I remembered watching an
animation movie about El Dorado when I was younger. It wasn’t very impressive and
not very accurate. What’s El Dorado? It is the name of a Muisca (main aboriginal
culture in Colombia) tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and, as an
initiation rite, dove into the Guatavita Lake in Colombia. Later it
became the name of the City of Gold, the legend that fascinated the Spanish conquistadors.
Imagine a Kingdom made of gold in the middle of the Amazon jungle.
The
first expedition was leaded by Francisco Pizarro and Gonzalo Pizarro departed
from Quito in 1541 in an expedition to find this fantastic place. They look
everywhere in the Muiscan Territory at the north of South America (Colombia, Venezuela
and Ecuador). Spanish, English, Portuguese and Dutch try to find this place but
never did it. Most of them just disappeared.
I
find this place fascinating. After the 17th century it became a
metaphorical place where wealth could be rapidly acquired. Voltaire, Milton,
Poe and other writers have used this place in their stories. Now I want to use
this as inspiration for a story, however I want to be far from the cliché that
the American DreamWorks’ movie got into. It happened in Mexico (which is not
even South America) and the Characters are cliché and mono dimensional.
I
would like to develop more the actual legend of the city of gold, its relation
with the Muiscas’ culture and the cultural shock with the Spanish. Gold had a
different value for the Muiscas, they used it as offerings for the gods, while
for the Spanish it was just economical wealth.
