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Dogon Country

Since the XIV century the Dogon people live mainly in the Dogon Plateau, near the Bandiagara Fault, one of the most impressive sceneries of the country. For years they have succeeded to keep their culture virtually free from foreign influences, transmitting it orally from one generation to the next. Declared World Heritage by UNESCO is one more magical place in Mali.

The walls of the Fault used to be home of the Tellem people, Bandiagara’s former inhabitants. It is said that they would access their dwellings climbing through the countless creeping plants that covered those walls. Currently, those dwellings are used by the Dogon people to bury their deceased.

Dogon people are mostly animists, although a small number of them have adopted Muslim and Christian religions. They devote themselves to agriculture, particularly to the production of millet, their daily staple.

While visiting the Dogon country we will have the opportunity to be acquainted with some of their traditions, to listen to their magical accounts, and to know their houses, formed by a series of dwellings built around a central patio where they perform their daily duties. Also we will get to know their barns, crowned with a conical thatched roof, where women and men keep their belongings separately; the house of the word, or toguna, meeting quarters of the elders that join there to speak, debate or take decisions about the village, with low roofing to facilitate a quiet discussion; the houses of the menstruation, where women retire during their menstrual periods; and the house of the hogon, the tribal chief who is in charge to transmit all his knowledge to his successor.

Some places on the route

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