Dogon
The Dogon are an Indigenous people primarily residing in the Bandiagara Escarpment region of Mali, known for their rich cultural heritage and traditional lifestyle. They have gained international attention for their unique folklore, particularly related to the Sirius star system, which has led to intriguing theories about ancient knowledge and potential extraterrestrial contact. With a population of around 100,000, the Dogon invite tourists to explore their villages, a region recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1989.
Historically, the Dogon migrated from the Niger River area due to invasions in the 15th century, seeking refuge in the protective cliffs of Bandiagara. Their oral traditions emphasize a creation myth involving ancestral spirits called the Nommo, connecting them to the Sirius stars. The Dogon languages, part of the Niger-Congo family, highlight the group's linguistic diversity, with Toro So being the most widely spoken.
Culturally, the Dogon are known for their vibrant arts, particularly wooden sculptures and ceremonial masks, and they engage in traditional agricultural practices, primarily cultivating millet, rice, and onions. In recent years, they have faced significant challenges, including threats to education from local terrorist groups impacting school safety. Despite these difficulties, the Dogon maintain their cultural identity through rituals, dance, and a deep connection to their ancestral lands.
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Dogon
The Dogon are an Indigenous West African people based primarily in the Bandiagara Escarpment region of Mali. Although many members of the Nation continue to live a traditional lifestyle, the Dogon are well known for welcoming tourists into their villages. Taking trips into what is commonly called "Dogon Country" or the "Land of the Dogon" is a popular activity for visitors to the region. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognizes the Land of the Dogon as a World Heritage Site.
As the result of anthropological studies that began in the 1930s, the Dogon also gained international notoriety for their traditional folktales and legends regarding the Sirius star system. These tales appear to include information regarding the Sirius system that would have been impossible for the Dogon to ascertain without the use of telescopes, which the Nation did not have. Despite much skepticism, this curious episode has given rise to theories that the Dogon may have had contact with ancient astronauts or extraterrestrial beings.
Brief History
According to the oral traditions of the Dogon people, the Nation originally lived on the western banks of the Niger River, the third-longest river on the continent. These traditions place the origins of the Dogon as a distinct ethnic group around the tenth century. From the Niger River, the Dogon migrated west into the northern part of modern-day Burkina Faso. During the latter years of the fifteenth century, the Dogon were displaced by the invading Mossi people and fled to the cliffs of the Bandiagara Escarpment region of present-day Mali, which offered natural protection from the horse-mounted Mossi warriors. The Dogon have populated the Bandiagara Escarpment ever since.
During the 1930s, the Dogon were studied by the French anthropologist Marcel Griaule, who published a succession of works about the Nation. Griaule's 1948 work Dieu d'eau: Entretiens avec Ogotemmêli attracted a great deal of international attention. In the book, Griaule relates a complex Dogon creation myth that was told to him by a tribal elder named Ogotemmêli. The myth centers on a group of ancestral spirits the Dogon call the Nommo.
In the myth, the sacrifice of a Nommo spirit known as Ogo created the Sirius star system, which occupies a prominent place in Dogon folklore. Further investigation appeared to reveal that the Dogon had unexplained advanced knowledge of the Sirius system, specifically that Sirius A, its principal star, has a companion star invisible to the naked eye. Indeed, Sirius A is accompanied by a faint white dwarf star, Sirius B, which cannot be seen without a telescope. Yet, the isolated Dogon people had no access to telescopes and very little previous contact with any civilizations that knew about the existence of Sirius B. How they came to acquire this information has been the subject of intense debate ever since.
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In the twenty-first century, the Dogon people have a population of about one hundred thousand, much of which lives in traditional villages in the Bandiagara Escarpment. These villages are accessible to tourists, and the Dogon have earned a reputation for enthusiastically welcoming visitors. UNESCO added the Bandiagara Escarpment–based Land of the Dogon to its official list of World Heritage Sites in 1989.
The Dogon speak a set of Indigenous languages of the Niger-Congo language family collectively known as the Dogon languages, which include Toro So, Jambay, and Tommo So. Toro So is the Dogon people's most widely spoken Indigenous tongue, while small Dogon minority groups across Mali and Burkina Faso speak Jambay and Tommo So. A few Dogon people speak the unique Bangime language, and French is common among modern Dogon. Though Dogon languages are generally accepted as part of the Niger-Congo language family, some language experts classify Dogon as a distinct language isolate with many dialects.
Another definitive aspect of Dogon culture is its strong arts and crafts tradition, which primarily focuses on wooden sculptures of human and animal figures. Many Dogon people decorate their homes with these sculptures, believing they offer a measure of spiritual protection. During ceremonial dances, elaborate face masks, headdresses, and colorful garments and bodily adornments are traditionally worn. Ceremonial dances continue to be an important part of Dogon life. While these dances frequently revolve around agricultural themes, others are held as mourning rituals to honor deceased members of the Nation. Sacrificial offerings, including seeds and grain but also animals, are sometimes used in Dogon religious rituals.
In the twenty-first century, Dogon people living in West Africa practice subsistence agriculture. Their primary export is onions, but the most important crop is millet, which they plant in the early rainy season. The Dogon people also grow rice, beans, peas, peanuts, sesame, and sorghum. The sorghum is used to produce a beer called dolo. To ensure there is enough land to cultivate, they build small, square-raised beds on rock surfaces using small stones and fill them with dirt, manure, and compost. Additionally, they create land hospitable to growing crops by planting trees to provide shade in desert fields. Conservationists call this farming method intermittent shade. Livestock is also important for Dogon people, primarily chickens, goats, and sheep.
Much has been written about the Dogon people's advanced astronomical knowledge. Some hypotheses posit that the ancestral Nommo spirits from Dogon mythology represent ancient astronauts or extraterrestrial beings said to have traveled to Earth from the Sirius star system and contacted the Dogon people during their visit. While such theories have never gained much traction in the scientific community, they gained a sizeable popularity following the 1976 publication of The Sirius Mystery, written by American author Robert Temple. Despite the doubt surrounding Temple's ideas, researchers have never been able to explain definitively how the Dogon came to know about Sirius B without the aid of telescopes.
One leading theory suggests the Dogon learned about the Sirius star system during their limited initial interactions with Western explorers during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Since Sirius A is the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere and is prominent in the traditions of many ancient cultures, it is possible that the Dogon simply revised their existing creation myths to incorporate modern scientific knowledge imparted by European visitors. Another possible explanation claims that Griaule and other anthropologists who studied the Dogon after him either misinterpreted the information the Dogon people gave them or deliberately falsified their findings. Many researchers have conducted anthropological studies of their own that appear to debunk the conclusions reached by earlier authors. Proponents of this explanation have also claimed that the Dogon never possessed the advanced astronomical knowledge attributed to them and that such reports are tantamount to sensationalized fiction.
In the twenty-first century, the Dogon people faced a crisis in education as schools became prime targets for local terrorist organizations for recruitment. Terrorists entered schools and kidnapped students, forcing the children to fight for their cause. Many schools were closed because resources to protect the children attending school were lacking.
Bibliography
Borochoff, Alexis. "15 Things You Didn't Know about the Dogon People of Mali." AFK Travel, 18 Mar. 2015, afktravel.com/86047/15-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-dogon-people-of-mali. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.
Bunch, Roland. "Case Study 1: The Dogon Intermittent Shade." One Earth, 31 May 2024, www.oneearth.org/case-study-1-the-dogon-intermittent-shade. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.
Chheda, Urvi. "Art and Culture of Dogon People of Africa." Daily Art Magazine, 9 Aug. 2023, www.dailyartmagazine.com/art-and-culture-of-dogon-people. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.
"Cliff of Bandiagara (Land of the Dogons)." United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, whc.unesco.org/en/list/516. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.
"The Dogon Art." Sankore Africa, 15 May 2023, www.sankoreafrica.com/en/blogs/noticias/el-arte-dogon. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.
Dougon, Georges. "Dogons in Mali: Between Educational Crisis and Loss of Cultural Heritage." Cultural Survival, 29 July 2024, www.culturalsurvival.org/news/dogons-mali-between-educational-crisis-and-loss-cultural-heritage. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.
Hopkins, A.G. An Economic History of West Africa. Routledge, 2014.
Temple, Robert K.G. The Sirius Mystery. St. Martin's Press, 1976.
van Beek, Walter E. A., et al. “Dogon Restudied: A Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel Griaule [and Comments and Replies].” Current Anthropology, vol. 32, no. 2, 1991, pp. 139–67, doi.org/10.1086/203932. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.