A Kongo chief’s passing was marked by the construction of an ancestral shrine (nzo a bakulu) positioned directly above his consecrated burial site. On display within this shrine were the prized possessions he had carefully collected over his lifetime. Central to the shrine were sculptures such as this one, often presented in groups of male and female figures. Here, a female figure kneels and reaches into a black vessel, while a miniature male figure sits on her left foot, his arms crossed in grief. The vessel may refer to a kinzu, an earthenware pot deposited at burial sites. In one version of the Kongo genesis myth, the cultural hero Né Kongo came from heaven bearing the first bilongo, or medicinal substances, which he prepared in a kinzu such as this one.