Cuban trays normally include at least a sun, a moon, and a skull, as well as either an image of Echú (or a cross, which Victor Betancourt thinks is inappropriately Christian).  This finely carved tray features a cross instead of an image of Echu.  The four symbols around its raised perimeter represent and invoke the spirit of the cycle of life and death—the sun, a cross (for life), the moon, and the skull.  The snakes, says babalawo Victor Betancourt, invoke the idea of the snake biting its tail, a further symbol of the cycle of life and death.