Our Lady of Itatí is the most important church in the Mesopotamian Littoral. It’s in the province of Corrientes, but veneration of the Virgin of Itatí is consistent throughout the zone, and it blends with other popular beliefs. Just outside the marked-off perimeter of the ongoing work in the pit, someone has placed an image of the Virgin under a lapacho tree. In the larger of the town’s bars—there are only two for around 700 inhabitants—people drink firewater with leaves of a male rue plant and debate where to get the most effective payés (amulets). They’re afraid of the bones. Not all of them, of course. Señor Segundo, the bar’s owner, says that in his house they’ve always worshipped San La Muerte, and he is not shocked by the bones.

“The shocking thing,” he says, “was seeing those kids from Buenos Aires setting up around here, easy targets. How could they think they’d be able to get the people on their side? Folks around here put their heads down and keep ’em there.” I start to defend them, the revolutionaries, but then I realize Señor Segundo isn’t attacking them. He simply remembers what happened here almost twenty years ago with a certain astonishment. And he insists that they were well-trained militarily, in spite of their naivety. “They rented some little houses. They came here to live, with furniture and everything. One couple even had a baby.” He’s not the first person to mention the child. She was the daughter of Liliana Falco, both of them disappeared, possibly killed in the operation. Will mother and baby be in the mass grave? The remains haven’t been identified yet, but so far all the bones are of adults.