On a long and lonesome road in Argentina (and Chile), where your only company is your own thoughts, emptiness stretches out to the horizon. Nothing but small shrubs and hard dirt cover the desolate landscape. However, in this distance, etched into a rock, on the top of a smal hill, or even just by the side of the road are small shrines. Either in red accompanied by red flags, or a surrrounded in waterbottles. What are these shrines? To whom do these mysterious shrines celebrate, commeserate or accommodate? Huddle round the campfire children, for there are stories to be told.
Gauchito Gil
Antonio Gil was recruited by the Autonomist Party to fight in the civil war against the opposition correntina Liberal Party. But he grew disillusioned with the fighting. He decided to desert and he escaped on a dark and stormy night. However the weather cleared quickly and he was sighted and captured. The General, wanting to make an example, sentanced him to death for his desertion, by firing squad.
Gil stood definatly, protesting his innocence as the firing squad prepared to fire. He said to the General, 'You are about to kill an innocent man. If you shed the blood of an innocent, your innocent son will fall gravely ill'. The General laughed at his claims and ordered the firing squad to fire. Bang they went in unison, and Gil slumped to the ground.
Just then a messanger brought news that the General`s son was ill, he rushed to his son's bedside and saw with his own eyes his son's life slowly fading away. For the next three days his son grew weaker, until his breathing became laboured. On his knees crying, the General begged for forgiveness and prayed to Gil for the life of his child.
Miraculously the next day the boy was healed.
The General rejoiced. When the people heard the story of Gil, they built a shrine for him. They painted it in red and put red flags around, the color of the Autonomist Party . The tradition continues, and whereever you go throughout Argentina and Chile, you will see small shrines of red, or red flags on the roadside to the Legend of Gauchito Gill.
Deceased Correa
Antonia Correa lived in a small town with her loving husband and newly born baby boy. However times were dark and there were civil war that divided a nation. Her husband was forced, against his will, to join a local guerilla band. He was then forced to march to the desert to join other troops.
Distraught at the loss of her husband, she decided to follow him into the desert. She took her baby and followed in the footsteps of the troops left in the desert sand, however she had packed insufficient supplies for the long and hazardous journey and soon was weary and thirsty. Exhausted, she sheltered with her son under the shade of a carob tree. She died under the tree of thirst, hunger and exhaustion.
The next day travellers passed by and found her body, but where shocked to see the baby alive, suckling on her mother who still had milk flowing from her bosom. The people rejoiced and praised her.
Since then people have built shrines for her and surrounded them with water bottles, to provide water to quench her thirst. The water is said to be able to quench the thirst of the dead.
Antonio Gil and Antonia Correa are each celebrated as saints, although not recognised by the Catholic Church. Many travellers, especially truckers pray to Gauchito Gil for safe passage through their journey. It is also said that a prayer to Deceased Correa can reunite lost livestock to a herder.
Reece
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