|
Tribe Snapshots Dogon |
| Location: |
Southeastern Mali, Burkina Faso |
| Population: |
100,000 |
| Language: |
Dogon (Voltaic) |
| Neighboring
Peoples: |
Mossi, Nuna, Nunuma, Winiama, Bwa, Bozo |
| Types
of Art: |
The Dogon are best known for their extensive
carving of masks and wooden figurative art. The
primary colors used by the Dogon are usually red,
black, and white, and popular patterns include
spirals and checkerboard motifs, both of which
can be traced to their origin stories. |
| History: |
Early history is informed by oral traditions,
which claim that the Dogon originated from the
west bank of the Niger River (10th to 13th centuries).
They emigrated west to northern Burkino Faso,
where local histories describe them as kibsi.
Around 1490, they fled a region now known as the
northern Mossi kingdom of Yatenga when it was
invaded by Mossi calvary. They ended up in the
Bandiagara cliffs region, safe from the approaching
horsemen. Carbon-14 dating techniques used on
excavated remains found in the cliffs suggest
that there were inhabitants in the region before
the arrival in the Dogon, dating back to the 10th
century. Those Dogon who did not flee were incorporated
into Mossi society and were known as the Nyonyose,
or descendants of the first inhabitants. |
| Economy: |
The Dogon grow onions which are exported throughout
the Sudan region. They also grow millet and sorghum,
which is consumed locally. Like so many agricultural
people of Africa, the land and its bounty plays
an important part in the religious views of the
Dogon. The Lebe cult is primarily concerned with
agricultural renewal, and altars devoted to it
have bits of earth incorporated into them to encourage
the continued fertility of the land. The most
important agricultural rite is the bulu, which
immediately precedes the first rains and planting. |
| Political
Systems: |
Social stratification among the Dogon involves
a complex ordering of individuals based on their
position within various social groups defined
either by descent or locality. Groupings include
clan, village, patrilineage, and, for men, an
age-set or -grade. Each of these groups is hierarchically
ordered based on age and the rules of descent,
and all of the group levels interact with one
another, so that one who is generally well respected
within the family will most likely hold an important
position within society. |
| Religion: |
Dogon religion is defined primarily through
the worshiping of the ancestors and the spirits
whom they encountered as they moved across the
Western Sudan. The Awa society is responsible
for carrying out the rituals, which allow the
deceased to leave the world of the living and
enter the world of the dead. Public rites include
funerary rites (bago bundo) and the dama ceremony,
which marks the end of the mourning period. Awa
society members are also responsible for planning
the sigui ceremonies, which commence every sixty
years to hand on the function of the dead initiates
to the new recruits. All of these rites involve
masking traditions and are carried out only by
initiated males who have learned the techniques
needed to impersonate the supernaturals. The leader
of the Awa society is the olaburu who is a master
of the language of the bush (sigi so). The society
is divided in accordance with age-grades, ignoring
traditional lineage and hierarchical ordering
within the village. |
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