Week 12: Jose de San Martin and South America
Homeschooling moms must fill up their knowledge bank in order to give the best to their kids. The more mom knows, the better she can teach. Research these topics and share the general idea with younger kids. For older kids, you might invite them to pick a topic to research.
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| Jose de San Martin Crossing the Andes |
Topics for Week 12
Jose de San Martin
South America
Folktales
South American Music
Favio Chavez and the Landfil Harmonic of Paraguay
Discussion Questions
Jose de San Martin
Why did San Martin resign from the Spanish military?
San Martin crossed the Andes to liberate which country?
South America
What major river flows through South America?
What mountain range bisects South America?
Books (all links go to Goodreads)
Videos
Activities
The Magic Cow (A folktale from Chile)
There once was a family that owned a cow. But they were poor, so they needed to sell the cow. The son begged his father to not sell her since he loved the animal so much, but the father insisted on it. While bringing the cow to the market, he came across an old woman who asked if she could ride the man’s cow across the river since she was too weak to cross it on her own. Displaying typical human foolishness in his desire to help others, the man agrees and is subsequently kidnapped by the old woman.
It turns out she is a witch, and she sucks him down to the bottom of the river using a water vortex. The cow escapes unscathed, however, and returns to her family. The wife, now a widow with two children, decides to move to an oceanside town where a few days later her daughter drowns while playing in the ocean with her brother. The brother comes back ashore, sobbing, and is met with consoling words from the cow. The cow tells the boy she has a plan to save his father and sister. The boy must first kill the cow, pry her eyes out, skin her, throw her skin into the sea, and then use her eyes as binoculars to find the witch’s lair. Then, in emergencies, he must pluck the hairs off her tail and transform them into whatever he needs to save himself.
The boy initially rejects this plan, as he does not want to hurt his dear friend, but eventually relents. The cow’s eyes guide him to the witch’s hideout in the middle of the sea, which he rides to using the sailboat the cow’s carcass turned into when it hit the water. When he runs out of wind, he plucks a hair from the cow’s tail to transform it into the winds he needs to get to the witch. After a long journey at sea, he arrives, saves his family, and incapacitates the witch. After arriving home and reuniting with their mother, the boy drags the cow-boat to the shore and places the remains of the cow and her eyes next to it. He was initially planning on a burial, but lightning strikes the cow and she returns to her normal bovine state and was from then on treated like a valuable member of the family.
The Legend of Gaucho Gil (Robin Hood of Argentina)
Born Antonio Gil in the 1840s, Gil was a farmer who became romantically involved with Estrella Díaz de Miraflores, a wealthy widow and ranch owner. However, this liaison between a lowly farm worker and a high society lady was not looked upon favorably by her brothers, or by the local police chief who wanted Miraflores for himself. They conspired to accuse Gil of robbery, but, before he was arrested, Gil fled, joining the army to fight against Paraguay.
Stories of his bravery and courage preceded him and he returned a war hero, only to be drafted again to fight in the civil war on the side of the liberal Blues, a side he was morally opposed to in a war he didn’t support. It was then he took on the mantle of a cowboy bandit, deserting the army with some companions and roaming the hillsides stealing from farms to survive. However, this theft soon transformed itself into a generous act and Gil earned a reputation as something of a quasi-Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. He was protected by local peasants who respected him, and even saw him as a magical and mystical figure who could resist bullets and cure illnesses.
Gil was captured by the authorities after they caught him hiding in the woods, and they prepared to bring him to a nearby town for a trial. However, an impatient guard cut the journey short and decided to execute Gil then and there, first hanging him from a tree by his legs and torturing him. Gil’s reputation for wizardry should have been heeded by the guard at this point, as he implored him to wait, saying a letter of pardon was on its way to Mercedes, and that the letter also had news of a sudden illness that had struck the guard’s son.
The guard didn’t believe Gil, even when he told him the only way his son would survive was if the guard invoked Gil’s name and asked him to save the child. Thinking this folly and unwilling to listen to the criminal cowboy, the guard brutally slit his throat. He would have done well to listen, as when the police officer arrived in Mercedes, there was in fact a note pardoning Gauchito Gil, and his son was indeed sick. The guard panicked and, despite only recently having murdered Gil, he prayed to the outlaw to heal his son, and the next day his son was back to good health. Believing finally in the powers that Gil possessed, he arranged for a proper burial for the merciful cowboy and painted the cross above the grave red so everyone would know the story.