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The Dogon religion is the traditional religious beliefs of the Dogon people of Mali. The Dogon religion is an ancient religion or spiritual system. Shannon Dorey, the Canadian author and researcher on the Dogon and their religious beliefs and symbols believes that, the Dogon religion "is the oldest known mythology in the world." Shannon posits that: "It existed in Africa long before humans migrated to other areas of the world. When humans left Africa for other continents, they took their religion with them. Fragments of the Dogon religion thus existed all over the world making the Dogon religion the "mitochondrial religion" of the world."

According to Robert Temple, the "Dogon are monotheistic"

Beliefs

Divinity

"Amma : Amma is the supreme creator god of the Dogon religion, whose efforts initiated the formation of the universe, the creation of matter, and the processes of biological reproduction."

"Dogon religion is complex, and is summarised by Van Beck (1988). The head of the Dogon triumvirate is Ama or Amma, the Sky God, the others being Nomo, the Water God, and Lewe or Lebe, the Earth God."

"According to Dogon beliefs, Amma, who is a likely Dogon counterpart to the Egyptian god Amen, is made up of four attached clavicles (arcs) that together form an oval called "egg in a ball." This is the same term that is applied to the figure at the center of the nummo fish drawings." (Note: John Anthony West was a proponent of the fringe Sphinx water erosion hypothesis. The creation is more a cosmic egg and chaoes than water).

"The Dogon belief that man is deeply impregnated by his natural environment gives rise to this "geographic" theory of language. Growing Growing things, particularly those from which man gets his food, are nourished by the "four elements"; millet grows from the earth, is warmed by the sun which ripens it, is fed by the water it drings and the air it breathes like any living being. When he eats millets, man assimilates the four elements and renews those in his own body. Yet these same four elements also form the "body" of his "speech"; when he eats millet, the child receives the components of his speech.

Divinity and humanity

"Sacrifices and rituals are primarily directed towards Ama, though carved figures are also produced by the Dogo, which are 'representations of the living' (ibid.:60). However, these too served as mediators with Ama–in helping to solve problems for instance. Divination is also a key feature of Dogon religion, as are masked dances."

Death and afterlife

See also: African art § Dogon

"According to the Dogon, in the beginning of human existence immortality was the norm and time, as we know it, was irrelevant."

"Dogon myth attributes the orign of masks to beings called Andoumboulou. The first masks were made out of fiber, and although they were eventually acquired by Dogon women-and later Dogon men-their function did not become apparent until after the appearance of death among the Dogon. The first ancestor to die did so while in the form of a snake , part of the process of transformation into a spirit that was practiced until that time. When people became aware of the negative effects of the nyama released by death, it was decided to carve a mask to serve as a support for the nyama. This mask, in the form of a snake like the death ancestor, was the initial imina na, "great mask," or "mother of masks," used in the sigi ceremony which commemorates this mythic event every sixty years. Although its face is in the form of a mask, the "great mask" is never actually worn; rather it is displayed in a stationary position or while being carried. In each Dogon village a new "great mask" is made every sixty years for the celebration of sigi. After the initial death that prompted the making of the "great mask," other deaths followed, and measures had to be taken to cope with the nyama released. At first, ancestor altars were erected, with wood figures serving as the repository for the spiritual forces, but as the deaths prolifierated this was not sufficient. Masks were then made for dama rituals in which the souls of the dead are permanently escorted out of the villange and sent on their way to the afterlife. Dogon masks are intimately bound up with rituals concerned with death. A small group of masks-four fiber bede masks and a carved wood mask called sirige-are donned for dances held two days after burial of mvn who have participated in a sigi ceremony. This part of the funerary ritual is called baga bundo. The dancers wearing the bede, or female masks, kneel next to the funerary blanket that is displayed in the public square, they pound the earth on either side of it, a gesture that women mourners perfom in other stages of the funeral. The wearer of the sirige mask also performs a similar gesture of mourning and respect, leaning down so that the tip of the mask-often fifteen feet high-will touch the ground. Several years after the actual funeral, the dama rite is performed. A dama requires lengthy and costly preparatins, and one of its functions is to enhance the prestige and reputation of the deceased and of his descendants through these elaborate preparations. The dama ritual itself last six days, during which time the mask society performs in the village plaza, on the terrace of the deceased's house, and in the hogon's sacred fields. <=> The soul of the deceased, localized in the handle of his hoe and in a container of millet beer, is removed from the village by throwing these spirit containers into the bush. When performed for women, the dama does not include masked dancing, except in the case of the yasigine, the sole female member of the men's mask society. The variety of Dogon masks in overwhelming. Griaule's informants listed more than seventy-eight different types, representing mammals, reptilvs, birds, humans, objects, and abstract concepts. They are made of both carved wood and knotted fiber. The fiber masks represent primarily human characters, such as Dogon village specialists (hogon, binukedine, blacksmith, leather workers) and their wives, or men and women of other ethnic groups such as Bamana, Fulani and Tuareg. The wooden masks for the most part depicts animals and birds. Together the mask may be seen as a summary of the people, animal, and things that constitute the Dogon world, a visual accounting of the return to order in the universe following the disruption caused by death."

"Dogon sculpture and masks are made by blacksmiths, who also work iron. There are two groups of smiths in the Dogon area, the jemo who live on the plains, and their former slaves, the iru, who live on the plateau and who were taught by the jemo to work iron. As in other West African ethnic groups, the blacksmiths' mastery of earth, air, and fire, and their ability to make the iron tools on which Dogon farmvrs depend, accords them a priviledged place in Dogon society. Both jemo and iru serve as intermediaries and peacemakers, not only between other Dogon, but also between the living and the ancestors and between mankind and Amma, especially in order to bring rain (Paulme, 1940: 182-88; Dieterlen and Ganay, 1942: 6-8; Dieterlen, 1982: 76). The respect granted to blacksmiths is said to derive also from their role in the myth of creation, in which the first blacksmith descended from heaven to bring mankind fire, iron, and seeds for cultivating (Griaule, 1938: 48-51)."

Ancestral spirits

Main article: Nommo

The Nommo are ancestral spirits (sometimes referred to as deities) worshipped by the Dogon. The word Nommos is derived from the Dogon language meaning "to make one drink." The Nommos are usually described as amphibious, hermaphroditic, fish-like creatures. Folk art depictions of the Nommos show creatures with humanoid upper torsos, legs/feet, and a fish-like lower torso and tail. The Nommos are also referred to as “Masters of the Water”, “the Monitors”, and "the Teachers”. In primodial time, the Nommo "could not live entirely on land and on their arrival they made a reservoir of water and dived into it."

Priesthood

Main article: Hogon

The Dogon's spiritual leader is called hogon.

According to Dogon cosmogony, there were four pairs of twins, four females and four males. They were ancestors of humans. Of these, Griaule M. (1970, p. 223) refer to the seventh as "The Master of Speech"—alluding to its "masculine" characteristics. In the Dogon tradition, the seventh ancestor's gift to humankind included weaving, music, dress and language.

Dorey posits that, the pronoun "she" (not "he"), and the "Mistress of Speech", not "the Master of Speech" should have been used by Griaule. She went on to write: "Seventh ancestor and seventh Nummo, born in the second "word" or second experiment". The Mistress of Speech she writes, "was immortal and androgynous, but primarily female, and was seen as the perfect combination of Nommo and human. The DNA of the Mistress of Speech was the hope for the world. The Mistress of Speech was associated with weaving. On the Nommos world, the seventh ancestor could only mate with the second ancestor, who was connected with the evil genetic material and the jackal. The good (seventh ancestor) was combined with the bad (second ancestor) so that the good genetic material would balance out the bad."

"In the Dogon religion, it was the Nommos' DNA, or Word, that was combined with the Earth animals to create humans. Because the Mistress of Speech had the perfect Word or DNA she was the hope for the world and her twenty-two atticulations, which suggest a type of speech, were an important aspect of the Dogon religion. This is because the Mistress of Speech's twenty-two articulations represented twenty-two of her body parts and the evolutionary changes that were to occur in humans as a result of her death and resurrection. Every candidate for Dogon priesthood had to undergo a series of twenty-two trances, or "attacks," called soy "quaking spells," each of which corresponds to a part of the Mistress of Speech's body or to the classification of her "Word" or DNA. Besides meaning "quaking spells" the Dogon word soy also meant seven, reiterating its association with the Mistress of Speech, who was the Seventh Ancestor."

"The Mistress of Speech's twenty articulations were also associated with the twenty-two rays of the sun, connecting them to the genetic makeup of the Nummon, who were symbolized by the sun. The sun was also a symbol of the Nummon spaceship, which is where human creation and regenration occured."

Festivals

The Dogon are known for their masks and dance festivals—which are spiritual in nature although sometimes made for tourists. Their dance and masquerades attracts a large number of tourists to Dogon country. However some Dogons are wary of the over-commercialisation of their spiritual art form. There are many Dogon festivals some of which are listed below:

NOTE: 1 & 2 are non-RS, for info only. Use RS source to verify:

1. Bulo Festival : "Every year between May and June, the people of Dogon country celebrate the animist New Year, or Bulo. The Bulo is an agrarian festival that launches the beginning of the rainy season and millet cultivation. This celebration is characterized by masked dances, traditional ceremonies, and overflowing canaries of millet beer. During the months of February to April there are various funeral ceremonies, or damas, commemorating the ancestors as well as serving as an offering to them. This is represented through extraordinary and elaborate masked dances during the day, while the women’s dances, songs, and rituals performed by night demonstrate the magical powers possessed by some individuals." Dogon Country

2. Sigi Festival : "Another extraordinary event of the Dogon people is the Sigi festival. It is a the most important animist ritual celebrated every sixty years. Given the Dogon’s cosmology, it has been considered to coincide with the apparition of the Sirius B or Dog star. A particularly lucky Dogon person sees two Sigi in his or her lifetime, and hears a third sigi: the first in his/her mother’s womb, the second at middle age and the last in old age. The Sigi dance, called sigi melu, and music, are entrusted to the Initiatic Awa—a group that lifts mourning during central funeral rites. The next Sigi is anticipated in 2027, when the spirit of the Sigi unleashes itself from the village of Youga, the epicenter of the festivities that domino from village to village over the course of weeks." Dogon Country

3. "Bulo : festival signalling the start of the sowing season"

4. "Dama : ceremony to mark the end of bereavement"

5. Sigi : The Sigi festival is perhaps one of the most well known and anticipated Dogon festival. The Sigi occurs once every 60 years. A person may only live to witness one Sigi festival, or two if they are lucky to live long enough. The Sigi is determined based on the Dogon calendar. The 60-year interval is so precise it has baffled some scholars such as anthropologist Jean Rouch. The 60-years interval also corresponds to the life span of the mystic Dogon ancestor. Every five days, the Dogon would tie a knot on a rope. This constitutes the Dogon week. In so doing, they are able to celebrate the Sigi with such precision. The last 4 Sigi celebrations occurred in 1787, 1847, 1907, and 1967. The next one will be in the year 2027 (as of 2020). The Sigi ritual and rituals of its sort which occurs within precise temporal cycles are a way of transmitting knowledge among the Dogon.

6. Bado : The Bado festival which is a festival of the elders, occurs in the spring.

7. Bulu : The Bulu festival which is a festival of sowing takes place during the estival solstice.

8. Bago  : The Bago festival which is a festival of harvest takes place during fall.

9. Gogo : A winter.

All these festivals occurs within precise temporal cycles and are occasions for young Dogon men to complete their initiation rites and receive knowledge from their father, grandfather, or head of family (ginna bana).

Cosmology & cosmogony

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"Dogon mythology was created in an oral culture and its symbolic language is connected through a spherical pattern with no beginning or end. The spherical pattern of the Dogon religion is different from what we are used today, as most written literature is presented in a linear fashion with a beginning and end. By using the globular structure in its creation, the Dogon religion provides us with a metaphor for immortality. The religion focuses on immortality because the key spiritual figures, the Nummo, were immortal. According to the Dogon, when they died and were reborn, the Nummo, were could remember their previous existence."

"Amma : Amma is the supreme creator god of the Dogon religion, whose efforts initiated the formation of the universe, the creation of matter, and the processes of biological reproduction. The notion of a creator god named Amma or Amen is one that is not unique to the Dogon, but can also be found in the religious traditions of other West African and North African groups. It may be reflected in the word Amazigh, a name that is applied collectively to the hunter cultural groups who preceeded the first dynasty in Egypt. Like other important Dogon cosmological keywords, the word Amma carries with it more than one level of meaning in the Dogon language. From one perspective, it can refer to the hidden god of the Dogon, and yet, from another perspective, it can mean "to grasph, to hold firm, or to establish." Among the Dogon, Amma is thought of as the god who holds the world firmly between her or his two hands, and to speak the name Amma is to entreat her or him to continue to honld it. <=> Although commonly referred to as a male, Amma is considered to symbolize both the male and female principles as genderless or as being of dual gender. This dual aspect of Amma's character is consistent with the broader cosmological principles of duality and the pairing of opposites that are expressed symbolically in all facets of Dogon religion and culture. It is also consistent with the male and female aspects of biological reproduction that Amma symbolizes. <=>The Dogon religion is characterized as an esoteric tradition, one that involves both public and private aspects. Although Amma could be said to embody great creative potential, she or he is in fact considered by the knowledgeable Dogon priests to be small–so small as to be effectively hidden from view–although this detail of Amma's character is generally not spoken of in public among the Dogon. This perceived smallness of Amma is consonant with the instrumental role that she or he is said to play in the mythological process of the formation of matter and of biological reproduction. <=> Perhaps the first important creation of the Dogon god Amma was the unformed universe, a body that is said to have held all of the potential seeds or signs of future existence. The Dogon refer to this body as Amma's Egg and characterizes it as a conical, somewhat quadrangular structurewith a rounded point, filled with unrealized potentiality–its corners prefigure the four future cardinal points of the universe to come."

"According to Dogon myth, some undefined impulse caused this egg to open, allowing it to release a whirlwind that sprun silently and scattered in contents in all directions, ultimately forming all of the spiraling galaxies of star and planets. The Dogon compare these bodies to pellets of clay flung out in space. It is by a somewha more complicated process that the sun and the moon were formed, one that the Dogon equate with the art of pottery. Consequently, the Dogon priest compare the sun to a pot of clay that has been raised to a higher heat. <=> Amma is also credited by the Dogon with having created life on Earth. According to the Dogon, myth, there is a principle of twin births in the universe. However, it is said that Amma's first attempt at intercourse with the earth failed, ultimately producing only a single creature–the jackal. This failed is seen by the Dogon as a breach of order in the universe, and therefore the jackal came to be associated with the concept of disorder and the difficulties of Amma. Later, having overcome the difficulty, Amma's divine seed successfully entered and fertilized the womb of the earth and eventually produced the perfect twin pair, the Nummo.'"

"Dogon religion is complex, and is summarised by Van Beck (1988). The head of the Dogon triumvirate is Ama or Amma, the Sky God, the others being Nomo, the Water God, and Lewe or Lebe, the Earth God. Sacrifices and rituals are primarily directed towards Ama, though carved figures are also produced by the Dogo, which are 'representations of the living' (ibid.:60). However, these too served as mediators with Ama–in helping to solve problems for instance. Divination is also a key feature of Dogon religion, as are masked dances. <=> Dogon myth was initially revealed to Marcel Griaule (1965) by a Dogon elder, Ogotemmeli, and subsequently, following Griaule's death, further Dogon myth and knowledge was collected by his colleague Germaine Dieterlen (Griaule and Dieterlen 1965). The essence of these myths is recounted, for example, by De Heusch (1985:156-159) who describes them as dominated by an 'agricultural code', being a 'mythology devised by and for farmers. God created the world in the form of a minute seed animated by vibrations, and the sacrifices of a "water god" proceeded to permit its bursting forth (ibid.:159). The fundamentals of Dogon myth as revealed to Graule and his successors can be seen almost as an interpretative chain running through and underpinning much subsequent scholarship on the Dogon, with myth being seen as the primary structuring agent of Dogon thought, belief, and also, for our purposes, material culture and world–vivw. In fact, to quote Clifford (1983:123), Griaule saw Dogon culture as a 'kind of lived mythology'. <=> Hence the countryside is described as being 'organized as far as possible in accordance with the principle that the world developed in the form of a spiral' (Griaule and Dieterlen 1998: 94), meaning that, theoretically, the central point of development is formed by three ritual fields themselves assigned to the three mythical ancestors. The village is described as laid out either in a square like the first plot of land cultivated by humans, or in an oval with an opening at one end and thus symbolic of the 'world egg broken open by the swelling of the germinating cells' )ibid.: 96). Villages should also be built in pairs, linked in turn with concepts of 'twinness'. Regardless of the oval or square village plan just described, a body analogy also simultaneously underlies the village form for it is also conceived of a person lying north-south, with the smithy the head, shrines the feet, family houses the chest, and menstrual huts the hands. Whilst the house itself represents, 'a man lying on his right hand side and procreating' (ibid.: 97), his penis materially manifest as the entry via a narrow passage leading into the workroom in which the water jars and grinding stones are kept. The agricultural essence of the myth could also be further interpreted here in the metaphorical status of the liquid by-product of corn-crushing being seen as analogous with semen (ibid.)-a liquid whic is in turn poured on the ancestral shrine. In other words, almost the whole package of Dogon material culture conceptualisation has been linked with myth. But the mythic penetration goes further for it is serve, in Griaule's view, according to Van Beck (1991:140), 'as a blueprint for all facets of socienty, from the way to cultivate a field and build a house to weaving, pottery making, drumming, and smithing'."

"Like many ancient religions, the Dogon tradition include both public and private aspects. The details of Dogon cosmology present themselves first through a body of exoteric myths (fireside stories known to most Dogon tribe members) that describe in a general way the efforts of the god Amma to create the sun, the Earth, the moon, and the spiraling galaxies of stars and planets. These story lines run parallel to a more detailed set of esoteric myths (those known primarily to the Dogon priests) that lay out the hierachy of a complex cosmological system in an intricate system of symbols, signs, drawings, and keywords. The innermost details of this system are carefully sheltered from public view and are revealed only to potential initiates of the religion-candidates who have been carefully screened by the Dogon priests. Above all else, the salient quality sought in a potential initiate to the Dogon religion is that he or she demonstrates an abiding curiousity about the religion itself, a quality that is most often expressed by the persistent asking of questions. In truth, the Dogon priests are obliged by tradition to faithfully answer any orderly question posed by an initiate. Over time, this priestly obligation became the cornerstone of an instructional dynamic in which knowledge would be divulged to an initiate only after the candidate asked the appropriate question. In this way, for learning to progress between a student and a priest, it became the implied job of the student to ask the next question."

"According to Dogon beliefs, Amma, who is a likely Dogon counterpart to the Egyptian god Amen, is made up of four attached clavicles (arcs) that together form an oval called "egg in a ball." This is the same term that is applied to the figure at the center of the nummo fish drawings." (Note: John Anthony West was a proponent of the fringe Sphinx water erosion hypothesis. The creation is more a cosmic egg and chaoes than water).

"Creation from Water : The theme of creation from water is one that is central to both Dogon and Egyptian mythology. This aspect of creation is defined in both the egyption hieroglyphic language as Dogon cosmology by the sound "nu." The phonetic valueb "nu" forms the root of the Dogon word nummo, which the Dogon define as the perfect twin pair that emergies at the time of creation; the Dogon priests affirm that the word nummo specifically refers to water (see Conversation with Ogotemmeli). An ideographic reading of the egyptican word nu reflects this same symbolism. Budge defines the word nu as meaning "mass of water that existed in primeval times" and "deified primeval waters whence everything came." In broad terms, we can say that Egyptian hieroglyphic words affirm that the term nu refers to primeval waters of creation and that Dogon cosmology reaffirms that the concept relates to the formation of the universe and of matter." (Note: John Anthony West was a proponent of the fringe Sphinx water erosion hypothesis. The creation is more a cosmic egg and chaoes than water).

"Dogon cosmology, sharing many epistemological elements with their neighbours, the Bamana and Malinke, is based on dualities and twinning and forms the basis for Dogon divination. Here, life begins with the Nommo, the primodial twins.

"One might also consider the relationship of those diviners who use creatures as agents of the oracular messages as having a twin-like relationship with the creatures. For example, there is a mouse divination among the Baule, spider and crab divination in the Cameroons, as well as fox divination among the Dogon."

"The religious beliefs of the Dogon were first documented in studivs conducted during the 1930sm 1940s, and 1950s by French anthropoligists Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen. These studies resulted in a number of primary works, including a diary of Griaule's religious intructions by a Dogon priest titled Dieu D'eau or Converstion With Ogotemmeli, and a finished anthropological report on the Dogon religion called Le Renard Pale or The Pale Fox. There are no native written texts to use as a reference for the religion because the Dogon rely on oral transmission rather than writing. This entry looks at the religious beliefs and practices of the Dogon primarily through the works of Griaule Dieterlen."

"Organization and Ritual : According to Griaule and Dieterlens, ther are three primary Dogon cults. The first is devoted to a supreme god named Amma, who is deemed to have created the universe. The second is primarily concerned with the first living celestial beings created by Amma, called the Nommo. The third is devoted to the eight Dogon ancestors from whom the members of the four Dogon groups are thought to be descended. Regardless of cult, all Dogon members commonly acknowledge first Amma, then the Nommo, then the revered ancestors. Religious beliefs and practices similar to those of the Dogon are also observed by neighbouring tribes, [...]

"Fire can sustain life as wel as cause much destruction, similar to the Dogon understanding of the oppositional character of the universe: All things in nature are believed to possess a spiritual force that brings either prosperity or hardship."

"According to the Dogon, in the beginning of human existence immortality was the norm and time, as we know it, was irrelevant."

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The Dogon creation myth is somewhat similar to the Serer creation myth in sofar as the dual principles of Amma and Roog (the Serer supreme deity)—with the feminine principle of the Divine taking precedence during the initial creation, but the Divine using its masculine principle to bring order after the creation—thus their creator gods maybe regarded as androgynous gods with both feminine and masculine principles; the importance of balance in their mythology and culture; the prominence of the jackal during creation; a mythical creation based a cosmic egg and the principles of chaos; the failed first creation due to the jackal's desecration of the first placenta, and the animal being considered by both societies as a disordered animal yet respected due to its link with their respective supreme deities; and a wind–like motion or rotational movement of their respective deities around the axis of the world during the creation of celestial objects.

Bibliography

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• Griaule, M., Conversations with Ogotemmêli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas (contribution: Dieterlen, Germaine, International African Institute), International African Institute (1965), ISBN 9780195198218 (Originally published in 1948 as Dieu d'Eau)
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