According to this oral tradition, the first Dogon settlement was established in the extreme southwest of the escarpment at Kani-Na. One relates to their coming from Mande, located to the southwest of the Bandiagara escarpment near Bamako. The Niger River is nearby and in the sandstone rock, a rivulet runs at the foot of the cliff at the lowest point of the area during the wet season.Īmong the Dogon, several oral traditions have been recorded as to their origin. The other factor influencing their choice of settlement location is water. Historically, Dogon villages were established in the Bandiagara area in consequence of the Dogon people's collective refusal to convert to Islam a thousand years ago.ĭogon insecurity in the face of these historical pressures caused them to locate their villages in defensible positions along the walls of the escarpment. To the southeast of the cliff, the sandy Seno-Gondo Plains are found, and northwest of the cliff are the Bandiagara Highlands. The principal Dogon area is bisected by the Bandiagara Escarpment, a sandstone cliff of up to 500 m (1,640.42 ft) high, stretching about 150 km (90 miles). The past century has seen significant changes in the social organization, material culture and beliefs of the Dogon, partly because Dogon country is one of Mali's major tourist attractions.
The Dogon are best known for their religious traditions, origin story, their mask dances, wooden sculpture and their architecture. They speak the Dogon languages, which are considered to constitute an independent branch of the Niger - Congo language family. The population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000. The Dogon are an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa, south of the Niger bend, near the city of Bandiagara and in Burkina Faso.
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