In a land of many tribes, each practising its own culture and rituals, there is a tribe with a culture based on a mythology stranger than fiction. In sub-Saharan Africa, in Mali, along the river Niger is an area called the Bandiagara escarpment. Here, the Dogon tribe resides with its strange customs and beliefs. Each of their rituals like dances, initiation of tribal elders and burial practice particularly, are steeped in mysterious mythological beliefs; some of them so secretive that no one can access the actual performance except the tribal members. For example, they bury their dead in caves situated in cliffs and except the relatives of the dead person, no one else can go there.
Also, these caves are supposed to be reservoirs of magic and have very sacred meanings. This is because the Dogon have extreme respect for their ancestors.
The Dogon's methods of worship are unique. One of which is offering food by placing it on a clear patch on the ground and the next day, they read the markings left by the fox's prints that took the food. Interestingly, the fox is also sacred to the tribe.
The most interesting custom is the tribal dance, which is the main reason that anthropologists and researchers found the Dogon quite puzzling. This dance practice is a major part of the Dogon ceremony in which masked men wear 12-foot stilts and perform a dance known as 'Sigi'. This particular dance depicts the renewal of the next generation and is performed every 50 years.
The reason behind this ritual was so compelling and intriguing that it made author Robert K.G. Temple write a book in 1972, called The Sirius Mystery. The Dogons believe their deity named 'Amma', created the universe and everything in it. And 'Nommos', were her first creation. 'Nommos' were fishlike people that lived on a planet in the Sirius star system who came to Dogons 5,000 years ago, lived among them and gave them great knowledge about the solar system, agriculture and lots of other things.
The Dogons have believed for centuries that every 50 years a small white dwarf star (Sirius B) near Sirius, completes its orbit, it is the smallest star but is extremely dense. They further describe Sirius B as 'po tolo', (po means 'smallest seed' a tiny, white cereal native to Africa and tolo means 'star'). According to them, all things emerged from this invisible star and it is at the centre of the sky that it governs the rest of the stars; its constant spinning seeds the earth with new life. Thus, the reason for their dance to appease this star.
The great mystery unfolds in the fact that this small white star was only discovered in 1928 and was photographed for the first time in 1970 by the United States Naval Observatory.
The Dogon also knew that Saturn has rings and Jupiter has four moons. It is interesting to note that the Egyptians also had great knowledge of Sirius and the white dwarf star, Sirius B, so it is possible that the Dogon might have some connections to ancient Egyptians.
Kenneth Brecher, physics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) wrote in 1977 that, “For centuries, the Dogon of Mali have had an excellent understanding of the solar system, particularly the Sirius star system. The Dogon, in addition to plotting the orbits of the star Sirius, identified one of its companions, Sirius B, as being one of the densest and tiniest stars in our galaxy. The most notable aspect of their observations is that Sirius B is invisible to the unaided eye.”
To us, the questions remain; how come the knowledge of these ancient people is so accurate? Were they actually visited by fishlike beings from another planet?
