Imaginaries of Alterity. Malintzin: the speech and image of the Other in the Conquest of America

Abstract

Malintzin, Mariana, Doña Marina or, later, La Malinche, was handed over to Cortés in 1519, not only did it have a central role in the Conquest of America, even today it continues to shape the imaginary of otherness locked in the dark and inexplicable . Body-word intermediate between the consciousness of oneself and the other (the world, nature and men), Malitzin welcomes the "Night Regime" of the anthropological structures of the imaginary according to G. Durand, mother, house, cave, earth, grave. The Other as an enigma, a matrix for the creation of a plural alterity, but also ghosts that lead to autism and shape a morbid image of the Other.