Zur araukanische Volkskunde: teoría y práctica del folklore en los relevamientos de Roberto Lehmann-Nitsche en lenguas originarias

Abstract

This article presents the script of a lecture that Roberto Lehmann-Nitsche, a few years after settling in Argentina, gave in 1901 on Mapuche folklore. The lecture was given at the request of the Deutschen Frauen Verein, a German women's association based in Buenos Aires, and dealt with theoretical aspects of this expanding discipline from a Germanic perspective. Besides, there were catalogued the empirical materials then documented by this anthropologist. The original text, hitherto unpublished, is presented in its German version and in English translation. The article provides an analysis that allows to recognize how this intervention integrates insights that Lehmann-Nitsche also expressed in his later scientific and non-academic publications. As is well known, his production in the field of folklore included two aspects: on the one hand, folklore criollo, and on the other, the verbal art and traditions of the pre-existing native peoples, especially texts corresponding to narrative genres and riddles in their own languages and in Spanish. In relation to this last aspect, contributions by authors affiliated with the Germanic tradition are taken up in order to indicate affinities and links with some Americanists who were their contemporaries.