! Let no harm befall her!”
A few months later, her parents followed the tradition of the nobility and took their daughter to the temple of Quetzalcoatl to dedicate her to the future service of that god. “O master,” the priests intoned, “here is your servant. Her mother and father have brought her, dedicating her as an offering to you. Receive the poor girl as your property. If she survives, she will live in service to you here, cleaning this house of penance and tears, where the daughters of noblemen draw secrets from your heart, crying out to you in desolation. Show her mercy, Lord. Favor her as you will.”
Malinalli grew into a toddler and was ever at her mother’s side, watching the women of the household spin and weave, cook and clean, manage household and direct servants. When she was old enough, the priests scarified her hip and breast as a sign of her dedication to Quetzalcoatl. Born into a bilingual nobility, the girl learned both the local tongue, Popoluca, and the Nahuatl used by the elites and merchant class, quickly mastering multiple different registers, from the frank diction of the commoners to the highly stylized formulae of the aristocracy.
As she grew, Malinalli discovered that her town was part of a larger political unit that itself was subject to distant Tenochtitlan. Tribute and sacrificial victims flowed each year from Olutla into the hands of the new Emperor, Motecuhzoma the Younger, including occasional groups of children bound for the temple atop Mount Tlaloc. Like other youths who gradually became aware of life’s injustices, Malinalli harbored resentment toward her people’s overlords. But this was the way of the world, and there was little that she could do to change things. Her path was spelled out by tradition. She began to assume duties in the home when she was seven years old. She knew that in just a couple of years she would begin her period of service at the temple. After some time there, she would marry a warrior and start her own family, continuing the cycle. Malinalli accepted her role with dutiful resignation.
But then the omens began, and everything changed. First a smoking star appeared in the night sky, a red-hot comet that bled cosmic fire as if someone had gashed a wound in the very heavens. Though it vanished each dawn, the flaming sigil appeared amongst the stars at twilight, horrifying people throughout Mexico.
Not long afterward, Malinalli’s father died, leaving the young girl heartbroken. After the traditional period of mourning, his widow remarried and bore her new husband a son whom the couple doted upon to a degree that made the girl jealous despite herself. Soon afterward, Malinalli’s time of service to Quetzalcoatl began.
It would not last long.
One night, when she awakened in the darkness to begin her ritual sweeping, strong hands seized her and bore her away. The young girl found herself in the clutches of slavers from the Mayan state of Xicalango. They sold her to a Mayan aristocrat in the neighboring region of Tabasco, chief of a riverside village called Potonchan. Like most slaves, much of her work was difficult and physical. But as she learned both the Chontal and Yucatec dialects of the Mayan language, her value grew. Her quick mind and linguistic skill earned her the respect of her master and the nickname Tenepal: with a sharp and agile tongue.
Malinalli discovered that the Maya were not too different from her own people or the Nahuas of the Triple Alliance. They worshipped what seemed to be the same gods—Mother, Creator, Rain, Destruction, Sun, Moon—with different names. They used the same sacred and solar calendars. In fact, Malinalli was sometimes called by her day sign, Vukub Eb, just like in Nahuatl.
During her time among the Maya, whisperings and rumors began to spread throughout the region about strange happenings. Large, winged structures had been seen floating upon the water. Pale, bearded men had been sighted. In Tenochtitlan, the temple of Huitzilopochtli had burst into flames. Lightning had slammed into the shrine of Xiuhtecuhtli, Lord of Time and Fire. Lake Texcoco boiled near Tenochtitlan, devouring many houses. A bizarre bird with a smoking mirror mounted upon its head was discovered and taken before the Emperor, who saw in that glassy surface the image of an invading army, riding massive deer that glittered like silver. Two-headed men wandered the streets of Tenochtitlan and were dragged to the Black House where Motecuhzoma studied sorcery. The moment he looked upon them, rumors affirmed, the monsters vanished.
Most harrowing of all was the voice of the goddess Cihuacoatl, heard along the streets of Tenochtitlan in the dead of night, crying out in desperation: “My children, we must abandon the city! But where shall I take you? Where will you go?”
By the time Malinalli Tenepal was seventeen, Tabasco was rocked by news of an attack on the nearby coastal village of Ah Kim Pech by blond, bearded strangers from across the sea. Most of the invaders had been killed. The wounded survivors had fled upon their winged, floating castle.
People whispered that perhaps the old prophecies were true, that maybe the Wayfarer was returning at last. Could these unusual foreigners be the vanguard of the Lord of the Dawn? On Mayan lips was the name Kukulkan. Nahuas spoke of Quetzalcoatl, the beloved prince.
Twenty-four months later, the main force arrived. The year was 1-Reed, the same in which Quetzalcoatl had been born and either died or departed. A squadron of strange men landed at the mouth of the Tabasco River and began making their way upstream. Malinalli’s master sent warriors against the invaders, but he lost nearly a thousand in a battle many described as magical. The bearded, silver-clad men used weapons of fire and smoke, lightni
ng and indestructible metal, whizzing and nearly invisible projectiles that ripped away life and limb.
The chief of Potonchan consulted his priests, who declared the newcomers divine—if not quite gods, certainly possessed of celestial powers and accoutrements. Better to appease them and bend the knee than to risk the wrath of heaven. So the chief gathered rich gifts to show his respect, including twenty beautiful slaves. Among these was Malinalli Tenepal.
The young woman did not know what to expect. As the party approached the strangers’ camp, the chief and his men looked warily at the massive four-legged beasts that seemed to guard the camp. They were taller than a man and clad in glittering silvery metal. Suddenly a whistling screech passed over their heads, and the trees behind them exploded, sending leaves raining down. Approaching them came a tall man with reddish-brown hair and eyes the color of thick honey.
He was guiding the largest of the beasts, which reared up and made a thunderous noise before dropping to all fours and pounding the ground. The man whispered in its ear and it seemed to grow calm.
The tall man began to speak in a tongue Malinalli had never heard. An older man dressed in black robes stepped from the trees to translate into Mayan.
“The capitán general says that if you cooperate, no harm comes to you from these mighty weapons.”
The chief then displayed his gifts, and the two leaders began to hold counsel. The tall man gave his name as Cortés, sent by a distant king in a land called Spain. The invaders seemed especially interested in the gold, asking through the interpreter, whom Malinalli deduced was a priest called Aguilar, where they could get more.
“With the Colhua-Mexica,” the chief replied, pointing to the West. “Off there, in Mexico, in Tenochtitlan.”
After some deliberation, Cortés accepted the gifts, giving each of his captains one of the twenty slaves. Malinalli was assigned to Alonso Hernández Puertocarrero, a dark-haired yet pale warrior not much older than she. Aguilar brought the twenty slaves together and explained that they would have to renounce their gods, whom he declared were false and evil, and embrace the one true god, Jesus Christ, and his mother Mary, Queen of Heaven.
Though it seemed foolish to Malinalli to claim that her people’s gods were both false—nonexistent—and evil as well, she listened closely to Aguilar’s description of Jesus Christ, born to the Virgin Mary, preaching a message of love, forgiveness, and transformation before being killed and rising to heaven. The story bore many similarities to the traditions of her people and of the Maya.
When Aguilar said that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice meant no more sacrifice was needed, Malinalli took notice. Cortés apparently meant to impose this new god and his celestial mother on the people of the coast and the highlands, which would mean the elimination of sacrificial captives. The oppression of many tribes could conceivably come to an end.
She said she accepted the new faith. She bowed her head for baptism and partook of the strange new sacrament that Aguilar declared was the body and blood of their god, in much the same way as Mexica nobles were rumored to eat the flesh of victims impersonating the gods. Aguilar gave her a new name, then: Marina. A smile played across her lips. The gods were certainly at work. She had been christened with what sounded like her day sign.
Then the ceremony ended. She was escorted onto one of the floating castles to join her new master in his quarters.
The Spaniards sailed up the coast for a few days before anchoring in a broad bay. There they sighted two large canoes bearing richly dressed priests and princes. They were invited aboard. Aguilar immediately attempted to speak to them. However, none of them knew Mayan.
“Who speaks for your people?” one of the princes asked in Nahuatl. “Who is your leader?”
Neither group understood the other, and tensions were rising. Malinalli could envision the disastrous outcome—the oppressive regime of Tenochtitlan would use the confusion and conflict to consolidate power, ally even with enemies to drive the newcomers away. They were men, after all, proud and violent and rash, like those who hurt her again and again.
Yet fate had forged Malinalli into a lever. Without warning, she was overwhelmed by an epiphany, a vision of the victory she could earn over her people’s enemies, the transformation she could work on the highland nations through these strangers.
So though her heart raced with hidden fear, Malinalli slipped into the gap fate had made for her. Stepping forward, she addressed the Nahua prince.
“My lord, the gentleman you seek stands over there, apart from the others.” She pointed to Cortés.
Aguilar turned to her. “Marina, do you speak their language?”
“Yes, reverend priest. I learned it as a child. It is the language of the Emperor and his people.”
Aguilar relayed this information to Cortés, who called Malinalli to his side. “From now on you are my tongue, do you understand?” he told her through Aguilar. “Like the priest, you must be with me at all times. Now, let us parlay with these men.”
Before the wheels of time could turn, she felt the rough hands of destiny seize her willing soul and thrust it against the fulcrum.
Though the same sun still rode the hard blue skies, a new age would soon begin, arising bloody amid the clash of steel and obsidian.
The Torture of Cuauhtemoc
Aided by Malinalli, Cortés began to win to his side the great rivals of the Triple Alliance, especially the kingdom of Tlaxcalla, which lent thousands of warriors to the conqueror, pledging fealty to the Spanish crown and to the Christian god.
The Nahuas soon learned to respect the brilliant and fierce translator at the captain’s side. They called her Malintzin, “Revered Marina.” Cortés became Malintzineh, “Master of Malintzin.” On Spanish tongues, this new epitaph slurred into Malinche. In an ironic twist of fate, Malinalli would only be remembered down the years as Malinche, the name an insult growing synonymous with treachery and treason.
As the Spanish marched ever closer to Tenochtitlan, Emperor Motecuhzoma was overcome with terror. His court shamans and priests passed down dire prophecies. Evil omens hinted at his people’s doom. Striving to stave off destruction, he sent envoys with riches to bribe Cortés, bidding him come no closer, but it was to no avail. The army kept coming.
The king, desperate, sent a group of wizards, commanding them to bewitch the Spanish soldiers. Their magic failed them. As they made their despondent way back home, they were stopped by a young man who raved like a drunk.
“What are you people doing? Why does Motecuhzoma delay? What does he fear? Look at how many have been humiliated, wounded, slain because of his cowardly strategems and stupid errors! Ah, but it is too late, too late for Mexico. Soon it will lie in ruins. Look, you fools, at your city. It is fated to burn!”
Then the envoys beheld in a vision Tenochtitlan ablaze, its people dying in the streets. When the horror faded from their eyes, they realized that Tezcatlipoca himself had been among them. But not even the words of a god could goad the emperor into action. Instead, Motecuhzoma slipped more deeply into despair.
“Judgment is upon us,” he cried. “All we can do is await our end.”
In November of 1519, the Spanish arrived at Tenochitlan, overwhelmed by its splendor and more determined than ever to seize its riches for themselves. The crestfallen emperor welcomed Cortés with a trembling heart, allowing his armored men to march across the causeways and into the city.
The Spanish, feigning courtesy, had soon taken the emperor captive, confining him to his palace while they assumed greater and greater control of Tenochtitlan. When Cortés found himself obligated to leave the city, however, to deal with a rival conqueror, his men destroyed the tense and delicate peace. It was the festival of Toxcatl, when Huitzilopochtli was honored. Fearing revolt, the Spaniards closed all the entrances to the Patio of Dances. When the festivities began, the soldiers attacked, slaughtering thousands of Mexica.
The tide turned against the conquerors. Cortés returned just in time to witne
ss a full-blown uprising. There was fierce fighting in the streets and along the canals, with the Mexica soon gaining the upper hand. The Spanish soldiers took up all the treasures they could carry and began to flee. As a final act of outrage, they threw Motecuhzoma to his death from a palace window. Enraged warriors routed Cortés and all of his men from the city, raining vengeance down upon them with obsidian swords and arrows.
The king’s younger brother Cuitlahuac assumed the throne in the bittersweet days that followed. His reign and the Mexica victory would be short-lived. For without anyone’s knowing, the foreign army had left a deadly weapon behind.
Smallpox.
Within a few months of their victory, the disease struck the Mexica. From October to November of 1520, thousands upon thousands died from the plague. Many others succumbed to hunger, for they could not get up and search for food, and their loved ones were too ill to help. These unfortunate souls starved to death in their beds. Even those who survived were weakened to the point that they could not grow or harvest crops. An epidemic of starvation and malnutrion completed the decimation. Not even nobles were safe—Cuitlahuac himself succumbed to the plague.
In the somber aftermath, the remaining nobles selected a new emperor: Cuauhtemoc, the eighteen-year-old nephew of Motecuhzoma. When—after much of the Valley of Mexico had suffered through outbreaks of smallpox—Cortés laid siege to Tenochtitlan in the spring of 1521, the young leader managed to stave off invasion throughout most of the summer, eighty full days, despite the devastation his people had suffered.
But the city finally fell. As rainclouds piled high on the evening of August 12, 1521, Cuauhtemoc stood on the steps of the temple and addressed his people for one last time as an independent ruler.
“Our sun has hidden himself. Our sun has blotted out his face, leaving us in utter darkness. But we know he shall return once more, that he shall rise again to light our way anew. Yet while he remains there in the Underworld, let us soon reunite and embrace one another, hiding in the depths of our hearts all that we love, all that we know to be precious.
