From the depths of the Costa Rican jungle, this sukia figure has emerged along with a fascinating religious concept. The sukia figure is most probably a shaman: a tribal medicine man or diviner. He is shown playing a flute, smoking or blowing through a tube. All of these ritual activities were carried out by shamans in Pre-Columbian Central America, but the latter two activities best describe what these seated figures are doing, perhaps as part of a curing ritual. It was most probably produced for ritual services. One might speculate that such sculpture was kept in an indigenous home for much the same reasons that a crucifix is hung on the wall of a modern Costa Rican home. The shaman's eyes are softly closed in a meditative state and his lips gently surround the tube that his hands and fingers perfectly hold in place. The composition of the figure is simple, yet radiates a tremendous aura of divinity and sanctity, similar to the Buddha figures of Eastern Asia.