When Columbus arrived in the New World in AD 1492, the islands he landed on had already been inhabited for some 2,000 years by the Taíno people, whose complex society impressed early Spanish conquerors. The Taíno probably descended from émigrés from Central America, who arrived in the Caribbean and supplanted the indigenous pre-pottery hunter-gatherers through disease and warfare. The Taíno were ruled by male chiefs, called caciques, who inherited their position through matrilineal succession. Below them were nobles (nitaínos) and commoners (naborias). Taíno women engaged in agriculture, while the men fished and hunted. They developed the use of poisoned arrowheads for hunting.

Taíno religion was centred around the worship of zemís, the ancestral spirits, who were contrasted with opias, the forest-dwelling spirits. Zemís were thought to live in a statue or figure housed in the round temples, the bohíos. The Spanish conquerors describe how zemí figures were a vital part of Taíno religious ceremony, acting as reliquaries, stands and personal adornments. Smaller zemís were used to grind the cohoba, a hallucinogenic substance, which would be inhaled through tubes off the tops of larger zemí figures. The design of the zemís themselves reflected this practice, showing emaciated figures (having inhaled cohoba, Taíno men would fast for days) with large watery eyes and a grim smile. The figures also drew attention to the link between the ancestors of the past, and the people of the present, combining in their form skeletal features with those of the living.

This is an especially fine example of a zemí sculpture, executed in jasper, one of the hardest materials known to the Taíno. The choice of material – hard to work, and durable – suggests that this was an object that the Taíno hoped would last, and represents a considerable investment of time and economic resources. This sculpture follows the traditional trigonolito (‘three point’) representation of zemís: at one point is the face, culminating in an elaborate headdress; at the opposite point are the legs, tucked under the body in what is called the ‘frog’s legs’ pose; and at the third point, the backside of the hunched figure. The head is large, taking up fully half of the sculpture, and has the large vacant eyes of a skull, assimilating it to the dead ancestors whose spirits inhabited it. Its short pointed nose hangs hook-like above a grim smile. The emaciated body of the figure is carved delicately. The long arms and legs are covered in ceremonial tattoos in the complex geometric style most commonly associated with the Taíno. The figure wears a headdress which culminates in the image of a bird. In many Taíno images, the birds are mixed with human characteristics, as in this example; in this case, the birds are considered a masculine symbol. It is possible that the bird represented is an owl, given the wide round eyes enclosed in an incised ring. Night birds were associated with the forest spirits (opias). Owls were especially venerated, given their association with the caves deep in the forest. Their sharp eyesight, that can see in the blackness of the night, was thought to enable them to see into the spirit realm.