Digging the Dogon
We stop for a few days in Segou for Christmas. Segou’s a relaxed place, strung out along the banks of the Niger, once a major centre for the French colonialists’ occupation of what’s now Mali. It was also where Mungo Park first beheld the Niger and confirmed, once for all, that the river flows from west to east, not the other way around as many believed at the time.
Segou was about as far along the river as Park got on his first expedition. Approaching the river from the north bank, the opposite side of the town, Park attempted to cross, but the king of Segou was reluctant to welcome Park into the town so refused his entry. Instead he paid Park off with a handful of cowrie shells, then the currency in West Africa.
For the starving, disease-ridden Park, it was a major boon, enough to stave off death. But such was his predicament that he decided that instead of pushing on to his ultimate destination, Timbuktu, he should cut his losses and head west back to the relative safety of the coast, where European traders were based.
After resting and feasting in Segou for a few days, we head north to Mopti again. This time, though, our goal is not the river, but an area 100 or so kilometres to the east, known as Dogon Country.
The Dogon are one of Mali’s major ethnic groups, and one of its most fascinating. Their home, the Bandiagara Escarpment, is a seemingly inhospitable place, a huge cliff system that slices though a barren plane which stretches all the way to neighbouring Burkina Fasso. But somehow the Dogon manage to scratch out an existence here, living in tumbledown villages that cling to the bottom of the cliff face. Typical of Dogon villages are the characteristic conical-roofed granaries that bear a strange resemblence to witches’ hats.
Perhaps even more fascinating than Dogon architecture, though, is its culture. Although some have converted to Islam, and some even Christianity, most Dogon people are still resolutely animist, ascribing living forms to spirits they believe control the forces of the universe. Each of these spirits must be appeased, so central to Dogon culture is the concept of fetishism, whereby ritual sacrifices are made as offerings to the gods. Each village has its own holy man, known as the Hogon, who is able to converse with the spirits and so plays a key role in the fortune – or otherwise – of his village.
We gear up for a four-day trek through Dogon country. To help us and act as our guide, we have enlisted the services of Atemelou Kiodio, a local from the Dogon village of Ibi, though now studying English in Bamako.
The first leg of our journey is from the large village of Sanga, located about a kilometre from the edge of the escarpment, to Banani, a smaller settlement located at the bottom of the cliff itself. Our path crosses the plateau at the top of the escarpment, before dropping suddenly down the rock face. It’s a steep scramble, but the views along the escarpment are monumental. The sun is beginning to set, casting everything in a fiery glow. Among the huge rocks that pepper the landscape are some of the most ancient-looking and twisted baobab trees that I’ve yet seen in Mali. Beneath one of them, a group of young boys plays a frantic game of football, their scuffling kicking up clouds of dust that catch fire in the light of the setting sun.
As we descend we catch our first glimpse of the Telem architecture for which Dogon Country is also famous. The Telem were a mysterious people who lived in the area before the Dogon came along and drove them out. Somehow, they managed to achieve even greater feats of architectural alchemy than the Dogon, building homes, shrines and burial chambers into natural fissures in the cliff face, rather than at the foot of the cliff, as the Dogons have.
I ask Atemelou how the Telem managed to build in such inaccessible places. Given that Atemelou is a firm Muslim, his answer, indicates to me how strongly animist ideas are still rooted in Dogon beliefs. “Some of them used ladders, but others were in touch with spirits and used magic to fly,” he says. I might have expected a devout Muslim to scoff at any notions of magic, but he delivers this statement matter of factly, without any hint of dismissiveness. I can’t help but wonder if there’s anywhere else in the world where Islam mixes so freely with traditional animist beliefs. It makes for a fascinating blend.
Tags: Travel, Trekking
djnorwood