The Land of the Dogon: The History of a Civilization That Arose on a Sheer Cliff (34 photos + 1 video)

In the heart of Mali, ninety kilometers from the city of Mopti, a majestic sandstone cliff rises from the semi-desert sands. This is the Bandiagara cliff, a true realm of verticality, where a high plateau meets a boundless plain.





Streaking for 150 kilometers, this highland is listed by UNESCO as a Wonder of the World as an exceptional landscape of cliffs and sand plateaus, adorned with beautiful architecture. Its power lies not only in its geology but also in its history, which has lasted here for over two thousand years.



The Bandiagara Cliff

Five centuries ago, the Dogon, a people seeking salvation, came to these cliffs. Fleeing from the raids of neighboring tribes in what is now Burkina Faso and Ghana, they found a fortress in the inaccessible cliffs of Bandiagara. But the cliff already held a secret. At its foot lived the "little red people," the Tellem people, pygmies whose dwellings and burial caves, carved at dizzying heights, seemed to the Dogon like nests of flying men.





In the background are the remains of ancient Tellem dwellings; in the foreground is a clay mosque belonging to a modern Dogon village.

The Dogon and Tellem shared the cliff for a time, until the Dogon settled along the entire escarpment, and the Tellem disappeared, absorbed into the newcomers' culture or moving north. But their legacy remains. Tellem clay granaries still serve the Dogon, linking the eras into a single whole.



Marcel Griaule (1898–1956) — French Africanist ethnographer, researcher of Dogon culture

Today, the "Land of the Dogon" consists of hundreds of villages scattered across the plateau and at the foot of the cliffs like ancient amulets. Their world remained hidden from the West until the 1930s, when the French anthropologist Marcel Griaule began his fifteen-year journey. He earned their trust only years later, when the blind hunter Ogotemmeli revealed to him the religious secrets of his people.



These conversations, which became the book "Conversations with Ogotemmeli," forever changed the understanding of so-called primitive African thought.



After this, the Bandiagara cliff and the Dogon culture became a magnet for travelers to Mali. This is understandable, for it is a journey not only through space but also through time, to the origins of human resilience and wisdom, carved in stone.



Currently, unfortunately, the situation in the Bandiagara Escarpment region is quite tense and dangerous. Visiting it is not recommended due to inter-communal ethnic conflicts, the threat of kidnapping, the position of official authorities, and other factors. Therefore, for now, it is a closed zone, and access for researchers and tourists is unfortunately difficult.











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