Demonstratives are used very frequently in Makhuwa narratives, especially the distal demonstratives. Although all types of demonstratives can be used for exophoric deixis, referring to an entity in the speech setting, the distal demonstratives are predominantly used for anaphoric reference. They occur in topic shifts, tail-head linking and at episode boundaries, referring to entities that are relatively less accessible at that point in the narrative (which is in line with Accessibility Theory). Demonstratives in Makhuwa narratives are not only used anaphorically for referent identification, but they also indicate importance of a certain referent and drawing attention, and they play an important role in text-structuring.