Crucifix

Silver crucifix recovered with Burial #11 in 1984.  Photograph by Ryan Gray, Courtesy of UNO Department of Anthropology and Sociology.

Taken together, the Catholic religious paraphernalia, the dental modifications, the age of the individual, and his apparent African ancestry, all point to birth in Africa for the individual in Burial #11, probably in Central Africa, and very probably also as a subject of the Kingdom of the Kongo.  In Central Africa, African lay assistants often acted in the role of Catholic religious officials, performing the day to day roles of the priesthood (like baptism and the sacraments), even when this was not sanctioned by the church hierarchy; whether free or enslaved, the individual from Burial #11 likely had some special connection to the Church, and potentially also to caring for the ill.