#la malinche

[yaqamole]

Evil Becomes Her: Female Trauma and Sexuality Within “La Leyenda de la Mujer Caballo”

I have been working on this paper since summer of 2023. I landed an amazing paid research opportunity with Johns Hopkins University and was able to do research and write on the ways that gender and sexuality in Latin America are impacted by folklore. I do this specifically by examining some key figures that primarily reside in Mexico but specifically through analyzing the story of "La Mujer Caballo".

This paper means everything to me. It has been my pride and joy to work on and I have delighted in being able to share it with people. I have been blessed to not only have been paid for this research, but was also able to do TWO presentations inspired by it at presentations funded and hosted by JHU. These presentations are also available online if anyone would like access to them.

But I have been waiting for it to be published and it finally is. So please check out my paper "Evil Becomes Her: Female Trauma and Sexuality Within 'La Leyenda de la Mujer Caballo'" and reblog this so that others can read it too!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me in this journey and I look forward to continuing my research on Latin American folklore and culture!

Please feel free to share this link/paper elsewhere and I hope you all enjoy it!

READ HERE

[valkyries-things]

MALINTZIN // LA MALINCHE

‼️ CONTROVERSIAL FIGURE ‼️

“She was a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, who became known for contributing to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521), by acting as an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. She was one of 20 enslaved women given to the Spaniards in 1519 by the natives of Tabasco. Cortés chose her as a consort, and she later gave birth to their first son, Martín – one of the first Mestizos (people of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry) in New Spain. La Malinche's reputation has shifted over the centuries, as various peoples evaluate her role against their own societies' changing social and political perspectives. Especially after the Mexican War of Independence, which led to Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821, dramas, novels, and paintings portrayed her as an evil or scheming temptress. In Mexico today, La Malinche remains a powerful icon – understood in various and often conflicting aspects as the embodiment of treachery, the quintessential victim, or the symbolic mother of the new Mexican people. The term malinchista refers to a disloyal compatriot, especially in Mexico.”

[powerin]

braindead discourse about la malinche in my feed stop it stop it stop it

[alondratobon]

[blastorillophotography]

Dreams and nightmares.

[jurakan]

Alright it's Friday here's a Fun Fact

Again, no requests this week as I'm not on for Lent.

So Today You Learned about La Malinche.

Malintzin or Marina was a Nahua woman in Mexico in the time of the Spanish Conquest. We don't know that much about her origin, her birthday, or her family--though tradition says she was of a noble family. In any case, by the time the Spanish began conquering, her fortunes had fallen because she was enslaved. She was given to Cortes as one of a group of female sex slaves.

Perhaps because she was from a noble family, she had a gift with the languages of the area. This was picked up on by Cortes, who decided to have her act as a guide rather than a sex slave. Throughout the Conquest, she acted as an interpreter for the Spanish.

It's often declared that if it hadn't been for her, Cortes wouldn't have had his conquest.

Public opinion is divided. There's the classic opinion that La Malinche was a traitor who sold out her people to the invaders (the Gary Jennings novel Aztec, which I don't particularly recommend, takes this view). Probably not helped is that she had a child with Cortes.

Then again, it's worth pointing out that she was a sex slave when she was given to the Spanish, and worked her way upwards from a crappy position. She was working with the cards she was dealt, after all. Some also see her as a founding figure in Mexican history.

So she's... interesting.

[artist-ellen]

And my final design for Chel.

During the research for this project I kept trying to find what would have been worn in Mesoamerica in 1518. We’re back to the “I had to do research on Cortes and it wasn’t a good time” but what kind of surprised me was La Malinche. If you’re not familiar early on in Cortes’ campaign he was “given” 20 young indigenous women. One of these women was “La Malinche” (her real name was Marina or Malintzin but her title is how she is most well known), Cortes’ future mistress & mother of his son Martin. La Malinche was uniquely valuable to Cortes because she spoke both the Nahuatl language and Chontal Maya, which allowed Cortes to translate locals through her to his Chontal Maya to Spanish translator (Aguilar).

Unsurprisingly her legacy is divided. Depending on who or when she is cast in very different lights. Temptress, victim, betrayer, mother of the new Mexico...

So of course in my research into what women in 1518-19 wore... the female translator of Cortes kept appearing. Paintings, drawings, dramas... how could I not incorporate her existence into this project. A woman, directly in the path of Cortes, who helps the Conquistadors navigate Mezoamerica.... kind of like Chel, if Miguel & Tulio hadn’t have been there eh?

So tdlr; this is my Chel design based off of depictions of the controversial “La Malinche”.

Come visit me over on: Instagram , Patreon

I am the artist!!! Do not repost without permission and credit! Thank you!

[hzaidan]

09 works, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, La Malinche, Mexico’s Eve, with Footnotes. #188

09 works, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, La Malinche, Mexico’s Eve, with Footnotes. #188

Ramos MartinezLa Malinche (Young Girl of Yalala, Oaxaca, c. 1940Denver Art Museum Marina or Malintzin (c. 1500 — c. 1529), or more popularly known as La Malinche Malinche. She has been known as the mother of Mexico, and even Mexico’s Eve (the son she had with Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés was likely the first mestizo person, of European and indigenous Amerindian heritage), yet her name is…

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