The Dogon of Mali

What would the world be without mysteries? What would it bewithout stories, myths and legends? The world would have a void that cannever be filled. It would be incomplete; forever missing something.

Mysteries and stories are a part of what give life to this Earth of ours.They give us identities, for the peoples of the world can each claim theirown. It matters not some mysteries will never be proven to be true, and itmatters even less many are mere works of fiction; because in an odd andironic twist of fate, many of these mysteries give birth to what grows on tobe fact.

What are we talking about here? We’re talking about those ancienttales that defy all logic and leave us wondering, ‘how?’ We’re talking about

stories that speak truth, but leave us more in doubt than we were beforehearing them. Tales that, by all accounts, should not be true; and yet, theyare.

Perhaps nothing exemplifies this so much as an ancient people whostill walk the world. The Dogon of Mali in West Africa, like all other Africancultures and traditions, have a wealth of myths and stories passed on fromthe genesis of their tribe all through to this day.

The Dogon of today still retain many of the gifts of knowledge theirancestors passed down to them, but none of these ancient gifts havegrabbed and held on to the attention of the Western world so strongly likethat of their astronomical lore.

The Sacred People

To someone looking in on the Dogon people from the outside world,they might seem like just one of many African tribes, but there is so muchmore to these people than that. Until recently, much of the world hadremained ignorant of their existence because the Dogon have isolatedthemselves in the plateau and rocky region of the Bandiagara.

Just like their ancestors, the lives of the Dogon are still devoid of theamenities that are now a staple of the modern world. Electricity, roadsystems and plumbing remain unknown to the Dogon, but it would befallacious to assume this has hindered them in anyway.

The way of life of the Dogon is not one of strife or hardship, no. Theyare a proud people with a proud tradition and heritage that have beenmaintained and unspoiled by colonists, hostile tribes and the modern world.Few other peoples can brag about strict adherence to culture and way oflife like the Dogon can.

So many places in the land of the Dogon are sacred to them. Many ofsuch places are even forbidden-particularly for outsiders-which is whyvisitors travel by foot or donkey and are often advised to take guides alongwith them should they come across sacred regions.

The People of Peace

Africa is no stranger to tribal wars and conflicts. Frictions between theinfinite tribes calling Africa a home seem almost inevitable. Kinship is a verystrong word to Africans. It holds so much meaning and recognizes dignity,which is why there is so much desire for dominance by one tribe overanother, and war is mostly the medium used to achieve this; but not for theDogon.

It is admirable how the Dogon have managed to thrive for so longwith little recourse to war and bloodshed. It’s a feat which eludes manyother African tribes. One can say it’s simply another measure of what makesthese people unique. And this is not something peculiar to the people ofpresent day Dogon because their history records them as a tribe that hasalways been nonviolent. The Dogon culture puts great emphasis onavoidance of contradictions and on consensus, and this has doubtless gonea long way in helping to maintain the peace they enjoy.

Much of what we know about the origins of the Dogon comes fromoral tradition. We are told the ancestors of the Dogon made Bandiagara ahome around the 10th century. There were only four of these ancestors:Domno, Dyon, Arou and Ono. Before finding a home at Bandiagara, historysays the Dogon migrated from the west bank of the Niger River around the10th to 13th centuries. The people only ended up at the Bandiagara cliffs inthe following centuries (14th or 15th).

They found a home here, but they also found a haven, for the mattersof the outside world barely affected them. These cliffs protected them fromwar-charged tribes like the Islamic Peul who constantly tried to attack them.

It wasn’t until after the area was pacified by French colonialists in theyear 1921 did the Dogon decide to venture to other parts of the land, but agreat many of them yet remained where they were. The cliffs weresanctuary, and they have remained so ever since.

Astronomers or Seers?

Having a strong creed that preaches peace is one thing but that stillisn’t what the Dogon are most known for. These people, since their tribesaw birth, have exhibited remarkably accurate knowledge on the solarsystem-the Sirius star system, in particular.

The Sirius is the brightest star in the sky but it is also a binary star,meaning it consist of two stars that orbit one another. Scientists dubbedthis companion star ‘Sirius B’ when it was discovered in 1970 by a largetelescope. This is where things start becoming intriguing.

The Dogon are thought to have descended from Egypt, and theyalready had extensive knowledge on solar systems since at least 3, 200 BC.Their astronomical lore encompassed the Sirius star system and planets likeSaturn, to mention a few. That lore made mention of Sirius and itscompanion, which is visible to no human eye, and that’s an exactdescription of Sirius B is.

How is this possible though? How can an ancient people who hadlittle access to even primitive technology possibly know anything about theinfinite stars dotting the night sky? How could they have known somethingthe rest of us only found out some decades ago? Have it at the back ofyour mind that the Dogon made this discovery in a period no less than3000 years ago.

Could the ancestors of the Dogon have been astronomers with skill,intellect and talent well beyond their time, or did they have command oversome mystic way of reading and interpreting the stars?

Neither, if we are to agree with history. There was a third factorinvolved. It’s because of that factor the Dogon were able to predictsomething that modern science was able to affirm merely less than acentury ago. A brief look into the Dogon animist religion should give abetter understanding of all this.

Fact or Fiction?

Animism has always been prevalent in Africa. The belief thateverything natural-plants, animals, thunder and rocks-has innate spirits andcan influence life is rampant among numerous tribes. This of course entailsworship of deities, and for the Dogon, it’s primarily Amma, their creatorgod.

Much can be said about the many aspects of their religion but whatwe seek here is the myth of the Nommo and the Sirius B, which are also avery strong aspect of that religion. The Dogon have their own name forSirius B, which is ‘Po Tolo.’

In the 1920s, four Dogon priests enlightened Marcel Griaule andGermain Dieterlen, two French anthropologists, about a tiny and unusuallydense star making orbits around the Sirius. This tiny star would later beknown as Sirius B.

What makes this story so remarkable is that Sirius B could not havebeen seen prior to 1970 because that was when telescopes powerfulenough to view it were developed. And yet, the Dogon knew. They knewlong before any of us.

We reiterate the myth of the Nommo here again. The Nommo were arace of highly intelligent and superior beings who lived on a planet orbitinganother star in the Sirius star system. Oral traditions of the Dogon describethe Nommo as amphibious beings that bore much resemblance to mermenand mermaids. These same beings appear in Acadian, Babylonian andSumerian myths too.

Dogon mythos tells us that the Nommo came to Earth thousands ofyears ago in an ‘ark’ that spun as it descended, all the while making greatnoise and shooting wind all around it. These Nommo made contact withthe Dogon and fed them knowledge of the Sirius B and other planets in oursolar system. Jupiter and Saturn in particular was mentioned, because it wasduring this contact the Dogon were taught about the former’s moons andthe latter’s rings.

This might all sound like basic knowledge to us now but remember,this ‘basic knowledge’ was only discovered after the advent of the telescopeby Galileo; so the Dogon were essentially thousands of years ahead ofeveryone else on Earth when it came to knowledge on astronomy.

One can be quick to dismiss this myth as exactly that: a myth andnothing more, but evidence points to the contrary. We don’t need anyoneto tell us about such evidence because it’s right up there in the sky. Sirius Bstill orbit’s Sirius as we speak, and Saturn’s rings are still there, and the fourmoons above Jupiter have not gone anywhere.

So do we even call what the Dogon tell us about Sirius a myth at all?Isn’t it closer to fact than many of the western scientists’ claims of it being afabrication? This has certainly led to scientists and scholars alike debatingand exchanging criticisms of each other’s theories on the matter.

There are those who attempt to explain the myth of the Nommo asbeing false by claiming it was adulterated by contact with westerners in theearly 1920s, but there are still those who beg to differ. Adams (1990, 60)was one such individual. He gives an account of the mystery surroundingthe Dogon and the Sirius star system. He claims:

They knew of the rings of Saturn, and the moons of Jupiter, the spiralstructure of the Milky Way, where our star system lies. They claimed thatbillions of stars spiral in space like the circulation of blood in the humanbody…. Perhaps the most remarkable facet of their knowledge is their

knowing intricate detail of the Sirius star system, which presently can onlybe detected with powerful telescopes. The Dogon knew of the white dwarf

companion star of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. They knew it’sapproximate mass (“it is composed of ‘sagala’, an extremely heavy anddense metal such that all the earthly beings combined cannot lift it”), it’s

orbital period (50 years), and its axial rotation period (one year).

Regardless what we all believe, this fact remains: The Dogon havegiven us something to talk about and muse over for many years to come.

How credible their myth is matters little, because the beauty lies notin whether it’s true or not; it lies in how a heritage of a people haspersevered for so long-from a time long before the birth of manycivilizations. The beauty lies in how we still marvel at this heritage up to thisday.

The Dogon are a quiet secluded people, and though it wasinadvertent, they have left their mark on the world by leaving us both inwonder, doubt and awe.

Author, Khalid Abdullahi