Day 9 Dogan Country

Day 9: A hike through Dogan

Warning... The Dogan are a people (tribe) that live in Mali. They had the strongest culture and it was the most fascinating part of the trip to hike through their area. Therefore we had to take as many pictures as possible. I did my best to sort through them, but the days we were in Dogan country will probably have a few too many pictures. Skip through if you must.

Our first stop was to visit the Hogan (chief) of the village. The Hogan of our local guide's village is currently 115 years old. They never take a bath because they are only supposed to be licked clean by a snake. It was very difficult to understand some of their culture and customs because everything is "magic" or "secret".

Some of the sacrifices brought to a Hogan's home to place in the holes in the wall.

This is Devennie almost brushing up against a sacred wall. We had to be very careful where we walked and what we touched because we were not Dogan.

These men are to answer the questions of the village. I believe they call them the soothsayers. They draw a board in the dirt and then place peanuts on it. During the night foxes come and eat the peanuts and the next day the soothsayers read their tracks.

Looking closely, you can see the windy road we had to drive up on.

We were there during the dry season so they were harvesting onions. The men harvest the millet and the women harvest the onions. Pretty much if you are a man during the dry season, you sit around. As you can see, the women are still responsible for their children and watering acres and acres of onion fields by hand.

Then they take the onions and mash them up while kicking them back into a pile. They then form them into little balls for cooking. Daniel wanted to help with the onion mashing.

This is our guide, Ogotemelou and his mother. She took a quick break from the onion field to come say hello to us.

The Tellum people, a group of people who were driven out by the Dogan, used to live in these cliff dwellings super high up. Now their homes are used as burial tombs for the Dogan people. The white stuff is some sort of sacrifice. (They still do human sacrifice in this area but the details are all secret.)

Just taking a quick breather. We hiked a total of 15 or so miles this day in around 100 degree weather.

The rocks outline the family courtyard and the little huts are where they store things.

I just wanted to show that this wasn't just easy hiking. This was scaling along cliffs and up and down all day long.

Isn't this a cool pictures of Toby?

Going up into another village.

Each village had one of these structures built for the elders of the village. If they had a matter to discuss, they would meet here and figure it out. The ceiling is low so that if some one's temper got the best of them and they jumped to their feet, they would hit their head and know that they needed to calm back down.

Some of the older Dogan homes at the base of a cliff. The newer homes are built a little bit lower.