The Cliffs of Bandiagara
The beauty of Dogon earthen architecture, which is set against the steep cliffs of Mali’s Bandiagara escarpment, forms a dramatic backdrop for daily and ritual life. Centuries ago the setting for Dogon villages provided strategic advantages. Located high above the plains, traditional Dogon villages were well positioned in case of attack, as advancing enemies could be seen from a distance. Steep gorges and loose rock made it hard to get to the villages at the top of the plateau. Caves within the cliffs provided additional shelter.
Family homes are typically composed of a cluster of earthen, thatched-roof dwellings. Men and women keep separate granaries, which are small storage buildings grouped in clusters. Generally, a woman’s granary is where she keeps jewelry and other personal belongings, while a man’s granary stores the family’s millet and sorghum. Other buildings might include family homes, a ginna (a large house for the head of an extended family), or a special women’s house. The Togu Na, a meeting place for male elders, is an open structure with an extremely low roof. The low roof is said to serve a practical function, as no one can easily jump to his feet to fight should conversation turn to argument. The Bandiagara plateau, cliffs, and plain occupy a large area that includes 289 villages. The government of Mali has instituted a system of decentralization that divided the country into small districts and helps concentrate support among local governments and traditional leaders. Twenty-one districts are in the Bandiagara Plateau. The districts are run by councils and elected Mayors in conjunction with decentralized Cultural Missions that were created to support World Heritage sites through research and conservation, and by raising public awareness. These initiatives have been supported by the Malian government and many international organizations. The Dogon region’s dramatic architecture and masquerade traditions, popular with local and international tourists, are important resources to document and preserve for future generations. Preserving living cultural heritage must be done in collbaoration with the local people, many of whom are living on a subsistance level, but still carry their cultural heritage. Several village museums have been built to highlight traditional crafts and support traditional occupations like masonry, traditional construction work, and textile dyeing by women. At the same time, issues of sanitation and water quality must be addressed. Ecotourism is promoted, while guarding against alterations of the sites. The Cliff of Bandiagara (Land of the Dogons) is located in a remote part of rural Mali, about 80 km east of Mopti. It is a dramatic sandstone cliff, up to 500 metres high that stretches for about 150 km, with a high plateau above and sandy semi-desert plains below. The cliffs have been settled for at least 2,000 years, although the Dogon people who now occupy the area did not arrive until the 15th century. The Dogon brought their traditional religion and animist beliefs with them and have used the natural shelter of the cliffs to help maintain their cultural identity. Their villages are scattered along the length of the escarpment, some on the plateau and others at the foot of the cliffs, where they have used the shelter of the cliff as the location for their unique mud-built granaries, rock art and ritual purposes. The Dogon are celebrated throughout the world for their close association with nature, which permeates every aspect of their lives, beliefs, dance and other rituals. Carvings of totem animals are an obvious manifestation of this in every village – on doors, window shutters and the structural posts of the traditional communal meeting places known as Togu Na. |