Oral mapuche stories and the Grecolatin myth of Orpheus and Eurydice

Abstract

"Mapuche oral tales and a classical myth: Orpheus and Eurydice". Reading compilations of mapuche oral tales, we find two stories connected with the classical Orpheus and Eurydice’s myth: "A man who was widowed" and "Journey to the earth of the dead". In this paper, we make a comparative literary and mythologic survey: it goes deeply into the universal theme of the journey to the world of death to look for the beloved person. Both cultures offer a peculiar treatment (with convergent and divergent motifs) of that theme.