This figure of an old man, wearing a high-necked cloth tunic and with a small strip of animal fur attached as a beard, has mobile arms. These articulated arms strongly suggest that it originated from the coastal regions of Tanzania. Marc Felix surmises that such figures served as funerary posts and that such pieces were constructed for prominent elders who died without leaving male offspring to praise them at their graveside. The arms (and sometimes the legs) were apparently intended to be manipulated by a ritual expert at the burial ceremony. The ritual expert, who may have been a ventriloquist, made the figure move and talk as he sang the praises of the deceased elder. This practice may be related to similar practices in Indonesia introduced to the coastal regions by the pre-colonial immigrants to Madagascar and the east coast. For an articulated figure attributed to the Zaramo peoples, see T Phillips (ed), AFRICA 95, London, 1995, pp.151-152.