Butch and Sundance in South America
Okay, I admit to a weakness for gorgeous men. Anyone care to argue about the merits of Paul Newman and Robert Redford in their youth? I’m transported by scenes of horses and riders whipping wildly across western landscapes to unaccountably optimistic music. And, I like Burt Bacharach – so, sue me. I’ll even play along with the notion that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid robbed and shot their way through an entire film without actually hurting anybody.
Alas, unlike their myth, the real Butch and Sundance were murderers, thieves and cheats. Why we lionize sociopaths is beyond my pay scale but we like weaving rousing stories from the faintest blur of fact. In myth we happily conflate mayhem with resistance to oppression – so much the easier if done from a safe distance within our heads.
Whatever their deficiencies as human beings, Butch and Sundance got around. We wandered across their tracks in Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia. They kept moving because they couldn’t stay out of trouble. Barely managing to escape U.S. justice, Sundance shot a lawman in Chile. They beat it to Argentina and later, Bolivia and the final riveting shootout scene from the movie.
Or maybe not.
For a brief 5 years, Butch and/or Sundance and their gal-pal, Etta Place held it together long enough to establish a ranch in Cholila, Argentina. But, even without the benefit of the internet, they were eventually well and truly found.
We are certain about one thing. The duo met their demise in the town of San Vincente in Southern Bolivia.
Today San Vincente is a booming mining town with a number of new buildings and a swarm of mining families living in ancient adobe or brick houses crowded along the throughway. Busy housewives in cascading skirts and bowler hats scrub laundry in outdoor tubs undeterred by clouds of red dust whipped up by incessant wind, moving vehicles, and their children and sheep cavorting in the unpaved streets.
A small museum is dedicated to Butch and Sundance but you have to ask for its key at the shop next door.
In a marketing misfire, the house where they died has been plastered over so you no longer get to see the bullet holes.
On November 7, 1908, their guns blazing, Butch and Sundance stormed out the door of their tiny abode into a hail of calvary gunfire.
Not so fast.
In truth, Butch shot Sundance in the head then turned the gun on himself, saving the Bolivians the trouble.
A small plaque in the local cemetery marks their final resting place. But historians dug around and couldn’t find their remains. The marker will stay, most people agreeing they have to be in there someplace. Unless……..you prefer to believe reports that Butch was spotted on several occasions in several different places well after the gunfight. With myth, you are free to ascribe to any version you like.
For myself, I’m going to listen to the Burt Baccarat theme again.
Gaucho Gil
Butch and Sundance are American exports. Gaucho Gil is homegrown. Legend has it, he robbed from the Argentinian rich to give to the poor. Who knows if the latter is true but then, he “stuck it to the man” and that was probably enough to get the ball rolling.
An army deserter and outlaw in the late 1800’s, Gaucho Gil’s reputation as a prayer-answerer incubated, transforming him into a popular idol. Of course, the very idea of a saint unsanctioned by the Catholic Church threw that venerable institution into paroxysms of denial and ire. But, gradually, Gil wormed his way into at least some remote corners of Catholicism. Apparently, saints are saints whether official or not.
Small shrines to Gaucho Gil populate the roadsides of northern Argentina. They are always adorned in red – flags, bandanas, anything red. The color sets them apart from those of the other popular, non-church sanctioned Argentinian saint, La Difunta Correa.
You are welcome to stop at any of his shrines and tack up a request for a favor. But it wouldn’t hurt to leave an offering – something in red, perhaps.
La Difunta Correa
Imagine a mythological character who didn’t start out as a criminal!
La Difunta Correa was a poor peasant woman born in the early 1800’s who died of thirst while searching in the desert for her husband who had been wounded and abandoned during a war. Her body was discovered several days after her death, her infant still suckling at her breast and very much alive. Her suitably disturbing images are in keeping with Catholic sensibilities although the Church is disinclined to invite her into the pantheon of official saints.
That she may never know thirst again, her many shrines -floods of plastic water bottles – lie along arid stretches of road in the South. Her principal shrine sits at Vallecito near San Juan where thousands come to procure favor and leave thanks for wishes granted.