Around 1840, in Caucete, in the province of Sanjuan, in northwestern Argentina, lived María Antonia Deolinda Correa, a happily married young woman with a son a few months old whom she was breastfeeding. Her husband, despite being ill, had been forcibly recruited by montonero troops during the civil war. Distressed at not having any news of him, Deolinda set off with her son to look for him in the San Juan desert towards La Rioja. On the Vallecito hill she ran out of water and strength, and died. A few days later some muleteers discovered her dead, while her child had survived by suckling at the dead mother's breast.
Although there is no documentary evidence of these relatively recent events, a shrine has been erected in honour of the "Difunta Correa" or "Difuntita Correa" with multiple chapels on the hill of Vallecito, and thousands of pilgrims visit it to leave votive offerings and ask for favours, among them, for mothers and pregnant women, to have good milk. His cult, not recognised by the Catholic Church, has spread to Argentina and Uruguay. Many truck drivers leave bottles of water on the roads so that what happened to Deolinda will never happen again.
Gift brought directly from Argentina by Natalia's adoptive family.