The Dogon are inhabitants of Mali. They depend mainly on the cultivation of grain crops such as millet for their livelihood. Traditionally they lived in inaccessible villages on steep hill-sides - exhibiting famed skill as mountaineers and climbers, and this isolation encouraged the development of their remarkably intricate cosmology and mythology and more than thirty language dialects. To the Dogon, myths and symbolism are as real as the material form of things, and every aspect of social life reflects the working of the universe.
Dogon villages, for instance, are laid out in such a way as to symbolize the world egg out of which all life is believed to originate. Each district has its own spiritual leader, or hogon; nevertheless, the knowledge of myths and symbols is not confined to a priest-caste but is open to anyone who has the patience and intelligence to learn. The Dogon houses are called a ginna and are made in the shape of a human body. Each Dogon village also has a togu na or man's shelter where the men and village elders loaf around, talk and smoke, and women are barred. Research Dogon
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