The Magic Mountain and Other Origin Myths of the Mapuche Indians of Central Chile

Abstract

MYTHOLOGICAL MOTIFS hold fascination for students of psychology, culture history, sociology, and related disciplines, and are amenable to several kinds of interpretation. Mapuche myths have been studied largely from the points of view of psychology' and culture history,2 although their sociological importance has not been neglected altogether. In this brief paper I present three Mapuche myths selected from a rather large number3 collected in Mapucheland in I952-54, in order to record something of the fundamental nature of Mapuche mythological themes. All the versions recorded below relate in some manner to notions of morality, i.e., relate to ideas of good, evil, and redemption. But the essential point I wish to make is that a special function of myth may be seen in the linkage it provides between the living and the dead-an apparently widespread phenomenon. I think Mapuche mythology is subject to such interpretation. An estimated 200,000 Mapuche Indians live on approximately 2,200 small reservations, in an area about the size of Delaware, distributed over several Provinces in southern Central Chile. Because of their considerable population and their cultural and social distinctiveness, the Mapuche constitute an indigenous element of major importance in Chile and, indeed, they are one of the largest functioning Indian societies in the New World.