Visions of death in the indigenous novels in Darcy Ribeiro and Jorge Icaza

Abstract

One objective of this comparative study between two scenes of death in the indigenous novels Maí­ra, by Brazilian Darcy Ribeiro, and Huasipungo, by Ecuadorian Jorge Icaza, is to disclose differing notions of death: the white European culture’s and the American native’s. Another objective is to show the way they expresses a peculiar weltans­chuung to each culture: the Christian and pagan, and the settlers and settled. The settlers’ views about death in Icaza’s Huasipungo perform as objects of separation and hierarchy, while the nati­ves’ views in Ribeiro’s Maíra appear as processes of communion and participation. Comparisons between each conception make use of anthropo­logical and archetypal criticism methodologies from the theories of Humberto Maturana, Gilbert Durand, and Joseph Campbell, among others.