Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche

Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche examined the historical and cultural legacy of the Indigenous woman at the heart of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico (1519-1521). A controversial and enigmatic figure with a complicated life story, the woman known colloquially as Malinche played a central role in the major and minor transactions, negotiations, and conflicts between the Spanish and the Indigenous populations of Mexico. Traitor, Survivor, Icon established and examined her symbolic importance and the ways artists, scholars, activists, and everyday women have used her story and image as means of expression.

The exhibition premiered at the Denver Art Museum earlier in 2022 and was co-curated by Denver Art Museum’s Curator of Art of the Ancient Americas Victoria I. Lyall and independent curator Terezita Romo.

The year 2021 marked the quincentennial of the fall of Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire. In 1519, Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes landed along the Gulf coast of Mexico with a small expeditionary party. As he and his men interacted and fought with the Maya and Nahuatl speaking peoples of the region, language was a nearly insurmountable barrier. When they reached the present-day state of Tabasco on the Gulf of Mexico, Cortes received a gift of twenty young women from a local ruler. One of them was a teen-aged girl who was baptized Marina and later referred to as Malinche. Though her origins remain obscure, she clearly had ties to the region, and was fluent in both Nahuatl and Maya. She skillfully leveraged her linguistic gifts in order to survive. Over the course of the next two years, as the Spanish and their Tlaxcalan allies suffered setbacks and eked out victories before their final triumph over the Aztec in August of 1521, Malinche would become Cortes' translator, cultural interpreter, and eventually, the mother of their child. While her original name is lost to history, both Spanish and Indigenous accounts of the Aztec Spanish Waragree on the pivotal role this young woman played in one of the most significant events of modern history.

Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche reconsidered the iconic figure. While she has been the subject of numerous historical works, no exhibition had presented a comprehensive visual exploration of Malinche and the continued importance of her image in discussions and ideas about the role of women, indigeneity, and language throughout the Americas. Traitor, Survivor, Icon will thus established and examined her symbolic import and the ways artists, scholars, activists, and everyday women have used her story and image as means of expression related to their own situations or agendas.

There is no record of Malinche in her own voice, or even of her true name; she was eventually baptized 'Marina' by Spanish priests, an apparent approximation of the Nahuatl honorific Malintzin, which may have derived from the calendrical sign for the day Malina/li, or 'Grass'. In this absence, this exhibition aimed to examine the conditions that have led to, at different times, the appropriation and adaptation of Malinche for the purposes of enacting cultural and political identities. As a historical persona, Malinche has been adopted and adapted in text, image, and object countless times in the five hundred years since the Conquest. In order to understand Malinche and the multiple roles she played, these iterations of Malinche must be examined side by side.

Drawing on earlier work by curator Terezita Romo, the exhibition considered five distinct archetypes, or metaphors, embodied by Malinche over time, beginning with La Lengua / The Interpreter, which considers her role as translator and interpreter. La Mujer lndigena / The Indigenous Woman explores the archetype of Indigenous women living in pre-Conquest Mexico. La Madre de Mestizaje / The Mother of a Mixed Race presents Malinche as the perceived mother of the mestizo identity of post-Conquest Mexico. La Traidora / The Traitor examines perceptions of her supposed treachery or cultural and ethnic betrayal. Chicana carries her story into the twentieth century when Chicano writers and artists reclaimed Malinche as heroine, survivor, and inspiration. To make sense of these archetypes, the exhibition opened with an introductory section meant to establish the historical, cultural, chronological, and geographical contexts for the Conquest of Mexico, and thus the setting into which Malinche emerges.

Albuquerque Museum's presentation of Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche included additional works by New Mexican artists that connect the iconic figure to the Land of Enchantment. "These celebrated New Mexican artists enrich the stories of Malinche that traverse time and place and create important connections to New Mexican cultural traditions that are both connected to and different from the many meanings attached to Malinche in other parts of the United States and Mexico," said Albuquerque Museum's Curator of Art Josie Lopez, Ph.D. Altarpieces by Vicente Telles, Brandon Maldonado, and Okuu Pin’ (Jason Garcia) explored the history of the Aztec-Spanish war as well as the significance of Malinche within the Indigenous and Mestizo communities of New Mexico who practice the Matachine dances. Photographers Miguel Gandert and Douglas Kent Hall also captured these ritual dances in communities throughout the state. Delilah Montoya's codex situates Malinche within a universe of important female icons that have shaped Chicana identity for centuries.