Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/352

328 Tabasco, and thus she came to be among the twenty slaves presented to Cortes by the cacique of that province. Marina, in the distribution of these women, fell to the share of Puertocarrero. When Jeronimo de Aguilar joined Cortes, it was found that he could speak to Marina in Maya, which closely resembled the language of Tabasco, and, as her mother tongue was the Mexican, it came about that, in treating with envoys from the interior and during the march through Tlascala and Cholula to the capital, Cortes spoke in Spanish to Aguilar who spoke in Maya to Marina who spoke with the Mexicans in their own tongue.

Her family name was Tenepal, and her Indian name was Malinal, derived from Malinalli, which is the sign of the twelfth day of the Mexican month; thus her Christian name in baptism, which was Marina, was really derived from, or suggested by, her Indian name, and as the Indians could not pronounce the letter r there was practically no change of name, save that in her new and important position they gave her the tzin, which was a title of respect, and henceforth she was called Malintzin. The Spaniards corrupted this into Malinche. Cortes came to be universally known as Captain Malintzin or simply Maliutzin, and to thousands of Indians, he had no other name than that of this slave girl (Orozco y Berra, vol. iv., cap. v.).

Doña Marina, as the Spaniards called her, was quick at learning Spanish, which her intimate relations with Cortes facilitated, or, as Prescott poetically puts it, "because it was the language of love." Perhaps it was on her side, but there is little evidence to show that it was on his. Marina was cherished because she was useful, not because she was beloved, and the circumstances forced her into intimate relations with Cortes, which were also favoured by her beauty and her superior wit. Aussi bien celle-ci qu'une autre was doubtless his view of the sentimental side of his relations with her.

After Puertocarrero's departure with the despatches and treasure, Marina reverted definitely to Cortes. Once the expedition had left the coast provinces, she became more and more indispensable, as Aguilar spoke no Mexican and the Maya language was not intelligible to the Mexicans. As soon as she had sufficiently mastered Castilian to be able to dispense with Aguilar as an intermediary between herself and Cortes, her position became a dominant one and she held the fate of the Spaniards in her hand. But most of all was she supreme over her own people and dispensed peace or war at her pleasure; for she alone could shape the results of the negotiations and treaties between Cortes and the caciques. Thus, an unforeseen turn in Fortune's wheel raised this princess from the degradation of slavery into which an unnatural mother had delivered her, and landed her in the Spaniards' camp, where she became the mistress of a nation's destinies. She showed herself so able, that Bernal Diaz affirms that they all held her to be like no other woman on earth, and that they had never detected the smallest feminine weakness in her; she alone of all the women was saved from the tragedy of the Sorrowful Night, and she