An African-Type Healer/Diviner and His Grave Goods: A Burial from a Plantation Slave Cemetery in Barbados, West Indies

An adult male buried in the late 1600s or early 1700s and excavated from a plantation slave cemetery in Barbados had the cemetery's richest assortment of grave goods: an iron knife, several types of metal jewelry, an earthenware pipe, and a necklace of money cowries, fish vertebrae, dog canine teeth, European glass beads, and a large carnelian bead probably from India. Most of these artifacts are unique to New World African descendant sites. The individual was probably an African-type diviner/healer whose high status in the slave community is reflected in his relatively elaborate artifact inventory.