Abstract
In the religion known as Espiritismo in Cuba and Puerto Rico, readily available, commercially produced statues of Indians (Native Americans) are used in its altars. Comparing Espiritismo's altar arts, a severely understudied aspect of the practice, as well as related altars of the New Orleans Spiritual Church, leads to the theory that certain stylistic and iconographic signifiers may derive, in part, from central African (Congo) masquerades and sculpture. It seems that in addition to being the first inhabitants of America, Indians, in figure and image, became a substitute for lost African ancestors as well as loci for special spiritual power.
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