My region of focus is Mali, and regarded today as the peak tourism area in Mali, the Dogon Country is an area surrounding the famous Bandiagara escarpment cliff, comprising a number of indigenous villages. After the lectures and readings on trying to establish a more-closely-linked relationship between landscape and humans, I thought that The Dogon Country is the perfect site for me to discuss due to its richly religious and indigenous culture, in which almost the most banal objects, carry a sacred value and a symbolic meaning. For example, I was surprised to find out that even the shape of the humble Dogon Basket is symbolic to the locals: its square-shaped base refers to the cardinal points while the circular-shaped top symbolizes the celestial vault.
When one talks about Mali, Timbuktu and Djenne are often what pop up in the mind; whereas these two places have been to known to the Europeans for centuries already, The Dogon Country has only been studied from 1931 onwards. The appeal of the Dogon Country is an intertwined two-fold : the landscape and the culture, “intertwined” because the landscape is heavily influenced by its culture. The escarpment is dotted with the unique villages of the Dogon people, who migrated to this area approximately 7 centuries ago to escape the Islamic attack into West Africa. Fortunately, it's an area that has managed to remain relatively untouched by tourism's effect, its still full of donkey tracks and people speak Dogon instead of French, which is a rather refreshing sight in Mali. To tackle the seemingly overwhelming architecture style in Dogon, it is crucial for one to study the “Dogon Comosgony” first. This brings me back to our previous readings on “Glimpses of Ideology and Cosmology in the Iconography of Tombstones from the Loango Coast of Central Africa” by Denbow; while the cosmology employed is different in Central Africa compared to Dogon, the underlying intention remains constant. Dogon Comosgony explains the deepest secret of the Dogon people, which is their faith : it accompanies every aspect of their daily life and most importantly, leaves its footprints on Dogon architecture.
Let me begin with a more physical overview of the Dogon village before moving into the cosmology. As mentioned before, the Dogon were on the run from the Islamic spread, so they wanted their new villages to be secure; as a result, instead of building at the base of the cliffs or on the flat cliff tops, they unconventionally built their villages into the cliff faces themselves. Another level of protection comes from the villages' “protective color”. Dogon villages are initially hard to spot: the escarpment is of brownish red color and since the Dogon built their houses out of mud, these houses blend into the background perfectly.While building space is obviously scarce here, no settlements will be built on the plain/plateau since it is considered as “dangerous” (due to its easy-to-spot feature) and also reserved for crop-cultivation.
Going into the Dogon Cosmogony now, each respective village in the Dogon country is a montage of familal dwellings called the “guinna”, which has square terraces and granaries for millet storage with pointy roofs made from straw. Here comes the extraordinary part : regarding its organization, each village is arranged as to represent a Human Figure, which from my perspective, can be a perfect amplified application of Guerts' anthropological senses “Seselelame”. Furthermore, each village is concentrated with temple-like places, you can hardly walk 100 m without seeing a rock statue or an altar with traces of animal blood for sacred purposes. Most of the temples here are used for rituals for the Bunou Cult and worshipping of Amma (the creator of all things. These shrines' fronts are seasonally decorated with symbolic geometric signs, which are equivalent to our actual writings.
There are also the “toguna”, which are buildings for men to hold their councils and women are strictly forbidden. An interesting fact is that “tongua” all have very low ceiling on purpose, this is to prevent any discussion from turning into stand-up arguments. Another captivating observation is that there are special houses built solely for menstruating women since the community ought not to have any interaction with these “impure” women; these houses are differentiated from other houses with their round structure. These two incidents are example showing how Dogon landscapes are a result of their religious faith.
There are also the “toguna”, which are buildings for men to hold their councils and women are strictly forbidden. An interesting fact is that “tongua” all have very low ceiling on purpose, this is to prevent any discussion from turning into stand-up arguments. Another captivating observation is that there are special houses built solely for menstruating women since the community ought not to have any interaction with these “impure” women; these houses are differentiated from other houses with their round structure. These two incidents are example showing how Dogon landscapes are a result of their religious faith.
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| A Toguna in Mali, with low-ceiling |
Overall, I would say that entering The Dogon Country is almost similar to discovering a temple, a visitor will have to accept, and appreciate, all the seemingly radical yet strange traditions of this cultural universe, whose values rest almost entirely on an extremely complex combination of philosophy and religion. Last but not the least, here's an amazing video that I found from the official Dogon Country tourism site, it precisely features all the signature architecture of Dogon, enjoy!
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