Coconut-grater stool

You’d be hard-pressed to identify this mysterious, almost dangerous-looking object—unless you’re familiar with coconut grating along the Swahili coast of East Africa. Then it’s fairly straightforward: you sit on the stool and scrape the inside of an opened coconut on the protruding metal blade. The coconut shavings are collected and later pushed through a sieve to make coconut milk. The X-shape of the stool resembles a Qur’an stand, while the geometric designs show both Arab and Indian influences on Swahili culture.