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Dogon country is one of the most fascinating areas to visit in Mali.

 

Most of the Dogon villages are along the Bandiagara escarpment east of Mopti (the 2nd largest city in Mali).

The Dogon villages were established some thousand years ago because of the Dogon people’s collective refusal to convert to Islam. To aid their defense, they located their villages in the rocks along the walls of the escarpment. The Dogon still practice an animistic religion even though Islam is now widespread and there are pockets of Christianity.

The Dogon mask dances are famous. Above is a picture of one performance.

 

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On the left is our GPS track in red and the Dogon villages we visited.

 

We spent 6 days in the area hiking (NE to SW) a total of 40 miles and sleeping for 5 nights on roof tops in the villages.

 

Nianamou, our guide, was from Yendouma (farthest north) but lives now near Mopti. We were very fortunate to have Nianamou because of his Dogon background.

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On the left is a map of Dogon country displayed on fabric.

 

Even though the Dogon tried to escape Islam a long time ago, many are now Muslims and one finds Islamic mosques frequently like the one in Sangha on the right and below.

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The iconic architectural feature found in Dogon villages is thatch roofs on the circular storage buildings for grains (mostly millet and sorghum), and small square buildings with mud roofs for homes. Each home has a small walled-in courtyard.

 

Because the houses are so small, everyone sleeps on the roofs. Most villages only have electricity from rare generators.

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We never got tired of looking at these villages!

 

Before storage the grains are dried on the roof tops.

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The village of Sangha has a circumcision cave ornamented with red and white rock paintings of animals and plants. The picture on the left and the next three show that cave.

 

In Dogon thought, male and females are born with both sexual components. The clitoris is considered male, while the foreskin is considered to be female. Rites of circumcision thus allow each sex to assume its proper physical identity. 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. Nearby is a cave where music instruments are stored. The newly circumcised boys must walk around naked for a month after the procedure so that their achievement in age can be admired by the citizens of the tribe. This practice has been

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passed down for generations and is always followed, even during winter.

 

 

 

The Dogon are one of several African ethnic groups that practices female genital mutilation. The majority of the Dogon women practice a class 2 circumcision, meaning that both the clitoris and the labia minora are removed. Girls are circumcised 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'. There are people – even a famous local man – who go village to village trying to convince people to stop this practice.

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Nianamou shows us the cave where music instruments are stored.

 

 

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The views from our hikes on the escarpments down to Dogon villages and to the Sahel behind were always amazing.

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The structure on the left is quite common. This palaver house is a building only for men. They rest here much of the day throughout the heat of the dry season, discuss affairs and take important decisions. The roof of a palaver house is made by layers of millet stalks. It is a low building in which one cannot stand upright. This helps avoiding violence when discussions get heated.

 

Clever idea.

 

Trekking through Dogon country.

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Dogon architecture. This is of the compound where the village fetishes are kept.

 

Wood carvings right and below.

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The Dogon are famous for their carved doors.

 

Unfortunately, in the past tourists have convinced locals to sell the masterpieces, so now only “new” doors can be seen.

 

On the right is a divination site.

 

During the day the sand is marked with various features (rocks, sticks, lines and mounds) based on questions from the locals. Nocturnal fox tracks are then divined in the morning to provide answers to the questions.

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Behind the Dogon villages, against the escarpment are the villages of the original inhabitants of the Bandiagara Escarpment. These peoples are referred to as the Tellem, who buried their dead in caves on the cliff face. They also made some of the earliest cloth and wooden objects found in sub-Saharan Africa. The Dogon believe they were a magical people who could fly. It is believed they were hunters; the Dogon are cultivators.

 

There are two main theories as to why the Tellem disappeared. The first is that the Dogon cut down the forests here so they could farm, depriving the Tellem of their traditional means of survival; the other is that the Dogon drove them away by force.

 

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Here are photos of more Tellem old (abandoned) villages and the caves above. These villages are behind practically every Dogon village, so we walked/climbed  through as many of these as we did the Dogon villages.

 

 

 

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Left and below, Dogon doors.

 

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A baobab tree. The “skirts” on the bottom are caused by harvesting the bark which is used to make baskets, mats, etc.

 

 

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There are a couple of theories as to why the Dogon came here (14th, 15th century) – drought and to escape invaders in the old Ghana Empire, and to seek refuge in the cliffs to avoid being taken slaves by either forces of the Songhay ruler or by bands of Mossi calvary.

 

After the Tellem departed, the Dogon’s main enemy were Islamic Peul, nomadic cattle herders from the plains who attacked from horseback. By living in the rocks they were safer from these attacks.

 

The Peul are today’s 2nd largest minority and are everywhere in Mali, particularly in the Niger Inland Delta (where we visited Peul villages)

 

 

One stays over night in Dogon villages by pitching a tent on the roof. It was quite warm and all is needed are pads and a mosquito net. We were lucky and there were no mosquitoes.

 

Just a few years ago, tourists had to sleep on the roof of the chief’s house.

 

Now many villages have a special building built for tourists.

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A storage hut under construction.

 

Goats are not acrophobic!

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The baboon on the right seemed to be quite tame and docile.

 

When Juergen was within the reach of his chain, he leaped forward and scratched his foot pretty badly.

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We bought this wooden lock from the craftsman.

 

The inside of a ripe baobab fruit is very tasty (sweet). Baobab trees are useful in several ways: the leaves for seasoning, the bark for mats etc., and the fruit for food.

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These are red and white hibiscus flowers that are used in many dishes.

 

An open air Muslim service. This is Saudi Arabia at work. “They” come into a village here and offer free education in Saudi Arabia. A boy goes and is given a Wahabi education (like Taliban) and then returned to Mali with the instruction to convert the others.

 

They’re doing this worldwide.

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Millet beer is very common in Dogon country. Here is Juergen’s first try.

 

 

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This is a very high chief.

 

Exploring villages.

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Baobab tree with bark harvesting scars.

 

These ‘sculptures’ are found everywhere and have a deep spiritual meaning. They are  fetishes, part of the animist religion.

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Up and down the escarpment.

 

 

 

 

After crossing the top of the escarpment and before dropping down into another village.

 

It’s literally “dropping down.” We trekked down on such steep paths/rocks that we’d be down in just a few minutes.

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The villages have their farms between the escarpment and the Sahel.

 

 

 

 

 

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Wooden bridges across crevasses. The Dogon are amazing at woodwork, and these bridges are extremely stable.

 

Needless to say, Yvonne did not look down.

 

 

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In the crevasses one often finds water reservoirs and local women often come from considerable distances to fill the water buckets.

 

Some of the ups and downs are quite steep.

 

All of those branches are a safety net over a crevasse in case one slips when going down.

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Looking back up at the “safety net.”

 

 

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It was fun when our descent down the escarpment took us through the old Tellem villages.

These are very like our Hopi cliff dwellings, and are there for the same reason.

 

 

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Very little of the 40 mile hike was level…

 

 

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Nianamou is usually greeted with millet beer (or water) upon his arrival to a village.

 

It’s a riot to watch Dogons greet each other. They practice a custom of elaborate greetings. This custom is repeated over and over, throughout a Dogon village, all day. During a greeting ritual, the person who has entered the contact answers a series of questions about his or her whole family, from the person who was already there. Invariably, the answer is “sewa,” which means that everything is fine. Then the Dogon who has entered the contact repeats the ritual, asking the resident how his or her whole family is. Because the word sewa is so commonly repeated throughout a Dogon village, neighboring peoples have dubbed the Dogon the sewa people.

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A storage hut with yeast for the millet beer hanging on the outside.

 

 

 

 

The young in Dogon country no longer want to live in the rocks and are setting up villages on rectangular grids on the flat land below.

 

Some old people refuse to leave the old villages so their relatives have to carry food up to them.

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This is a Dogon religious house reserved only for the spiritual leader of the village. He is elected by elders of the village. When he dies, another one is elected. In the particular case here, someone was elected and afterwards they found out he had converted to Islam. Since that is incompatible with their traditional animistic belief system, he can’t serve. But since he was elected, nobody else can be elected. The person on the left is a caretaker until the unsuitable person dies.

 

 

In this special building, built in a hard-to-get-to place, is kept the traditional fetish (one for each family) for several villages.

 

Any question a member of the community wants answered by the religious leader requires him to know which fetish is necessary for the rite. A rite cannot take place without the fetish.

 

Not too long ago, Muslims destroyed such a building along with all the fetishes. This may put the animistic religion at greater risk of losing members to Islam, as they no longer have the security of their own religion.

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The caretaker (in black) and a helper (orange) are responsible for the building above.

 

 

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This little boy belonged to the caretaker family living close by.

 

The Dogon religious building described above.

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One of the Christian churches we found (Catholic).

 

We thought the church bell (a former truck wheel) was imaginative and practical. It had a nice sound.

 

 

 

 

 

We came up that cleft, walked around the village, then hiked back down to the village where we stayed.

 

The scenery was all jaw-dropping – but it would have been far different if we had just been driven to each village.

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Some of the cliff dwellings are difficult to get to; many require ropes.

 

No one lives in these any more.

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A palaver house with a view. Another interesting Dogon culture feature is that these palaver houses are where the elders provide service to the community. They settle disputes here between community members – both neighbors and within a family. At one village, when it was dark and we were all in bed, a couple started a very noisy conversation. We couldn’t tell if it was a fight or not, but they were definitely disturbing the peace. In the morning we mentioned it to Nianamou and he said that he imagined they’d both be summoned to the palaver house this morning to meet with the elders!

 

 

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In the village of Borko there is a pond with sacred African dwarf crocodiles. During the rainy season they have many places to go but when we were there they were all in this one pond.

 

The villagers live side-by-side with them. When we asked Niamanou how this was possible, he told us that the villagers make near-daily offerings to them of chickens…

 

These crocodiles are mostly extinct elsewhere; this sacredness has saved them here.

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The African dwarf crocodile (sometimes called African caiman) is the smallest extant crocodile species in the world. Medium adult length is 5’.

 

Still wouldn’t want to get close to them…

 

 

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Millet beer is made exclusively by women and they also sell it. It takes a lot of boiling in these huge vats.

 

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. 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.

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Dogon damas include the use of many masks held on by securing them in their teeth.

 

 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.

 

Even though these masked dances are performed for tourists, they’re still profoundly religious and traditional. They’re really performed for the elders (above and below) who judge, advise and criticize the performers. On the left Nianamou greets one of the elders.

 

 

 

 

These dancers have to be among the strongest as their dance consists of making big circles with the Kananga mask, bowing and scraping the top of the mask on the ground and then lifting it high, again and again. This mask is quite heavy.

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The most famous of the performers are probably the ones on stilts.

 

This shows they’re close to heaven.

 

 

 

 

Yvonne and Nianamou are on the right.

 

This entire 45-minute dance was put on just for us.

 

The elders are standing in the background.

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Rabbit mask.

 

 

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Goiter mask.

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At the end, we play tourists and have our pictures taken with the performers and the elders.

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During our treks we saw this hunter with a rifle who did not want to be photographed.

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Another sleeping site on the top of someone’s roof. From there, we took the church picture below.

 

 

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Above, left and below is a Catholic church.

 

The church bell is a propane gas cylinder. Didn’t sound bad.

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Trekking along the escarpment.

 

 

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Another of our roof camping sites.

 

 

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Interesting mosque.

 

Gun repair shop.

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Above, right and below Dogon ladders bridging crevasses.

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It was quite hot during the day. Fortunately, there was plenty of good beer.

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Yvonne trying millet beer.

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