The island god’s homecoming

The great Taino lord, considered a deity by the people who inhabited the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), died between 1439 and 1522, shortly before or shortly after the history of the world was about to change. His divine skull was inserted inside a 75-centimeter-tall cotton figure in human form. It is the only cotton cemi or zemí left in the world. All the others have disappeared. He who endures is in the …