ABSTRACT
The muiscas Indians had a reputation for their goldwork and the Spaniards, who were already spreading through the region at full gallop, believed that their territory must be Eldorado. In their searches for Eldorado, Gonzalo Pizarro, set out in the direction of Ecuador, while Diego de Almagro explored Chile, and Francisco de Orellana, and later Lope de Aguirre, sailed down the river Maranon. In fact, from the outset, the discovery and conquest of America was inextricably linked with the search for Eldorado. Thus Eldorado was originally an historical reality of a sort. Its historical existence was as a fiction based on stories told by the Indians and lent credence by Spanish wishful thinking: and, consequently, it provides a classic illustration of how myths develop. Charlie Chaplin's film The Gold Rush exemplifies this vision of happiness, somewhere else, in the future with gold, as always, used as a metaphor, while the reverse of this vision is represented by Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
