There must have been many wooden containers like this in the Huari culture. What exactly they were used for is not clear. Most likely, and the motif of the shaman in trance indicates this, they were ritual objects. It is possible that they were used to store drugs with which the shamans put themselves in trance to communicate with the gods. The combination of human/carnivore, mostly jaguar, is also very common. The predatory dentition stands for the transcendent. Often shamans have transformed into a jaguar during their trance. This could also be a reason for the numerous human/predator depictions.