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Jan 9, 2024
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Kristina Downs, Mirrored Archetypes: The Contrasting Cultural Roles of
La Malinche and Pocahontas.
This article wroten by Kristina Downs, shows us part of the history of two women known as
La Malinche and Pocahontas. This story tells how women shared similar stories, but with
very different cultures. La Malinche is remembered for being a "traitor" while Pocahontas is
also remembered for betraying her culture. Something similar but behind it has a story and
related motives regarding her betrayal. La malinche was an Indian woman who served as a
translator for Hernán Cortes during the conquest of Mexico. La Malinche, a highly sexualized
woman by different historians, is not entirely a "traitor" since she was handed over to the
conquerors, she was a woman who was sold from culture to culture so she had no civilization
to betray. So Malinche was simply a woman who served as a translator for Hernán Cortes
who was trying to conquer what is now known as Mexico
1
. However, similar actions make
Pocahontas a hero. The story tells that Pocahontas taught her husband how to grow tobacco,
because of that, the economic base and the wealth of the English settlers were positive.
2
This
can be seen as a heroic act from the outside, but the article talks about how Pocahontas was
captured by the English when she was 12 years old and they wanted to return her to her father
who led the Algonquin group in Virginia, but he refused to rescue her.
3
In this article the author tells the story behind the nicknames of La Malinche and Pocahontas.
The author has a somewhat favorable perspective that these women were not traitors,
however, he shares different opinions from different historians who give his point of view
that these women were traitors. For example, Deena J. Gonzalez states ""Malinche was by
every measure as great a figure as Cortes and Moctezuma. She occupies an almost
unparalleled status? to be ranked in the pantheon with the Virgen de Guadalupe, perhaps La
Llorona, and recently Selena. Her image as traitor is seared in the popular imagination..."
4
These stories and facts help the audience learn about different perspectives from different
1
Footnote citation: Kristina Downs,
“Mirrored Archetypes: The Contrasting Cultural Roles of La
Malinche and Pocahontas.”
Western Folklore
67, no. 4 (2008): [pg 406].
2
Footnote citation: Kristina Downs,
“Mirrored Archetypes: The Contrasting Cultural Roles of La
Malinche and Pocahontas.”
Western Folklore
67, no. 4 (2008): [pg 407]
3
Footnote citation: Kristina Downs,
“Mirrored Archetypes: The Contrasting Cultural Roles of La
Malinche and Pocahontas.”
Western Folklore
67, no. 4 (2008): [pg 398]
4
Footnote citation: Kristina Downs,
“Mirrored Archetypes: The Contrasting Cultural Roles of La
Malinche and Pocahontas.”
Western Folklore
67, no. 4 (2008): [pg 402]
historians. Another great example is when Fiske refers to Pocahontas as an asexualized
woman. Since she was not seen as much as La Malinche, she was very sexualized.
Pocahontas was just a woman who gave men desire. Even in Green's Pocahontas Perplex they
refer to her as an "exotic" woman.
5
This article has a lot of repetitive information. There is a lot of talk about the same things, in
my opinion it is a very good article and it has helped me understand the history of these two
women clearly, but in approximately 14 pages of reading it has a lot of information that is
repeated and that text could be used for more information with more details. Other than that, I
loved how the author of this article describes the similarities that La Malinche and
Pocahontas have, but also the differences that not many people know about. This article
helped me understand why they are considered traitors and what different people's
perspective is like. The author described how they had come to their new European cultures.
I think that many historians will find this article useful, even if they are experts, it is always
important to know the perspective of different people. A clear example is at the beginning of
the article, the author talks about how in different articles, the real names of La Malinche and
Pocahontas change, since in some books it is explained differently and today there is still a
debate about the meaning of their names.
6
But in my opinion, historians are not the only
audience that may be interested in this article, since I am a person who is not very interested
in history, I have enjoyed this article a lot and learned the origin of certain words that people
use today, and I learned about two women whose names are quite familiar in Mexico.
I also like how the author describes the differences between colonizers and conquerors, but it
is not for the only thing that he explains in detail with good arguments, since most of the
story explains everything in a simple way.
It's not really talked about in the textbook because these are a bit detailed stories and it
doesn't influence the main events as much, but they were very helpful women for the
colonizers and the conquerors.
5
Footnote citation: Kristina Downs,
“Mirrored Archetypes: The Contrasting Cultural Roles of La
Malinche and Pocahontas.”
Western Folklore
67, no. 4 (2008): [pg 409]
6
Footnote citation: Kristina Downs,
“Mirrored Archetypes: The Contrasting Cultural Roles of La
Malinche and Pocahontas.”
Western Folklore
67, no. 4 (2008): [pg 398]
Something that I would remove from this article is the opinion of Ana Castillo who writes
about how she relates Eve to Malinche and how she is against the Guadalupe/Malinche
binarism saying that the image of the Virgin Mother is cruel to women.
7
Since it is not
something that really matters or interests the reader, because that does not infer in the history
of these two women, which is what the audience really wants to know. And so I would
remove some opinions from some historians who did not bring much information to this
article. It has been a great experience to have read this article, and I learned a lot. I had never
read an article so long that I was interested and enjoyed reading it.
7
Footnote citation: Kristina Downs,
“Mirrored Archetypes: The Contrasting Cultural Roles of La
Malinche and Pocahontas.”
Western Folklore
67, no. 4 (2008): [pg 404]
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