What do dogon people wear

Most men, however, have only one wife, and it is rare for a man to have more than two wives. According to their customs, wives will join the conjugal home only after the birth of their first child.

Women can leave their husbands soon after marriage, before the birth of their first child. After childbirth, divorce is rare and taken very seriously, requiring the involvement of the entire village.

A family in the broad sense can count to one hundred members. The Dogon firmly seek harmony, which is reflected in many of their customs. For example, in one of their most important rituals, women congratulate men, men thank women, young people express their appreciation for the elderly and the elderly grant the contributions of young people.

Another example is the custom of refined greetings whenever a Dogon meets another. This routine is repeated several times throughout the village of Dogon all day long. During these formal greetings, the incoming person answers a series of questions about his entire family. Invariably, the answer is sewa, meaning that things are going well.

Then the incoming Dogon repeats the ritual, asking the tenant how his entire family is doing. Because of the repetition of the term sewa in any Dogon village, the neighbouring peoples have named the Dogon the people of sewa.

The Hogon is the spiritual leader of the village. He is elected among the oldest men of the families of the village.

He wears white clothes and no one is allowed to touch him. His meals, prepared by virgin women, are brought to him in specific bowls, the ogo banya. He gets these specific bowls from his predecessor or during his induction ceremony. After his initiation, he will wear a red cap and an armband with a sacred shell that symbolizes his function. The Hogon must live alone in his house. The Dogon believes that the sacred serpent Lebe comes during the night to purify him and communicate wisdom to him.

The Dogon are farmers and grow millet, sorghum and rice, as well as onion, tobacco, peanuts and some other vegetables.

Marcel Griaule encouraged the construction of a barrage near Sangha and encouraged the cultivation of onions. The grain is stored in the granaries. The economy of the Sangha region has doubled since then and its onions are sold to the Bamako and even Ivory Coast markets. The Dogon also raise cows, sheep, goats and chickens and rarely hunt.

In the morning, the diviner returns with his client, and interprets the traces left by the fox, and according to these and the spilled sticks predicts the future. Any adult man can be a medium when he learns the art. The most popular astrologers are the high dignitaries of the Masks Society, the hunters and the healers.

The totemic priests, the Hogon, and all those who worship Amma and Nommo, enemies of the jackal, can not approach the tables of divination. Any dogon, man or woman, can ask a medium to question the jackal by offering the peanuts that will attract the animal. Mediums also have tables called instruction tables made of twelve boxes , that will allow them to communicate directly with the jackal.

The foundation of the main Dogon cults are: binou cult, society of masks that represents the red loincloth of the earth and dead men and animals , cult of Sigi where the statue of the snake represents the first death. This mythology is commemorated by a number of rites. The cult of Lebe The Dogon do not possess their own scripture and their symbols are meant to express the Genesis.

Their transcription and transmission is exercised by high dignitaries as well as with totemic priests: the more a man knows about symbols, the closer he gets to the great knowledge.

Dogon rituals focus on the concept of transmitting the vital force necessary for the balance of society, the Hogon being the guardian of the greatest strength. The main worship is Lebe God Snake cult, whose Hogon is the representative, which is a ceremony to the glory of the Nommo.

The shrine for this celebration is located at the Hogon place. Other shrines, dedicated to the Nommo, can be installed in the village, in a ginna, or at the entrance of the village. The cult of the Binou The devotion of Binou takes place in a sanctuary which aspect varies according to the villages; it can be a true rectangular construction with curved corners and two round towers slightly higher than the building.

The door of the sanctuary is often lower than a man standing and blocked by large stones. The totemic priest keeps his utensils inside the building where he alone can penetrate, because no one must see the secret signs that are traced there. The Dogon live in caves, gathering food and fishing, just like thousands of years ago. Dogon is one of the few tribes who continue to live in accordance with the traditions and ancient beliefs of their ancestors.

Dogon tribe is most famous for its ritual masks, worn by Awa dancers in the village of Senga. There are three cults among Dogon — Awa, Lebe and Binu. Awa is a cult of the dead.

According to Dogon mythology, one that wears a mask during a dance, connects the world of the living with the world of the dead. This is how tribesmen communicate with their ancestors. Dogon Awa masks are not symbolic and do not represent particular characters. They are the keys to the spirit-world, which fuse and become one with the dancer who wears a mask. The masks are considered to be sacred and mere mortals are not allowed to own them or to know where they are kept.

Dogon women have no right to participate in ritual dances, however, they can wear special masks while being on tall stilts, which symbolizes woman's high status. Some researchers, who studied the myths and beliefs of Dogon, found evidence that the tribe has a very broad and accurate knowledge of astronomy and the solar system. The famous anthropologist Marcel Griaule, who studied the habits of the people of West Africa in the s, claimed that the Dogon - is one of the remaining groups of ancient people who lived in Sudan and Mali long before our era.

Griaule saw ancient rock paintings, which, despite their primitivism, had complex contours of the planets and their orbits. One of the main celebrations of the tribe is Sigui, which takes place once every 50 years, when the distant planet Sirius completes a full revolution around some unknown star.

Dogon creation myths tells that the source of all living things was god Amma, who was shaped like a sphere. As a result of the Big Bang, the sphere started expanding, and continues to do so today.

Amma ejected a cube-like object, which later took a shape of a ball as well, and formed Mother Earth. According to the tribesmen, they received astronomical knowledge from the alien god Nommo, who was the first living creature created by Amma, and descended from the sky in a vessel during a violent cataclysm.

Once Nommo appeared on Earth, the cataclysm ended.