The wandering monk João Maria and his holy springs
From 1845 to 1848 an Italian hermit, João Maria de Agostini, wandered southern Brazil healing with herbs, prayer and spring water. Folk memory merged him with a later monk, João Maria de Jesus (active about 1886–1908), into one saint, São João Maria.
1845 CE · -28.21, -51.53 · status: legend
The account
Legend says he struck a rock with his staff at Lagoa Vermelha, Rio Grande do Sul, and the Fonte de São João Maria began to flow. Prophecies credited to him foretold 'lines of iron black donkeys' carrying people, read as railways. Pilgrims still visit his springs, crosses and the cave in the Parque Estadual do Monge at Lapa, Paraná. Agostini himself was expelled in 1852 and died in New Mexico in 1869.
The sceptical view
The prophecies are known from later oral tradition and were probably shaped after the railways arrived.