Devotional Kitsch - An Argentine Update

The Costanera Norte offers river access to the residents of Buenos Aires.

Not far from our Buenos Aires apartment, leading northwest from the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery airport, the Costanera Rafael Obligado provides direct access to the Río de La Plata shoreline for city residents. It’s a popular spot for walking, fishing and asados (barbecues) and, at its northern end, the Parque de la Memoria is an open-air memorial to the tens of thousands who disappeared under the military dictatorship of 1976-83.

One area “attraction” I’ve always ignored is Tierra Santa, a Disneyland for the devout that displays a kitschy version of ancient Jerusalem and its spiritual legacy (as depicted in the video above). About the only thing I can compare it with is Tennessee’s farcically fake Ark Encounter which, deservedly, appears to be approaching financial collapse. On one level that’s easy for me to say—I’m not a believer—but why would any sensible person spend a single peso to watch an hourly mechanical resurrection when genuine devotional sights are so close at hand?

Carlos Menem renounced Islam for Catholicism in order to become Argentina's president in 1989.

The Catedral Metropolitana is Buenos Aires's most conspicuous religious landmark.

It’s worth noting that, for many Argentines, religion is fungible. For instance, former President Carlos Menem—of Syrian descent—converted from Islam to Catholicism to run for office, since that was a constitutional requirement at the time. Buenos Aires, of course, has many important Christian sites, starting with the classic Catedral Metropolitana and even the handsome Iglesia Ortodoxa Rusa of San Telmo. But the Middle East’s other Abrahamic faiths are represented by landmarks such as the Templo de la Congregación Israelita and the Centro Islámico Rey Fahd—both of which are open for free guided tours.

Palermo's Centro Islámico Rey Fahd is the largest mosque in South America.

None of those, of course, is a theme park—for that, visitors to Argentina might be better advised to visit the city of La Plata, whose República de los Niños, where children can explore scale model replicas of diverse structures that even include a mosque. For my part, though, I prefer more offbeat devotional locations that fetishize folk saints.

La Plata's República de los Niños has a scale model mosque for kids to explore.

Rather than a biblical theme park, I would urge visitors to see the syncretic Santuario del Gauchito Gil, where pilgrims pay homage to a Robin Hood figure from the northern province of Corrientes. It also has the advantage of proximity to the Esteros del Iberá, Argentina’s great subtropical wetlands preserve, to view the most diverse concentrations of wildlife within the country’s borders.

Who needs a mechanical Jesus when you can stand before the altar of Gauchito Gil?

Alternatively, in the western province of San Juan—also an underappreciated wine district—the Santuario Difunta Correa memorializes a maternal figure who, according legend, died in the desert while suckling her newborn (who, miraculously, survived to be found by passing muleteers). In truth, she probably never existed, but her story is more plausible—and far more intriguing—than what supposedly happened in the “Holy Land.”

San Juan's Difunta Correa is a legendary folk saint whose infant son supposedly survived at her breast after she died in the desert.

For those unable to visit either the Gaucho Gil or the Difunta, do not despair! Spontaneous roadshrine shrines—some of them quite large—are common on the country’s highways and along some city sidewalks.

Even in sophisticated Palermo, the faithful leave water for the Difunta.

Tuesday Topics

Today entry includes items from Chile, Argentina and the Falkland Islands.

A White Xmas? In Summer?
In the course of my research, I rarely spend the year’s end holidays at home with family - unless somehow we get together with my wife’s relatives in Olavarría, in Buenos Aires province. In southern South America, of course, it’s summer, and you’re likelier to need air-conditioning than a shovel to clear the snow off the sidewalk (leaving aside, for the moment, that we live in coastal California where snow is always rare).

To be sure, if you seek out the heights of the Andes, you may have a white Xmas (when I lived at 4,400 meters above sea level in Parinacota (pictured above), Chile, summer was the rainy season and, at that altitude it could easily snow). Likewise, if you seek out high latitudes on the Southern Continental Icefield, you can virtually guarantee it. But I was nevertheless surprised last Saturday by a snowstorm in Parque Nacional Conguillío, in the relatively low-altitude, mid-latitude Andes east of Temuco. At 5 p.m., conditions threatened to become a whiteout, and I quickly headed down and south to the town of Melipeuco, where it was cold and damp but snow-free.

En route, though, I saw snow-covered monkey puzzle trees of the sort that drew pioneer conservationist John Muir here from California in the early 20th century. Even more strikingly, the volcanic slag heaps (pictured below) on the lower slopes of Volcán Llaima (whose steaming summit was obscured by cloud) turned from black to white in minutes. Except for rangers and park administrator Norberto Arias, with whom I briefly spoke in his office at Laguna Conguillío, I was the only person in the park. It warmed on Sunday, though, and the prospect of a white Xmas is receding by the minute - though, as I’m continuing farther south, it could still happen.

Gaucho Gil Crosses the Border
My brief Conguillío excursion came at the end of long day’s drive that began near Curacautín, at the outstanding Bavarian-run guesthouse Andenrose, and proceeded to circle the park via Malalcahuello, Lonquimay, Liucura and Icalma. En route, I stopped to photograph this shrine to the Gaucho Antonio Gil, a Robin Hood figure and folk saint from Argentina’s Corrientes province whose cult has grown in the aftermath of that country’s economic meltdown of a decade ago.

This was the first time, though, I have ever seen a Gaucho Gil shrine in Chile - a country that’s been almost untouched by regional and global financial crises. To be sure, the highway itself links Chile to the Argentine province of Neuquén but, even then, it’s jarring to see the Chilean flag flying above Gil’s shrine.

The Falklands Tussac Grass
Jim McAdam, the editor of the Falkland Islands Journal with whom I have corresponded for many years but never met (we just missed each other a couple weeks ago, as I was in the departure lounge at Mount Pleasant as he arrived from Punta Arenas), recently explored Argentine Tierra del Fuego in search of Falklands tussac grass, Poa flabellata. Once abundant throughout the Islands, the grass is exceptional wildlife habitat, especially for small birds - watch for the lurking sea lions, though - but much reduced by unrestricted grazing since the introduction of sheep in the 19th century.

According to Jim, tussac ranges from South Georgia through the Falklands to eastern Tierra del Fuego (including Staten Island and the Wollastons), but “it is only thought to be present at one site on actual mainland Tierra del Fuego - the tip of the Mitre Peninsula near Cabo San Diego. We didn't make it, though, despite a three-day expedition on a quad bike.” He is interested in tussac’s DNA, to see if all came from the same original population.

The Robin Hood of Corrientes

Yesterday, January 8, more than 100,000 pilgrims swarmed to a sprawling shrine just outside the Corrientes provincial city of Mercedes (population about 30,000) to remember the gaucho Antonio Gil. Gil, according to legend, was a Robin Hood figure who was unjustly executed in the 19th century but has survived in Argentine folk consciousness, especially among the poor and dispossessed. All year, there's a steady flow of kneeling, miracle-seeking visitors in economic distress, and others who come to offer thanks--and bring gifts--for favors already granted. They lug home souvenirs that are numerous and often huge--including life-size or larger plaster statues of the "Gauchito" (known affectionately by his diminutive).

Since the Argentine economic disaster of 2001-2, impromptu red-flagged Gaucho Gil shrines have proliferated alongside highways from the Bolivian border to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. In fact, the Gauchito has moved into the top echelon of Argentine folk saints with San Juan province's Difunta Correa, whose own roadside shrines are distinguished by plastic bottles filled with water. Legend says the "Difuntita" died in the desert following her draftee husband during the 19th-century civil wars, but her baby survived at her breast. There is no evidence whatsoever for this, but believers have made the Difunta's home shrine near Vallecito even larger than Gil's at Mercedes.

Devotees of both the Gauchito and the Difuntita consider themselves genuine Catholics and see nothing contradictory in their beliefs. The official Church thinks differently, though some of its more open-minded priests have tried to come to terms with ineradicable popular beliefs whose strength and durability are a mirror of the Church's shortcomings.

Argentine directors Ricardo Becher and Tomás Larriñaga, meanwhile, drew parallels between the 19th century and the present in their 2006 film El Gauchito Gil: La Sangre Inocente (Gauchito Gil: Innocent Blood), whose trailer can be seen on YouTube. For what it's worth, a Chilean rock band goes by the name of Difuntos Correa.