Like the paintings of Peter Brueghel the colonial subject sees the world upside - down. This is how the feathered serpent god of the Mayas, Kukulcan becomes the feathered serpent god of the Aztecs, Quetzacoalt, and this is how the indigenous women descendants of the Incas in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia favor wearing the black British bobby hats instead of their traditional alpaca wool hats. This is also, how the angels and the saints in the baroque churches of sixteen century Puebla in Mexico proudly show Indian faces, and how the virgins of Guadeloupe and Caridad del Cobre have Indian and mulatto physiognomies. Furthermore, this is why the African Yoruba gods of my grandmothers, Yemaya, Obatala, Chango and all others are represented as Catholic Saints like Saint Barbara and Saint Lazarus.
Syncretism is about integration of ethnic identity.
To apprehend the syncretic nature of ethnic identity one must distinguish it from the broader category of culture, with which it is so often confused. From this, it follows that in the context of the Americas, Indianity or Indianness, Blackness, Spaniardness, is necessarily a postconquest phenomenon. As you know, complex relationships relate culture and ethnic identity. Culture provides the raw materials, so to speak, for the elaboration of ethnicity. But ethnicity does not reflect culture.