On the great Bandiagara escarpment, in central Mali, live the Dogon, a farming people who built their villages among the rocks, the scree slopes and the plateau. Their clay houses, thatched granaries and carved masks are among the best-known images of West Africa. But the Dogon's fame in Europe is tied above all to their cosmology, which has been the subject of celebrated studies and equally famous controversies.
Griaule and Ogotemmêli
The French ethnologist Marcel Griaule worked for many years among the Dogon from the 1930s onwards. In 1948 he published Dieu d'eau («God of Water»), an account of a series of conversations with an elderly blind hunter named Ogotemmêli, who reportedly revealed to him the deep knowledge of his people.
The book presented a system of thought of great complexity and beauty, comparable to the great cosmologies of the ancient world. It was hugely successful and changed the way many Europeans looked at African cultures, showing that a people without writing could also possess a structured philosophy.
Amma and the Nommo
In the account gathered by Griaule, at the origin of everything is Amma, the creator god. Amma shaped the world and brought forth primordial beings called Nommo, spirits linked to water, often depicted as twins, with features partly human and partly resembling fish or serpents.
Some of the main themes of this cosmology are:
- twinness as the ideal condition of being, because it unites male and female;
- the disorder introduced by a rebellious primordial being, who breaks the harmony of creation;
- the word as creative force, transmitted through weaving, smithing and work in the fields;
- the correspondence between the human body, the house, the village and the universe.
In this vision, every everyday gesture, from weaving to building, repeats on a small scale the work of creation.
The masks and the Awa society
Dogon masks are kept and danced by the men's society called Awa. There are many types of masks, representing animals, human figures, trades and characters from social life. Some of the best known are:
| Mask | Features |
|---|---|
| Kanaga | topped by a double-cross structure, with arms pointing up and down |
| Sirige | very tall, pole-shaped, evoking a multi-storey house |
| Satimbe | topped by a female figure, recalling women's role in the discovery of the masks |
Masks play a central role in the funeral ceremonies called dama, which accompany the souls of the dead out of the village and towards the condition of ancestors. The dance of the masks serves to restore the order disturbed by death.
The Sigui
The rarest and most solemn Dogon ceremony is the Sigui, held roughly every sixty years. According to tradition, it commemorates the first death and the origin of speech among human beings. The Sigui unfolds over several years, moving from village to village along the escarpment. For the occasion a great mask is carved, the imina na or «great mask», which represents the mythical ancestor and is kept in a shelter.
Men taking part in the Sigui for the first time learn a secret language, sigi so, reserved for the mask society. Since the ceremony recurs decades apart, most people see only one in their lifetime.
The question of Sirius
Griaule and his collaborator Germaine Dieterlen also published studies claiming that some Dogon sages knew astronomical details about the star Sirius and a companion invisible to the naked eye. These claims were taken up by writers who drew sensationalist theories of extraterrestrial contact from them.
In later years, the Dutch anthropologist Walter van Beek carried out new fieldwork among the Dogon and found no confirmation of that knowledge. Many scholars now believe that part of the system described by Griaule was the product of a complex dialogue between the ethnologist and his informants, shaped by the questions asked and by mutual expectations.
The debate does not diminish the value of Dogon culture. It does, however, teach a lesson in method: every ethnographic testimony must be read with an eye to who gathers it and how.
The hogon
The spiritual leader of a group of villages is the hogon, an elder who lives in ritual seclusion and observes many rules of purity. He is regarded as the guardian of cosmic order and of the earth's fertility, linked to the cult of Lebe, the ancestor associated with the serpent.
In short
- The Dogon live on the Bandiagara escarpment in Mali and are known for their architecture, masks and cosmology.
- Marcel Griaule described their thought in Dieu d'eau, based on conversations with Ogotemmêli.
- Amma is the creator god; the Nommo are primordial beings linked to water and twinness.
- The masks of the Awa society accompany the dead; the Sigui recurs roughly every sixty years.
- The claims about Sirius have been challenged by later research, such as that of Walter van Beek.
