Popular Culture Review Vol. 24, No. 2, Summer 2013 | Page 23

Correction of a Falsified Image 19 Picture 1 (Personal photo; ancestor altar in Rosalie Alley, New Orleans, LA, March 2010) This altar serves to honor our “biological ancestors, the universal archetypal ancestors, or both.”6 It holds pictures of the deceased, flowers, colored candles, and a bowl of blessed water. At the very top of the altar Stands a white candle7 substituting for the poteau-mitan (the center-post of the holy space). In contrast to the altar in Picture 1, the altar in Picture 2 does not hold any personal memories, pictures or artifacts. In being less personal but more universal than the first, it fiilfills the function of remembrance and worship of the guede,“the loas of the dead and of cemeteries” (Rigaud 58), among which Baron Samedi is seen as the “ultimate suave and sophisticated spirit of Death” (Alverado, Voodoo Hoodoo 27).