Brod's Page

Prior to learning of doña Marina bilingualism, Cortés had given her to one of his lieutenants, Alonso Hernández de Puertocarrero. When Cortés soon took her back as his interpreter, he gave Puertocarrero another Indian woman in her place and shortly afterward sent him to Spain with a shipment of treasure for the Spanish king. That three years passed and the work of the Conquest was completed before doña Marina gave birth to a child suggests that Cortés not only guarded her from sexual contact wit… Continue

Doña Marina's utility to Cortés was her multilingualism. When given to him, she spoke both Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica and many other peoples of central Mexico, and Maya, the language of the peoples of the Yucatán Peninsula. Moreover, she knew the conventions of a register of Nahuatl called tecpillatolli (lordly speech), a difficult and indirect rhetorical style used among the Nahuatl-speaking elite. Need research p… Continue

Cortés mentions doña Marina just twice in his reports to Spain and only once by name. Her presence and services are acknowledged, however, in the biography written decades after the Conquest by López de Gómara, who — not having been present himself — apparently relied principally on Cortés for information. In a yet later account of the Conquest, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who had been present, gave her a heroic central role. Other references to doña Marina's part in the Conquest are to be found i… Continue