Shrine painting of a congo spirit working the nganga of Siete Rayos in the monte or sacred forest. The kneeling figure divines with his “charged” mpaka horn before the iron cauldron, which is embedded with earths and sacred woods. The kiyumba, representing the cauldron’s principal spirit of the dead, sits atop the cauldron, surmounted by a lighted candle. This watercolor landscape, by Ariel Fernández, brother of the shrine’s owner, sets Siete Rayos in a remote and mountainous forest zone, marked, particularly, by the traditional Amerindian bohío style dwelling of mud and thatch. All elements of nature, Siete Rayos’ ritual work, and references to colonial society and slavery are knit together through visual contiguity: sky and clouds, mountain, earth and river, human shelter, the plantation wheel and chain, and spiritual transformation through ceremony. Siete Rayos’ important avatar of the snake (ñoca) links the cauldron and the tree—a principal axis mundi between two worlds. The cauldron gathers its vital energies both from the astros above (heavenly bodies) and the earth below. A well-known palo refrain goes, “under the laurel tree, I have my confidence [strength].” Historically, the fierce strength of the palo spirits has been associated with liberation from all forms of slavery, including personal entanglements for which defensive and offensive “works” serve as remedies.

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