The Mapuche ancestrality model: A debate on the cultural affinities of Amerindian eschatological representations

Abstract

This paper analyzes the Mapuche ancestrality model and discusses its cultural affinities regarding other Amerindian reference models. The theoretical-methodological perspective, from which this subject is approached is the analysis of social representations. In this regard, this work suggests that the Mapuche culture has a strong ancestral model that results akin to the Andean pattern. This is evident in the presence of ancestors in social life, in the agency and power attributed to them, and in the devices and uses of memory of the dead. The analysis of the system of variants of representations about the afterlife dwelling and the manifestations of the spirits in earth evidences conspicuous correlatives with respect to the eschatological conceptions of this cultural area. Although this does not necessarily imply a filiation of origin, it exposes the existence of co-traditional traits in the representations of death in the central and southern Andean areas.