Meredith Keffer

Selected images from Following la Difunta, my undergraduate thesis in Folklore and Mythology. Following la Difunta is a 165-page photoethnography that explores, through image and text, the shrines of the Argentine folk saint known as the Difunta Correa.

 

Deolinda Correa is said to have died in the mid-nineteenth century in the desert. Gauchos found her body days later, with her baby still nursing. Devotees offer bottles of water to slake the Difunta's eternal thirst.

 

These photographs were taken at the main shrine of the Difunta in Vallecito, San Juan, and at some of the many makeshift shrines that dot the roads of Argentina.