THE STORY ABOUT THE DOGON

Due to a fortunate set of circumstances (a.k.a. coincidences) and the support of a few good friends, the Sirius Research Group recently received a copy of an English translation of the original French publication of the study on the Dogon tribe in the Republic of Mali, West Africa.

Although much has been said by others about the mythology and the astronomical knowledge of the Dogon, it seems that little of what the Dogon actually said has been truly understood.

When in 1931 Professor Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen began, over a period of several decades, to undertake an extensive field study on the social and religious structure of the Dogon tribe in West Africa, the Western world had still no clue about the traditions of the Dogon - much less about the wisdom they possess.

In order to make the character and the significance of the religious ideas of the Dogon more widely known, Marcel Griaule published in 1948 a short book under the title "Dieu d’ Eau: entretiens avec Ogotemmêli" . Written in an informal style, it offered the layman a comprehensive outline of the Dogon cosmology. An English translation, entitled "Conversations with Ogotemmêli", appeared almost a decade after Griaule’s death. In Germaine Dieterlen’s introduction to that book we find a small footnote mentioning the fact that, "The funeral of Marcel Griaule was celebrated with full Dogon funeral rites at Sanga on April 7 and May 8, 1956. The Dogon showed in this way the respect, affection and gratitude they felt towards him for his attitude and his acts during all the time he had lived among them."

Obviously, Griaule’s and Dieterlen’s work was more than an ethnological inquiry. They wished to learn about the Dogon’s religion from a genuine desire for knowledge, not just out of curiosity. And after years of establishing a trusting and affectionate relationship with the Dogon, the Dogon elders considered it their obligation to make the more esoteric aspects of their religion known. The elders decided to initiate Griaule into their sacred knowledge, thereby ‘opening the door’. [see also Appendix I]

As a result, Germaine Dieterlen published in 1965 a significant part of their findings in a book entitled "Le Renard Pâle". It diligently records the complex cosmogony of the Dogon, which they transmitted in the form of a living myth, intricately woven into an allegorical story about the creation of the world - the "history of the universe". The myth reveals ideas and the symbols it contains play the role of "administrator of knowledge". But the genuine knowledge which the myth imparts requires a conscious assimilation, not a spontaneous and superficial understanding. For that reason, the Dogon established a layered hierarchy of their teachings they give to the initiates. Through a guided process of self-initiation, a persevering seeker of truth is able to penetrate the various layers and access its deeper meanings.

The original English translation of "Le Renard Pâle" ("The Pale Fox") by Mary Beach was never published. However, some fragments of that translation were quoted by Robert Temple in his seminal work "The Sirius Mystery". This book truly popularized the knowledge of the Dogon and could have given a new life to the original scientific publications of Griaule and Dieterlen. Unfortunately, while most of the anthropologists’ work remained obscure to the public eye, the Dogon’s knowledge about the Sirius system was subjected to a variety of criticism, which eventually deteriorated into a special form of skepticism, called "debunking". Debunkers or so-called pseudo-skeptics, whose aim it is to refute and dismiss (i.e. ridicule and distort) any information that is not within the limits of current scientific understanding, want to make us believe that they know exactly what is possible and what is not.

Apparently, Robert Temple had touched a sensitive tooth in the astronomical community – a deep cavity that was never filled and began to decay at the root: Who told the Dogon about Sirius and its companions?

Knowledgeable people who prefer to refrain from pure speculation remain silent. Of course, those who had the opportunity to read "Le Renard Pâle", either in the original French or in its English translation, and who clearly sense the profound wisdom embedded in the Dogon rituals and traditions, will laugh at the ridiculous notion that some clever Westerner had nothing better to do than to set out and teach the "uneducated" and primitive Dogon tribe about the latest astronomical discoveries or other important scientific matters that happened to be the gossip of the day.

At the time of Griaule’s mission, the Dogon had no current method of writing. Their cosmogony is inscribed with their designs, and the knowledge has been transmitted over centuries through oral teachings and an elaborate use of drawings and paintings. Their meaning has remained unchanged and no new signs were invented.

Truth is fixed by means of symbols.

We would only fool ourselves to think that the Dogon would have been at all susceptible to the ideas about reality of naïve visitors from a technological society.

The people in the region considered the Dogon to be wise farmers. Tilling the soil and harvesting its fruits, the Dogon also knew not to ‘cast pearls before swine’.

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