Dogon people

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The Dogon are a group of people living in the central plateau region of Mali, south of the Niger bend near the city of Bandiagara in the Mopti region. They number about 300,000. The Dogon are best known for their mythology, their mask dances, wooden sculpture and their architecture. The past century has seen significant changes in the social organization, material culture and beliefs of the Dogon, partly because Dogon country is one of Mali's major tourist attractions.

Contents 1 Geography and demography 2 Dogon Art 3 Culture and religion 3.1 Circumcision 3.2 Funeral Masquerade 3.3 Cults 4 Dogon villages 5 Languages 6 Mythology 6.1 Controversy 6.1.1 Robert Temple 7 Notes and references 7.1 Notes 7.2 References 7.2.1 The people 7.2.2 The languages 7.2.3 Dogon Art & Funeral Masquerade 7.2.4 The Sirius controversy 8 External links

[edit] Geography and demography

The principal Dogon area is dissected by the Bandiagara Escarpment, a sandstone cliff of up to 500m stretching for about 150km. To the southeast of the cliff, the sandy Séno-Gondo plains are found, and northwest of the cliff are the Bandiagara highlands. The current population is at least 450,000.

[edit] Dogon Art

Dogon art is primarily wood sculpture, although some pieces are carved out of stone or forged from metal. Dogon art serves both an every day and ritualistic function. The carvers who create this art continue the tradition in making the pieces as the mentors who taught them did. The purpose of Dogon art is to preserve the peoples' tradition and not for an individual claim to a piece. Both Carvers and especially blacksmiths are important figures in their culture and many myths surround their work and are retold by the Dogon. Knowledge is passed from the elders to those whose job is going to be making these ritualistic and everyday pieces. Pieces used in rituals are created by the blacksmiths who employ similar techniques when working with metal as when working with wood.

Dogon art revolves around religious values, ideals, and freedoms (Laude, 19). Dogon sculptures are not made to be seen publicly, and are commonly hidden from the public eye within the houses of families, sanctuaries, or kept with the Hogon (Laude, 20). The importance of secrecy is due to the symbolic meaning behind the pieces and the process by which they are made.

Themes found throughout Dogon sculpture consist of figures with raised arms, superimposed bearded figures, horsemen, stools with caryatids, women with children, figures covering their faces, women grinding millet, women bearings vessels on their heads, donkeys bearing cups, musicians, dogs, quadrupled-shaped troughs or benches, figures bending from the waist, mirror-images, aproned figures, and standing figures(Laude, 46-52). Signs of other contacts and origins are evident in Dogon art. The Dogon people were not the first inhabitants of the cliffs of Bandiagara. Influence from Tellem art is evident in Dogon art because of its rectilinear designs (Laude, 24).

[edit] Culture and religion

The majority of Dogon practice an animist religion, including the ancestral spirit Nommo, with its festivals and Sirian mythology. A significant minority of the Dogon practice Islam, and some have been converted by missionaries to Christianity.

The Dogon record their ancestry through a patrilineal system. Each Dogon community, or enlarged family, is headed by one male elder. This chief head is the oldest living son of the ancestor of the local branch of the family. According to the NECEP database, within this patrilineal system polygynic marriages, with up to four spouses are common. However, some men have only one wife. Formally, wives only join their husband's residence unit after the birth of their first child. An enlarged family can count up to hundred persons and is called guinna.

The Hogon is the spiritual leader of the village. He is elected between the oldest men of the enlarged families of the village. After his election he has to follow a six-month initiation period, during which he is not allowed to shave or wash. He wears white cloths and nobody is allowed to touch him. He also continually sings opera during this time period. A young virgin that has not yet had her period takes care of him, cleans the house and prepares his meals. She returns to her home during the night. After his initiation, he will wear a red bonnet. He has an armband with a sacred pearl that symbolises his function. The virgin is replaced by one of his wives, but she also returns to her home at night. The Hogon has to live alone in his house. During the night, the sacred snake Lébé comes to clean him and to transfer wisdom.

The Dogon maintain an agricultural mode of subsistence, and cultivate millet, sorghum and rice, as well as onions, tobacco, peanuts, and some other vegetables. Marcel Griaule stimulated the construction of a dam near Sangha and incited the Dogon to cultivate onions. The economy of the Sangha region doubled since then and onions are sold as far as on the market of Bamako or even in Ivory Coast. They also raise sheep, goats and chickens. Grain is stored in granaries.

[edit] Circumcision

Boys are circumcised in age groups of three years, counting for example all boys between 9 and 12 years old. This marks the end of their youth, and they are now initiated. The blacksmith performs the circumcision. Afterwards, they stay for a few days in a hut separated from the rest of the village people, until the wound has healed. The circumcision is a reason for celebration and the initiated boys go around and receive presents. They make music on a special instrument that is made of a rod of wood and calabashes that makes the sound of a rattle. The village of Songho has a circumcision cave ornamented with red and white rock paintings of animals and plants. Nearby is a cave where music instruments are stored. The newly circumcized men must walk around naked for a moon after the procedure so that their acheivement in age can be admired by the citizens of the tribe. This practice has been passed down for generations and is always followed, even during winter.

They are one of several African ethnic groups which practice female circumcision, also called excision. According to Sékou Ogobara Dolo, at least in the Sangha region, the milder form is practiced. This means that only the clitoral hood is removed, which is similar to male circumcision. Girls are circumsized around the age of 7 or 8 years, sometimes younger. Circumcision for both male and female is seen as necessary for the individual to gain gender. Before circumcision they are seen as 'neuter'.

[edit] Funeral Masquerade

Due to the expense, their traditional funeral rituals or “damas” are becoming very rare. They may be performed years after the death. Damas that are still performed today are not usually performed for their original intent, but instead are done as a source of entertainment for tourists interested in the Dogon way of life. The Dogon use this entertainment to gain profit by charging the tourists money for what masks they want to see and the ritual itself (Davis, 68). The traditional dama consists of a masquerade that essentially leads the souls of the departed to their final resting places through a series of ritual dances and rites. Dogon damas include the use of many masks and statuettes. Each Dogon village may differ in the designs of the masks used in the dama ritual. Every village may have their own way of performing the dama rituals. The dama consists of an event, known as the Halic, immediately after the death of a person and lasts for one day (Davis, 68). According to Shawn R. Davis, this particular ritual incorporates the elements of the yingim and the danyim. During the yincomoli ceremony, a gourd is smashed over the deceased’s wooden bowl, hoe, and bundukamba, (burial blanket), which announces the entrance of the masks used in this ceremony while the deceased entrance to their home in the family compound is decorated with ritual elements (Davis, 72-73). Masks used during the yincomoli ceremony include the Yana Gulay mask, the Satimbe mask, the Sirigie mask, and the Kanaga mask. The Yana Gulay mask’s purpose is to impersonate a Fulani woman and is made from cotton cloth and cowell shells. The Satimbe mask represents the women ancestors who are said to have discovered the purpose of the masks by guiding the spirits of the deceased into the afterlife. (Davis, 74) The Sirigie mask is a tall mask that is only used in funerals for the men that were alive during the holding of the Sigui ceremony (see below) (Davis, 68). The Kanaga masqueraders, at one point, dance and sit next to the bundkamba which represents the deceased.

The yingim and the danyim rituals each last a few days. These events are held annually to honor the elders that have died since the last Dama. The yingim consists of the sacrifice of cows, or other valuable animals, and large mock battles performed in order to help chase the spirit, known as the nyama, from the deceased body and village and towards the path to the afterlife (Davis, 68). The danyim then takes place a couple of months later. During the danyim, masqueraders perform dances every morning and evening for anytime up to six days depending on how that village performs this ritual. The masqueraders dance on the deceased’s rooftops, throughout the village, and the area of fields around the village (Davis, 68). Until the masqueraders have completed their dances and every ritual has been performed, it is said that any misfortune can be blamed on the remaining spirits of the dead (Davis, 68).

[edit] Cults

The Dogon know different cults:

• Sigui: the most important ceremony of the Dogon. It takes place every 65 years and can take several years. The last one started in 1967 and ended in 1973, the next one will start in 2032. The Sigui ceremony symbolises the dead of the first ancestor (not to be confounded with Lébé) till the moment that humanity acquired the use of the spoken word. The Sigui is a long procession that starts and ends in the village of Youga Dogorou and goes from one village to the other during several months or years. All men wear masks and dance in long processions. The Sigui has a secret language that women are not allowed to learn. The secret Society of Sigui plays a central role in the ceremony. They prepare the ceremonies a long time in advance, and they live for three months hidden outside of the villages while nobody is allowed to see them. The men from the Society of Sigui are called the Oloubarou. The villagers are afraid of them and fear is cultivated by a prohibition to go out at night, when sounds warn that the Oloubarou are out. The most important mask that plays a major role in the Sigui rituals is the Great Mask or the Mother of Masks. It is several meters long and is just held up by hand and not used to hide a face. This mask is newly created every 65 years.
• The Amma cult: worships the main, creator god Amma. The celebration is once a year and consists of offering boiled millet on the conical altar of Amma, colouring it white.
• The Lébé cult: worships the sacred snake Lébé, who was the first mortal human being. Lébé was transformed into a snake. The celebration is once a year and takes three days. The altar is a pointed conic structure on which the Hogon offers boiled millet while mentioning in his benediction eight grains plus one. Afterwards, the Hogon performs some rituals in his house that is also the home of Lébé. The last day, all the village men visit all the Binou altars and dance three times around the Lébé altar. The Hogon invites everybody that assisted to drink millet beer.
• The Binou cult: uses totems, common ones for the entire village and individual ones for totem priests. A totem animal is worshipped on a Binou altar. Totems are for example the buffalo for Ogol-du-Haut, and the panther for Ogol-du-Bas. Normally, nobody will ever be harmed by its own totem animal, even if this is a crocodile as for the village of Amani. Here is a large pool of crocodiles that do not harm any villager. However, a totem animal might exceptionally harm if one has done something wrong. A worshipper is not allowed to eat his totem. For example, an individual with a buffalo as totem is not allowed to eat buffalo meat, but also not to use leather from its skin and even not to see a buffalo die. If this happens by accident he has to organise a purification sacrifice at the Binou altar. Boiled millet is offered and goats and chickens are sacrificed on a Binou altar. This colours the altar both white and red. Binou altars look like little houses with a door. They are bigger when the altar is for an entire village. A village altar has also the ‘cloud hook’, that will catch clouds and make it rain.
• The twin cult: the birth of twins is a sign of good luck. The enlarged Dogon families have cult rituals during which they evoke all their ancestors till their origin, the ancient pair of twins from the creation of the world myth.
• The Mono cult: the Mono altar is at the entry of every village. Unmarried young men celebrate the Mono cult once a year in January or February. They spend the night around the altar, singing and screaming and waving with fire torches. They hunt for mice that will be sacrificed on the altar at dawn.

[edit] Dogon villages

Dogon villages have different buildings:

• Male granary: storage place for millet and other grains. Building with a pointed roof. This building is well protected from mice. The amount of filled male granaries is an indication for the size and the richness of a guinna.

• Female granary: storage place for a woman's things, her husband has no access. Building with a pointed roof. It looks like a male granary but is less protected against mice. Here, she stores her personal belongings such as clothes, jewelry, money and some food. A woman is economically independent and earnings and things related to her merchandise are stored in her personal granary. She can for example make cotton or pottery. The amount of female granaries is an indication for the amount of women living in the guinna.
• Toguna (also called case a palabres): building only for men. They rest, discuss and take important decisions in the toguna. The roof of a toguna is made by 8 layers of millet stems. It is a low building in which one cannot stand upright. This helps avoiding violence when discussions get heated.

• House for women that have their period: this house is on the outside of the village. It is constructed by women and is of lower quality than the other village buildings. Women having their period are considered as unclean and have to leave their family house to live during five days in this house. They use kitchen equipment only to be used here. They bring with them their youngest children. This house is a gathering place for women during the evening.

[edit] Languages

Main article: Dogon languages

Dogon has been frequently referred to as a single language. In reality, there are at least five distinct groups of dialects^[1] The Dogon language family is internally highly diverse, and many varieties are not mutually intelligible, actually 12 dialects and 50 variations. There is also a secret language Sigui So, which is used by the Society of the Masks during the Sigui ceremonies. Women have no right to learn Sigui So.

It is generally accepted that the Dogon languages belong to the Niger-Congo language family, but there is less certainty about their place within this family. The Dogon group has been linked to the Mande subfamily but also to Gur. In a recent overview of the Niger-Congo phylum, Dogon is treated as an independent branch before Volta-Congo. ^[2]

The Dogon languages show few remnants of a noun class system (one example is that human nouns take a distinct plural suffix), leading linguists to conclude that Dogon is likely to have diverged from Niger-Congo very early. Another indication of this is the Subject Object Verb basic word order, which Dogon shares with such early Niger-Congo branches as Ijoid and Mande. It is a passive voice language.

[edit] Mythology

According to Robert Temple, the central element of Dogon cosmogony and cosmology is the star Sirius, which they call Po Tolo. This star was the seed of the Milky Way galaxy and is the "navel" of the entire universe. The Dogon describe the universe as "infinite, but measurable", and filled with many yalu ulo, or spiral star systems, including the one containing the Earth's sun. According to the Dogon perception of the universe, most of the universe is part of the "external" star system, while nearer to Earth is the "internal" star system. The stars in the "internal" system include many that they claim affect the lives of people of Earth and play a part in human history, including not only the Sirius star system, but also Orion, Pleiades and others.

An ethnic group that lives near the Dogon, the Bozo, have a similar mythology about Sirius in the sky and refer to it as the "Eye Star".

[edit] Controversy

A number of researchers investigating the Dogon have reported apparent knowledge that has subsequently become embroiled in controversy. From 1931 to 1956, two French anthropologist Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen spent 25 years with the Dogon, during which time they were initiated into the tribe.^[3] Griaule and Dieterlen reported that the Dogon appeared to know of the companions star, Sirius B, the rings of Saturn, and the Moons of Jupiter, which are usually considered invisible to the unaided eye;^[4] In 1852 American missionary D.T. Stoddart wrote a letter to astronomer John Herschel that ".. at twighlight, Jupiter's satellites could be seen with the naked eye and the elongated shape of Saturn also.", according to pseudoscientist Hunter Adams ^[5]

MIT professor of physics, Kenneth Brecher, commented that "They (the Dogon) have no business knowing any of this".^[6], and the controversy escalated when author Robert Temple suggested an extra-terrestrial source of the Dogon's knowledge.^[7] Griaule and Dieterlen made no claims on the source of the Dogon's knowledge. While it seems highly improbable that the Dogon should possess such information, it also seems improbable that cultural contamination would have included such specialized knowledge. The Dogon have a migratory history which could help to explain their interest in stellar phenomena.

[edit] Robert Temple

Robert Temple, in his 1975 book The Sirius Mystery, devoted a central role to the Dogon to support his theory on ancient astronauts. Temple claimed that while interviewing the Dogon he found that they had information on Sirius and its companion star, Sirius B which they also incorporated into their rituals. Since Sirius B is invisible without a telescope, and the Dogon did not have telescopes or other astronomical technology, Temple had argued that the only way they could have obtained the information on Sirius B was by contact with an advanced civilization. Therefore, Temple concluded that aliens from the Sirius star system personally visited the Dogons and made them familiar with the operation of their astronomical home.

Since the release of Temple's book, many scholars have offered alternative explanations for Temple's claims.

• Astronomer Carl Sagan dealt with the issue in his book Broca's Brain (1979), stating that there are many problems with Temple's hypothesis. As an example Sagan mentions that the Dogon seem to have no knowledge of another planet beyond Saturn which has rings, which would suggest that their knowledge is more likely from European, and not extra-terrestrial sources.

• Another astronomer, Ian Ridpath, points out in an article in the Skeptical Inquirer (1978), "The whole Dogon legend of Sirius and its companions is riddled with ambiguities, contradictions, and downright errors, at least if we try to interpret it literally".^[8] Ridpath stated that while the information that the Dogon probably gained from Europeans to some extent resembles the facts about Sirius, the presumed original Dogon knowledge on the star is very far from the facts.

• Journalist and skeptic James Oberg collected claims that have appeared concerning Dogon mythology in his 1982 book.^[9] According to Oberg, the Dogon's astronomical information resembles the knowledge and speculations of European astronomical knowledge of the late 1920's. The Dogon could have gotten their astronomical knowledge, including the information on Sirius, from European visitors before their mythology was recorded in the 1930s. Oberg also points out that the Dogons were not an isolated tribe, and thus it was not even necessary for outsiders to inform the Dogon about Sirius B. They could very well have acquired such knowledge abroad, passing it on to their tribe later. (Sirius B was first observed in 1862, and had been predicted in 1844 on dynamic grounds.^[10]) In this way, by the time Temple visited the Dogon in the 1970s, they had had a great deal of contact with the western world and had time to incorporate Sirius B into their religion. A more likely explanation is that Temple had questionable translators.

Temple's book and the debates that followed its release publicised the existence of the Dogon tribe among many New Age followers and proponents of ancient astronaut theories. Speculation about the Dogons on numerous websites is now mingled with fact, and with Temple's explanations on Dogons, leading to controversy among the public about Dogon mythology.

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] The people

• Marcel Griaule: Conversations With Ogotemmeli: An Introduction To Dogon Religious Ideas. 1st. ed. 1965. ISBN 0-19-519821-2
• Marcel Griaule: Dieu d'eau. Entretiens avec Ogotemmêli. (1966) Ed Fayard. ISBN 2-213-59847-9 (the original French work of Griaule (that was published in 1948) on his discussions with Ogotemmêli)
• Bedaux, R. & J.D. van der Waals (eds.) (2003) Dogon: mythe en werkelijkheid in Mali [Dogon: myth and reality in Mali]. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology.
• Morton, Robert (ed.) & Hollyman, Stephenie (photographs) & Walter E.A. van Beek (text) (2001) Dogon: Africa's people of the cliffs. New York: Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-4373-5
• Wanono, Nadine & Renaudeau, Michel (1996) Les Dogon (photographs by Michel Renaudeau; text by Nadine Wanono). Paris: Éditions du Chêne-Hachette. ISBN 2-85108-937-4
• Eds. Petit Futé. Mali 2005-2006 ISBN 2-7469-1185-X
• Sékou Ogobara Dolo: La mère des masques. Un Dogon raconte. (2002) Eds. Seuil ISBN 2-02-041133-4
• Gerard Beaudoin: Les Dogon du Mali (1997) Ed. BDT Développement. ISBN 2-9511030-0-X

[edit] The languages

• Bertho, J. (1953) 'La place des dialectes dogon de la falaise de Bandiagara parmi les autres groupes linguistiques de la zone soudanaise,' Bulletin de l'IFAN, 15, 405–441.
• Blench, Roger (2001) 'A Survey of Dogon languages in Mali: Overview'. Retrieved June 26, 2005.
• Hochstetler, J. Lee, Durieux, J.A. & E.I.K. Durieux-Boon (2004) Sociolinguistic Survey of the Dogon Language Area. SIL International. online version
• Williamson, Kay & Blench, Roger (2000) 'Niger-Congo', in Heine, Bernd and Nurse, Derek (eds) African Languages - An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, pp. 11—42.

[edit] Dogon Art & Funeral Masquerade

• Laude, Jean. African Art of the Dogon: The Myths of the Cliff Dwellers (New York: The Viking Press 1973).
• Davis , Shawn R. “Dogon Funerals” in African Art; Summer 2002, Vol. 35 Issue 2

[edit] The Sirius controversy

• Temple, Robert (1998 {rev. exp.}) The Sirius Mystery.

• Oberg, James (1982) UFOs and Outer Space Mysteries.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dogon

• The contribution of linguistics and language studies in unravelling the history of the Dogon Plateau
• "Dogon and Sirius" from The Skeptic's Dictionary.
• "Excerpt from The Sirius Mystery" by James Oberg.
• Travel to Dogon country
• Photos of Dogon country
• The Dogon and Sirius. Discusses Griale's original information with astronomical tests.