ry has been adapted by the myth-makers of Mexican history to fit the needs of their contemporary ideals.
Certain facts about the conquest of Mexico are legendary in themselves. Hernßn CortTs did indeed lead a band of 600 some-odd Spaniards into the high plains of central Mexico and, between the years 1519-1621, conquered and destroyed the mighty Aztec Empire flourishing there (Fehrenbach 117-156). From the Indian side of the equation, the myth-making began immediately, as witnessed by this Nahua-language poem collected by Franciscan missionaries in the Cantares Mexicanos only two years later and echoed repeatedly in literature to this day (Fehrenbach 157; Fleet 183):
As part of the legend-making process, the new Spanish overlords were not remiss in their mythologizing, either. In letters to the King of Spain, Charles I - a Belgian-born Hapsburg whose interest in "New" Spain was primarily financial - CortTs and his contemporaries wrote self-aggrandizing accounts of the Conquest. It was important for the Conqueror's prestige at Court that it be known he faced only the most noble and mighty of adversaries, that he allied himself with the crOme of the Indian elite, that the obstacles overcome were difficult on an epic scale, that the riches of the Aztec Empire were beyond comprehension, and so forth ad infinitum (Cypress 26-40). Bernal Dfaz del Castillo, one of the first autobiographers of the Conquest, set the tone for future considerations of the role La Malinche played in CortTs' retinue with this introductory description of the Indian woman: "Do±a Marina was a person of the greatest importance and was obeyed without question by the Indians throughout New Spain" (67).
The bare facts summarizing the Conquest easily led to simplistic misunderstandings and mythologizing of events by later generations in Mexico. Matters were not helped by the Inquisition, which ravaged the Spanish Empire in the mid-1500s: thousands of h...