Sobre la presencia de elementos sobrenaturales en dos crónicas chilenas del siglo XVI

Abstract

The fi rst chronicles written on the Conquest of Chile (16th Century) attest to the occurrence at that time of supernatural apparitions. The Apostle Saint James and the Virgin Mary come to the rescue of, and help, the Spanish troops win the battles they wage against the Araucano indians. Such apparitions appear in each and every chronicle of the Spanish conquest of America, a tradition that harks back to the Spanish Middle Ages, where similar apparitions mark the war of Reconquest against the Muslim occupation. Thus, it is possible to speak of the survival in the American Conquest of elements characteristic of Medieval Spanish culture and religious life, particularly in the testimonies and chronicles of conquest, which give witness to the linkage, in the Spanish conqueror’s mind, between the natural and the supernatural