In the
shadows of Mali’s Bandiagra Escarpment, the Dogon people have retained
their centuries-old lifestyle. But what will be the impact of the slowly
increasing number of travellers who are making the trek across this harsh
landscape to see the legendary cliff-side villages? To find out, Philip Briggs
ventured
It was a moment of
supreme unreality. Guided by a propulsive, relentless drum rhythm, we ascended
a steep flight of stone steps into a scene so overpoweringly bizarre that we
felt as if we had stumbled into the midst of an ancient Inca sun ceremony, or
an assemblage of Greek Gods preparing for war below Mount Olympus.
The
300m-high cliffs of the Bandiagara Escarpment glowed golden before us, their
surface pocked with a veritable warren of centuries-old cave dwellings. At the
base of this vast sandstone amphitheatre stood thousands of children and
colourfully dressed women, captivated by a troupe of outrageously masked awa
dancers, who leaped and bounded in and out of the crowd as they re-enacted key
episodes in Dogon history.
Only that morning, we had set off on a
circular hike from the small town of Sanga through the villages of Ireli,
Amani, Tereli and Daga in the remote Dogon Country of southern Mali. We
selected Ireli as our first overnight stop on the basis of rumours that a
festival might take place there. Nothing, however, had prepared us for this,
the awesome climax of the ancient Dama festival.
The
cult of the masked awa dancers — whose animated performances dominate the
Dama and other local ceremonies — is just one reason why Dogon Country has
long romanced the imagination of European travellers. The villages that line
the base of the 150km-long Bandiagara Escarpment are rightly regarded to be
among the most picturesque parts of West Africa, while their Dogon inhabitants
have retained a traditional lifestyle as pure as any on the continent.
Descending that morning from Sanga to the base of the Bandiagara Escarpment, we
had picked our way along a narrow path hemmed in by steep sandstone walls,
stopping repeatedly as Emanuel, our Dogon guide, pointed out abandoned cliff
dwellings which archaeologists reckon to have been excavated in the third
century. Local tradition attributes these walled-up dwellings to the Tellem
people, “pygmies” who inhabited the region before the Dogon arrived
there some 500 years ago. Today, the Dogon use the old Tellem excavations as
tombs, hoisting the bodies to their final resting place with a length of rope
manufactured from baobab (Adansonia digitata) fibres.
Ireli came into
view through a massive fissure in the escarpment. Hugging the slopes at the
base of a majestic cliff, it looked like the capital of an enchanted lost
kingdom, a characteristically curvaceous Dogon settlement of flat-roofed mud
dwellings, conical granaries, mysterious shrines and bulbous baobab trees. We
had little time to explore Ireli that day: Emanuel led us straight towards the
festival, explaining that although the masked dancers will put on a special
performance for a fee, it was lucky indeed for tourists to happen on the real
thing.
Questions were the last thing in our heads as we stood
gobsmacked watching the awa dancers. Later, we were told that the Dama is the
last in a sequence of funeral rites that follow the death of an important
Dogon. Always held in May, it falls five years after the person’s death,
allowing the awa to guide their soul out of the village to the ancestral
lands.
Other important festivals involving these dancers take place in
January and April. But the most significant ceremony in the Dogon calender is
Sigui, held every sixty years, most recently in the 1960s. The precise timing
of Sigui, based on the movements of an invisible satellite of Sirius, indicates
a level of astronomical knowledge yet to be explained by outsiders.
May is the peak of Mali’s hot dry season — “too hot for
hiking” according to one travel guide — and the best way to reduce
the risk of heat exhaustion is to hike between villages at the crack of dawn.
Distances aren’t great and the valley itself is fairly level, so having
spent two nights in Ireli we were able to cover the 8km to Tireli in a couple
of hours. The birding en route was fantastic, but not so the fêted
crocodile pool at Amani. They say that up to 100 crocs can be seen in this
shallow pond at one time. Not when we passed by. Not one!
In Tireli,
we made for the case de passage, a private guesthouse with a few rudimentary
and stuffy rooms. Fortunately, as we had discovered at a similar establishment
in Ireli, tourists are encouraged to sleep as Dogons do: that is, to lay a
mattress out on the roof, where the occasional breeze provides relief from the
heat. Under a full moon, the rooftops are sheer magic — and not a little
spooky when you realise that tens of generations of Dogon ancestors are
watching over you from their elevated tombs.
As we explored Tireli,
Emanuel demonstrated how religious symbolism runs through every contour of a
Dogon settlement, pointing out small shrines and taboo stones, which we were
warned not to touch. Every Dogon compound mimics the human form: the kitchen,
for instance, symbolises the head and the entrance the genitals. Each village,
too, is shaped like a person, the head being the toguna or case à
palaver, an open-sided construction where males convene for important meetings.
The toguna consists of eight pillars supporting an eight-layered roof of millet
stalks — reflecting a complex creation myth which centres around the eight
Dogon ancestors who were children of the first human couple fashioned from clay
by the god Amma.
Isolation has helped the Dogon maintain their
cultural integrity. It also means Dogon Country is suited to reasonably hardy
travellers rather than package tourists. There is no electricity or running
water in the valley and meals, like the accommodation, are at best acceptable.
Some people do visit a few villages in a 4x4, but the best way to get a feel
for the place is to hike.
And long may it stay this way. The Dogon
don’t see themselves as a tourist attraction — aside from guides and
guesthouse owners (the main beneficiaries of tourism), our impression was that
tourists are tolerated rather than welcomed. If you visit Dogon Country, you do
so on Dogon terms.
The half-hour climb from Tireli to the top of the
rocky escarpment offered stunning views back across the village and dunes
— not that I was in a mood to admire the scenery as I gasped for breath
beneath a heavy pack. The weathered formations of the high plateau are
interspersed with sandy patches planted with onions, the main cash crop in
Dogon Country.
We stayed overnight at Daga, a small village perched
scenically at the edge of the escarpment, but marred for us by the excited
children who mobbed us at every turn. Emanuel cheered us up by telling us about
the Dogon custom of burying adults and children in discrete caves —
“Children,” he said sagely, “are too noisy to be buried with
adults.” Quite!
Daga felt like a halfway house between the
strangeness of the valley and our imminent return to the relative familiarity
of urban Africa. It was an evening for reflection, for pondering on the
tenacity that has allowed Dogon culture to survive into the modern era. I
thought back to the Dama festival, and the marvellous stilt dancers whose
wooden breasts and mohican hairstyles, we were told, mimic the appearance of
the women of the nomadic slave raiders who tormented the Dogon in the fifteenth
century. Back then, the Dogon resisted and they survived, just as today they
adhere to an animist faith in a region that has been predominantly Muslim for
centuries.
On our final morning, we trudged for what seemed like hours
across a shadeless plateau towards Sanga. As the temperature soared into the
lower 40s, our thoughts inevitably turned to the contents of the refrigerator
at the hotel where we had left our excess luggage. Yet, even as we fantasised
of chilled sodas, we realised that our five-day hike had been a mere taster of
the land of dreams and legends they call Dogon Country. We were already
wondering when we would find the time to return and see more.
Philip Briggs is a regular contributor to Travel Africa. He is the author
of eight African guide books.
