Malinche's father had been a lord of the village of Painala, inland from the Tabasco river. But, after her father's death, her mother remarried, and Malinche was disinherited and eventually sold to merchants. Cortés now made her his mistress. From this point, through the fall of Mexico, the two were inseparable, seeming at times to speak as one person - especially in the Aztec version, which records with shock "that a woman of our race was leading the Spaniards to Mexico." All important communications went through Malinche, and, in a sense, she controlled events. She seems to have had more freedom and power than any other woman of her time, from either of the two cultures. She has been a problematic figure ever since and has been portrayed variously as mother, whore, betrayer, and goddess of the dead.