After Pays Dogon, I managed to get back to Bamako in reasonably good shape. I stayed a couple of nights at the marvelous Hotel Djenné, created by the former minister of tourism who had a great idea when she invited artists to decorate the place. On the bus ride there, I met a Dutch woman and her French traveling companion who was working on developing schools for young women in Mali. I met some other travelers over breakfast. O, and the first evening, I went to pick up the package I had left at Hotel Yamey and to try to visit Damien, the French guy working at his father’s restaurant, the Café du Fleuve. Unfortunately, he wasn’t around so I returned to the northern side of town to eat at the Restaurant San Toro, also owned by the former minister of tourism.
As a single person, I felt very conspicuous when I entered the restaurant, especially when they had no place for me, but after awhile of sitting and listening to a man playing the kora, I got into the spirit of the place and they eventually served me delicious juices and a vegetarian platter. I was craving good food after weeks in the “brousse” (countryside). Better nourished, and after a walk and a stop at the somewhat seedy cafe where I saw a transvestite, I returned to the hotel and slept well. I had tried to treat Samuel Sidibe and a professor friend of his to lunch, but he was busy, so I just stopped by to pick up the conference proceedings he had obtained for me. They included a griot’s account of the history of the Mali Empire, a crucial contribution to my book.
I spent the rest of the day trying to get a flight in January from Timbuktu to Bamako and managed only to confirm my place on the waiting list. That evening I again tried meeting Damien at the Cafe du Fleuve and instead ended up sharing a delicious meal with a Dutch fellow Michiel and a female friend of his, also Dutch, Lisa Winnen. They were very kind of me and my spirits revived considerably in preparation for my trip to Accra.
After a bumpy taxi ride, we arrived at the village of Telli where my guide Chicago and I spent my first night in Dogon country. He had family in the area, although the local guides treated him like a foreigner. I met three French, one Belgian, one English, and one Dutch travelers at the small hotel there. I climbed a traditional wooden Dogon ladder to sleep on the terrace (roof) of one of the banco buildings. The breeze was a refreshing respite from the heat of the day and, because only other foreigners were there, we could remove our clothes to climb into our sleeping bags.
I spent much of the night fantasizing about Damien, the cute French guy sleeping next to me (the second French guy named Damien I’ve found attractive on this trip!). I was also attracted to the Belgian guy Tim. They were traveling with two French women, Melanie and Severine. We woke to a breakfast of bread and coffee or tea. The French and the Belgian continued on their way out from Dogon country, while David and Annemarie, the English and Dutch partnership, headed the same direction as Chicago and I. The first day included a visit to the ancient Tellem and old Dogon dwellings up on the falaise, the mountainous cliffs.
We then hiked around 4km during the morning to another village and then another hike of about 7km to the village of Ennde where we spent the next night.
Much of the focus of the Dogon villages is the granaries, with separate ones for the women and the men. There are also cemeteries, ceremonial places with storage for masks, breweries, and dwellings. Dogon symbology of the sacred crocodile and the sacred tortoise are common. Dogon craftspeople carve wooden statues and doors and blacksmiths have high status still in their villages. Each village usually has a village chief and formerly had a hogon or spiritual leader. There is also usually one hunter, tasked with chasing game such as monkeys, serpents, and other animals.
I suffered a bit due to the lack of good vegetarian food, mostly eating only couscous, rice, or noodles with sparse vegetables to accompany them, plus drinking Fanta, Sprite, or a fizzy pineapple drink and lots of bottled mineral water, sometimes supplemented with the sport mix I brought along to prevent dehydration. I lost a bit of weight and didn’t feel strong enough to hike up the more strenuous route on the way to the village of Begnetmoto, so Chicago led me up an easier valley route to the village.
He and/or the other guide tried to keep me from hanging out with David and Annemarie but I was lonely for English chatter and we had some really good conversations. Their guide even ended up telling us a strange story about three sons of an early human ancestor, Arab, black, and Toubab (or white, including Chinese and perhaps also Indian?). In the story, the father dies and the mother is worried about who will continue the family. She asks each of her sons, but the Arab son is not friendly with his brothers. She says the black son is doomed to endless toil and the Toubab son seems to get off easy. After thinking about it all night, I discussed the story with the guide again the next morning and told him I didn’t like the story or its implications. It reminded me a bit of the story of the lost Israeli tribe of Ham. He and I agreed that black Africans shouldn’t subordinate themselves to other people and that European and American colonial policies had to end and Africans have to take control of the resources of their own countries.
After the 2km hike out of Dogon country, we met the same taxi that had dropped us off a few days before in another location. He played some music by Tikken Jah Fakoly (pronounced “Chicken”), a Malian reggae performer, that made me cry, a song called “Ils ont partagé le monde” (“They have divided up the world”) about how the U.S. and Britain have taken and divided up the spoils of everything in the world.
After some worries on my part about whether Chicago was going to press me for more cash, I was glad that he didn’t seem worried about it and I even gave him a bit of a tip once we arrived in Sevaré. He helped me check in to the hotel there, then went on his way to Timbuktu, where we will perhaps meet again later on.
The Motel de Sevaré was basic, but felt like heaven with hot water showers! I left early the next morning, November 27, on the bus to Bamako.
Written on November 27, 2007, Sevaré Motel, Sevaré near Mopti, Mali
The rest of the trip from Mauritania down to Djenné in Mali on November 22 and 23 was quite difficult. The first stage from Nema to Adel Bagrou wasn’t a very good road, although not as bad as the road from Nema to Oualata. At Adel Bagrou, I switched to another vehicle and we crossed the border at night. I was careful to make sure the Mauritanian border control stamped my passport on departure and the Malian border control stamped it on my second entry to Mali.
Arriving at night at Nara, some guys sitting near the garage got a local guy who works at the radio station in town to come by and show me a room he rents out. The room was filthy and had no running water. I took it anyway because I knew I’d be leaving the next morning. I went back to the street to have a kind of scrambled eggs made on a little gas stove while I sat drinking an apple juice on a wooden bench near the marketplace.
After a rough night and a tough morning, I had a great experience here in Nara. The rough night was because I stayed in a filthy room with no running water and didn’t adjust my mosquito net properly until after the muezzin calls in the morning. The tough morning was after I checked out of the hotel thinking I would be able to get on a truck for Selegou at 9:30am and make it to Niono by this evening and Djenné by tomorrow. Now, it looks like the truck won’t leave until 2:30pm or later. The truck driver named Lasana has a father, a retired teacher, who took pity on me and invited me to the family compound where about 40 people live. Such wonderful hospitality was a great antidote to the travails of travel. I even learned that they are Sonninké people descended from those of the Wagadu empire. Lasana has a twin brother named Fusiné. Here are some more details…
I broke out the mosquito net to crash out early. I didn’t get it adjusted properly until early the next morning. I soon remembered that it doesn’t do much good unless the net is always a bit away from one’s body; otherwise, the damn mosquitoes can sting you through the net! Later that morning, I tried for a vehicle all the way to Niono, but could only find one that would go to Sokolo. I asked when the vehicle would leave and the head of the driver’s syndicate told me it would leave in about an hour and a half at 9:30am. So, I told him I’d go back and bring my bags over. On the way back to the hotel, I tried to change my Mauritanian ougiyas at a reasonable rate with several different moneychangers. The best rate I could find was 16,667 CFA for my 9,000 ougiyas, when the amount should have been around 18,000 CFA. O well. Next, I bought some drinks, then checked out of the hotel and dragged my bags over to the first vehicle destined for Sokolo. I waited around for quite awhile, buying a coffee and a couple loaves of bread, then found out that the vehicle wouldn’t leave until at least 2:30pm. Fortunately, the father of one of the syndicate driver’s saw me chatting with a former colleague of his, both of them retired teachers, and decided to invite me back to his place for lunch. His son the driver brought me over. I had to explain before going about my vegetarianism, but the family seemed quite accommodating about it. I enjoyed visiting the family compound where about 40 people live. I got to eat couscous with milk and sugar, instead of the couscous with meat and sauce that everyone else ate. We talked a bit and he mentioned that the family is Sonninké and that they are descendants of the residents of the empire of Wagadu. After lunch, the son walked me back to the family’s rice and flour shop to wait until the vehicle would be ready. We drank tea and chatted a lot.
Finally, the truck was ready to go around 4:30pm or later, and we left. I’m glad I got to visit the family.
The unfortunate result however was that I got stuck overnighting at the syndicat in Sokolo, a mostly outdoor place right next to the dirt yard where the vehicles gather to take on or drop off passengers (see last pic above). In the syndicat, people were sleeping on mats. At first I was a bit afraid, but there was a guardian (shown in the pic) there who kept and eye out for everyone and their stuff.
Early the next morning, I got on a vehicle to Niono where I ate lunch and bought a bottle of mineral water.
Then, I headed on in another vehicle to Massina.
At Massina, I encountered the River Niger in full force, including fish and large boats in the small but bustling river port.
I paid 2000 CFA to cross the Niger River in a pirogue that was taking on water. I’m sure I would have paid much less had I waited a few minutes more to cross on the usual passenger boat, constructed by strapped two pirogues together.
When I reached the sand beach on the other side of the river, there was no public transport in site. A kind truck driver offered me a ride to the villages of Souléi then Say.
In Say, guys sitting by the road greeted me with tasty watermelon. Walking over to the other side of town with a local guy’s help for my large bag, I chatted with the town’s mayor for quite awhile while reclining in wood slat chairs and drinking tea. A car came by around 9pm and took me on to a small town that was called Matabou (I think).When I arrived in that town, the vehicle I arrived in had problems and the only other vehicle that wasn’t a motorcycle was sitting unoccupied right next to it. So, I almost decided to crash for night, but I remembered I had told Chicago, my prospective guide, that we should go that day. Finally, with the assistance of a guy who worked the telephone call box and a clothing stylist in town, I managed to reach Chicago on the phone and he negotiated to send a taxi to me, also rough going. He showed up in the taxi, which ended up costing me a whopping $80+. I checked in to the Campement de Djenné hotel around 1:30am and didn’t get to sleep until after I completed a shower around 3am. Chicago and I had agreed to meet each other at 10:30am.
I actually managed to wake up on time despite incredible fatigue from the journey. Over breakfast, I realized I had done something stupid. Chicago had quoted me a price by email for a trip to the Dogon country. I mistakenly thought he had quoted around US$50 per day when it was actually US$500 per day. That explained why he showed up in Djenné three days before our scheduled departure date. Over breakfast at Ali Babu’s place nearby, I told him that I had made a big mistake and apologized. I said there was no way I could afford to pay anything like what he was seeking and offered to compensate him for his trip from Timbuktu instead. He tried proposing some other pricing which was still way too high for me. Finally, he asked what I could afford. I told him around US$50 per day. He obviously really wanted to make the trip work, and of course had offered a highly inflated initial price, so we actually managed to come to an agreement that worked for both of us.
That day, I saw the old mosque at Jenné and a tour of that old city.
Next, we went to the museum at the even older town of Jenne-Jeno.
I managed a visit to the site of the archaeological dig that McIntosh had directed at Jenne-Jano as well. Chicago was kind enough to return on foot to arrange our transport on to the Dogon country while I got a ride with a museum attendant and archaeologist to the ancient city on the back of his motorcycle. As a student, he had participated in the excavation of the site and planned to participate again when McIntosh returns next year. The site seemed possibly as large as Koumbi Salah and had lots of pottery shards and iron ore castoffs.
In one spot, a stream had eroded the earth surrounding a vase buried under the sand, so you could see one whole side of the vase while it was still fully buried on the other side (picture just above). The ceramic vases were apparently used for a variety of purposes, such as for food storage. When used to hide treasure, vases were layered inside one another. Funerary vases (including those in the last few pictures from the museum above) had a hole intentionally poked in the bottom of the vase so it was clear the vase wasn’t used for a ‘practical’ purpose. I was struck by the thought of the discovery at Jenne of the seemingly Indian-style statue I had seen at the Musée Nationale du Mali in Bamako.
As soon as the museum curator got me back onto the main road, Chicago, the taxi driver, and another passenger picked me up in the taxi and off we went to Dogon country. The first stop along the way was at a Niger River crossing. Chicago didn’t stop three teenage women from surrounding me up against the taxi to sell their wares. Finally, I got it across to them I wasn’t interested, so I got to wander around the riverside a bit while waiting for the car ferry to show up from the other side of the river.
We spotted a young hippo near the other side of the river, and when we finally made it across, the hippo lifted himself out of the water and turned around so we could see him really well. Apparently it’s not a common site because the local people were quite excited by it as well.
The taxi took us to the garage at Bandiagara where we shifted over almost immediately to a vehicle that was already full of people, including four Mali Peace Corps volunteers. So, even though two of the female Peace Corps volunteers were squished very tightly along with Chicago and myself into a back seat meant for two passengers, we made interesting conversation along the way. At Bandiagara, Chicago and I shifted into a taxi to get the rest of the way to Dogon country. Someone, perhaps a friend of Chicago’s offered me to buy some cola for the elders at the first Dogon village, but I though he meant Coca-Cola and decided I didn’t want to offer that as a gift. I later found out he meant cola nuts, which the elder Dogons love to chew. I had trouble purchasing bottles of water from the same guy because he tried to charge me a higher price for cold water than tepid water. I got annoyed and gave him the money telling him to bring me the hottest bottles of water he had. He ended up bringing some fairly cool ones for the lower price. It was lucky I got those water bottles at 500 CFA because the water bottles once at the Dogon villages went up to 1000 CFA.
Finally, I arrived back in Ayoun. I promptly got ripped off for another 300 ougiya by a taxi driver who didn’t tell me that I could easily walk to Mohammed’s office near the Hotel Aioun, rather than taking a taxi. I went to visit Mohammed because I had to change money again. He seemed happy to chat with me and we eventually did our business. Then, he fortunately kept chatting with me because an American woman named Sarah stopped by his office. She is with the Peace Corps, stationed in Ayoun for two years after her initial three months of training in another Mauritanian city. Mohammed invited both of us to lunch at his place: couscous with meat prepared by his house boy, plus bottled water and the traditional three pressings of tea. He had the TV on. The houseboy also brought a pitcher of water with a bowl that had a strainer cover with a bar of soap on it, so we could wash our hands before eating. Mohammed had satellite television so we commented about the violence of American television shows and crazy new reality shows like one showing people bungee jumping from a skyscraper. Sarah had to go meet some Peace Corps folks, but after we said our good-byes to Mohammed, she walked me over to the Hotel Aioun. Later that evening, after I handwashed some clothes and was napping at the hotel, Sarah came by with two other Peace Corps volunteers and invited me over for dinner. I accepted and we feasted on some squished Uncle Eddie’s vegan cookies and some Batty (endangered species) dark chocolate with cacao nibs I had brought from San Francisco. We didn’t spoil our appetites for the excellent meal another Peace Corps volunteer named Brooke prepared at Sarah’s place, which was a meeting place for volunteers in the area due to its size and space for visitors to crash. The meal consisted of an amazing salad and pesto pasta. I hadn’t seen so many good fresh vegetables in quite awhile. For dessert, we had ice coffee and freshly baked brownies! We discussed the rioting that had taken place at the food depots around Mauritania after the government raised prices significantly on key foodstuffs. Sadly, the police killed one 18-year-old guy in Timbedra and another person in another town. Apparently, an opposition leader was inciting very young students to throw rocks and riot, and apparently no one was actually going hungry. We conversed about contemporary politics, the role of the Peace Corps and NGOs, my project, and other topics. All in all an excellent evening with the possibility of a reunion with some of the folks at the Festival in the Desert in January, plus some contacts in Nema and the recommendation for the Hotel de l’Amitié in Oualata. After a round of goodbyes, two of the guys walked me back to the hotel.
November 15, 2007, Bus station in Ayoun el Atrous, Mauritania
The journey by bus from Bamako to Nioro du Sahel was fairly uneventful. A pleasant elder gentleman sat next to me and we chatted in French much of the way. I also occupied my time by swatting mosquitoes with my map of Mali until the window was so much covered with their bloody carcasses that it became difficult to take pictures free of the evidence of their untimely end. As we left Bamako, the terrain changed gradually from larger trees and bushes to more of a savannah environment, punctuated by the occasional baobab tree and its sister tree, apparently called the mobili.
At this desert outpost called Nioro du Sahel, I and a Mauritanian business woman named Amie changed to a car, actually a Mercedes, into which they packed a total of seven people, three in front and four behind. I felt really squished compared to the bus, even though riding in a luxury car. We went through the border and many police checkpoints, also without incident.
Then, we arrived at Ayoun el Atrous and I stayed the night at the Hotel Aioun after some difficulty in changing money with the taxi driver. I wanted to wait until the next morning to change US dollars to Mauritanian Ougiya at the bank. Well, it turned out that the bank only changes Euros and doesn’t accept dollars or even CFA from neighboring Mali. A number of money changers offered me poor rates of exchange until I found one named Mohammed, an insurance guy, who was really the only one serious about changing dollars. He changed at the rate of 220 ougiya to the dollar, the best rate I could find, but I later found out the official rate if more like 260 ougiya to the dollar.
Then, off I went back to the bus station, or garage as they call it here, to find a car for the Tamchekett virage, i.e. the turnout for Tamchekett.
A nice elderly fellow on the bus told me the following anecdotes:
Marbara is the first village of the Peul (aka Fulani) people, located near a hill in the middle of the desert. In this village, you have only to dig a bit anywhere in the ground to find water if you are thirsty. However, if you are no longer thirsty, the water is not easy to find.
In one village of this region, a white French man came to demand some tax payments that were overdue. The villagers wouldn’t pay, so he struck some of the men. He then demanded some milk, but no one would give it to him until a woman found a cow and got milk for him and his friends. Three of the four of them died from drinking the milk. The last remaining one left the village forever. The village has never paid taxes since that day.
A boy boarded the bus with a live chicken in Bamako. Along the way, he got off the bus without taking the chicken. Eventually, the bus driver gave the chicken to a woman he liked working in a stall in a town along the bus route.
I saw lots of baobab trees and spoke with friendly passengers on this bus, Peuls who speak Peular and are Muslims. A Mauritanian woman on the bus who says her name is Amie is also going to Ayoun el Atrous. The voyage is going much more rapidly than I thought it would, inshallah.
That last pic is one of my favorite ones ever… check out what appears in the boy’s eyes!
Watch how the number of baobabs increases further north and the terrain gets drier.
The interview with Samuel Sidibe, Director of the Musee Nationale du Mali, went very well. He was kind enough to provide me with references to the oral history of the griots, or traditional storytellers of West Africa, including back to the times of the great empires of Wagadu (Ghana), Mali, and Songhay.
After the interview at the museum, I wandered around town to accomplish chores like getting a SIM card for my phone to work in Mali.
I walked all the way to the fetish market by the Grand Mosque, where I purchased a white crystal thought to help with stomach and intestinal ailments to give to Travis back in San Francisco. I went to a Marche Artisanal where artists were selling musical instruments, statues, paintings, and clothing. I purchased a small shirt and pant set for my nephew Zachary… I hope it will fit! Finally, I visited the main post office to inquire about sending my printed materials back to San Francisco. This time the price was even crazier — more than US$200! So it looks like I will be lugging the stuff around with me for awhile.
After a shower at the hotel, I went for dinner at Appaloosa. There I met a very intelligent and admirable woman from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Washington, DC. She is conducting a study here in Mali on malaria in infants. I was amazed by her dedication to saving lives and she told me some sad stories about how many children are dying here. She also explained in more detail about malaria works… apparently, the parasite from mosquito bites invades the liver and stays there until it transforms into something that goes into the blood stream. At that point is where the medications like Malarone and others attack the disease, not in the liver itself. That’s why it’s necessary to continue taking the medication for some time after leaving a malaria zone, so that all the disease that passes out of the liver gets clobbered in a blood supply well stocked with the medication. It’s also why it’s so important to make sure to take every done of the medication. Even she, an infectious disease expert, forgot to take her pill for one or two days and ended up with a case of malaria, the symptoms being fatigue and nausea without vomiting, among others. After grossing me out a bit with the malaria discussion, she invited me over to the Restaurant du Fleuve for an ice cream sundae. I had been afraid to eat ice cream here, but she assured me it would be not only safe but really yummy and she was right! The chocolate sauce was especially good.
After checking in the evening before to the Hotel Yamey and eating dinner at the Apaloosa bar and restaurant next door, where the waiters were dressed like cowboys, I slept well. My main meeting wouldn’t happen until November 10.
So, on November 9, I visited the Musee Nationale du Mali in preparation for the meeting with its director on November 10.
The museum is excellent. I first wandered past an outdoor sculpture of a typical Malian bus into an art exhibition where hundreds of children scrambled around the museum hall interacting with some amazing art.
The other main hall of the museum contains its permanent exhibits about Ancient Mali, Ritual Art, and Textiles. I took lots of notes because pictures weren’t permitted, and I bought a few postcards documenting the key artifacts in the museum, such as the Dogon “Thinker” statue with snakes all over his body, the almost East-Indian-style statue of a reclining man, and the ancient textiles with interesting patterns from the people inhabiting the Dogon region before the Dogon themselves arrived.
In the garden on the way out of the museum, I saw a variety of models of famous buildings in Mali, particularly of the mosque at Jenne-Jeno, and the waterfall at the entrance once again.
Notes on National Museuem in Bamako:
A great museum! (in three parts)
ANCIENT MALI–
Tellem — in rock escarpments of Bandiagara, people who lived from 11th to 16th century, Dogon people found them there, textiles are among oldest found in Africa, also leather, wood, and metal artifacts found in sepulchral grottos
Before the Tellem came the “Toloy phase”, 3rd to 2nd century BCE, grotto A with round elevated constructions, architectural elements also appear in Ireli and Bongo villages
Neck rests found in grotto of Sanga, 11th to 14th century CE, made from wood or iron, some with geometrical patterns
Leather boot with geometrical designs, Tellem, Songa
Cache sexe, leather hem with twisted strands, presumably to cover genitals
Belt of leather strands, approximately ten
Bracelets, metal, some thin, some thick, some with twisted pattern
Pottery, “vannerie”, and “Fécipient (Récipient) en calabasse”, Tellem, Sanga, 11th – 15th centuries CE
Grotto P
Round and oval constructions from 11th – 12th centuries CE
Rectangular constructions from 13th – 14th centuries CE for living quarters
Grenier? = granaries(?)
Bankoni, Bamako, statuette, clay, long face, head tilted back, tongue sticking out a little, Szumowski found in 1954 in a pseudo-tumulus
Sirakorola, Koulikoro region, ceramic bottles with spherical containers and cylindrical necks, found in vast necropolis, the necks sometimes chopped off before the ceramics baked, heads on the necks include: cow, ram, cock, bird, lamb, and human
==> Oueyanko, west of Bamako, phalliform object, Szumowski found in 1954 in a pseudo-tumulus (see drawing in journal)
Fakola, Bougouni region, tortoise in clay, and a quadruped in clay
Probably southern Mali: two clay statuettes, region with relatively more rainfall, dense vegetation and forests sites such as Magnambougou, Kouroukorokalé, Fanfannyégéné rock opening
Tongo Maaré Diabel (the dune “au jujubier”) is one of the oldest cities studied in Mali, three kilometers north of Douentza between Bandiagara and “les falaises” (escarpments) of Dyoudé, 5th – 13th century CE, agricultural society, “le mil” = millet(?), rarised cows, sheep, and goats, also had blacksmiths, commercial relations with Berbers to the north — found semiprecious stones “coralines” and “amazonites”, transaharan commerce starting in 10th century when glass appears, many pottery vases discovered there, a horse rider statue in clay from 9th – 11th century
Natamatao site: iron tools, including disk, “poinçon”, “enclumes”, axe, “marteau” associated with “scories”, clay statues of quadrupeds, probably ram and lamb
Waganzana site near Thial, same period as Natamatao, statue fragments
Natamatao is six kilometers from village of Thial (Tenenkou (or Tenemkou?) circle), human figure with horse head, also found skeletons painted in red ocher, so probably funerary site, clay head statue probably from top of a vase, very different style
==> Djenné, probably 13th – 15th century CE, statuette of a man seated with head rested on arms crossed on knees, covered with serpents
Natamatao, Thial:
Vase decorated with serpents (similar to Dejenné but different due to large opening)
Stops to put in tops of vases
Vase with geometric pattern
Djenné Djéno, 13th century, three kilometers from Djenné
==> Stylized clay statue of male figure wearing necklaces, serpent ring on right bicep, two bracelets above right elbow, one on right wrist, two bracelets on left wrist, possibly dagger in sheath on left bicep, headless, wearing “cache sexe”
Bust
Djenné Djéno founded in 3rd century BCE, surrounded by a wall two kilometers in length, population 10,000 – 26,000, long-distance commerce, objects of Roman origin found, copper and flass beads, socles de fer, fusables -> tissage, abandoned by 14th century, probably due to domination of Islam in the region
Statuettes with “boutons” from 13th century
Mopti
Clay mask
Globular vases decorated with serpents, clay
“Pied de lit”, clay, origin Kami
Djenné Djéno
LARGE vase “caréné”, 600-900 CE, clay
LARGE funerary jar, clay, tradition of either putting bones of entire body in jar, pierced the
bottom on purpose to signify funerary function
Gao, Sané necropolis, funerary stela from 12th – 13th century, written in Andalusian/Maghrebian style characters
Tomboutou (Timbuktu)
Vases, clay
Bottles, clay
Hematite “polissoir” to test quality of gold
(Imported?) glass fragments
Alabaster window
Small vase (inkwell?)
Copper (coins?)
Iron knife blade
Variety of beads, including wooden ones
Bed supports
Sites at Kawinza, Mouyassan, and Toubal (near Sumpi)
Rice and millet cultures
Fishery
RITUAL ART–
Dogon statue of primordial couple — origin myth of eight lineages, wood
Dogon statue of Nommo, master of water, life, speech, and fecundity, arms attached to something over head, wood, first being created by Amma
Dogon statue of four first ancestors, wood
Gwandusu, Bamanan, Baninko circle of Dioila, statue of maternity or paternity, wood
Ntomo (Notomokun) masks, Banaman, Ségou region, Ntomo society for children aka Cèbilenkè (Beledugu) and Bilakorojo (Birgo and Baninko), number of horns indicates sex of mask: male (3 or 6), female (4 or 8 ), androgynous (2, 5, 7, or 9), often covered with cowries and red seeds or berries, “la discretion” of the mouth -> control over speech, important in those societies
Bamanan, Diolila region, hyena masks, wood
Do mask, Boo, wood
Cimiero — for dancing (Ciwarakun), Bamanan
Senoufo statue slave, “Tabitière des captifs”, hunched over, carrying bowl with cover that has monkey on top, wood
Sogow or marionette, Ségou villages, Kamelan ton associations organize Sogo Bwo animal dances also theater for educational purposes, festival of masks and marionettes (FESMAMA)
Dogon — toguna pillar, wood, feminine figure accentuating breasts and vagina without facial detail
Peul — gold pendant (dola)
Cimier for dance, Ngosonkun, Bamanam, Koulikoro region, wood
Boo, feminine statue Hanbé, for protection of village, wood, long tall, looks like mohawk on head
Senoufo, feminine figure (debele) associated with male figure, ritual scarification, primordial couple
Dogon, Satimé mask, wood and paint
Dogon, multistory house mask, very tall, painted wood
Dogon, Kanaga mask, arms above head, two hands pointed up above two hands pointed down, painted wood and fiber
Dama mourning ritual
Kono (konokun) mask, Bamanan, wood, horns, blood sacrifice of animals
Senoufo, Janus mask (Kponiougo), wood
TEXTILES–
carbon dating from 10th – 13th centuries CE
Peul migrations introduced textile fabrication around 9th century CE
Tilbi — cotton or silk garment signifying high status, Djenné or Tombouctou (Timbuktu)
Bogolan technique for dying cloth
Hunter shirts, example with mirrors, beads, fabric strands, amulets to protect from nyama, always brown and yellow, never indigo (representing nature, not village)
Protective garment “sigi (or sugi?) doki” with text and geometrical designs and amulets wrapped and sewn on
The Peul griots are also wool fabric artisans, they are called Maabo, plural Maabuube, their wives are traditionally potters. The Maabuube are similar in importance to the blacksmiths of the Manding called Numu, whose wives are also potters, located in “boucle du Niger”, Niger River flood plain, wool provides protection against cold and mosquitoes
Peul arkille fabric, often very long, used for nuptial bed, symbol of marriage
Kaasa — another garment formerly worth more than a sheep
Tellem textiles, Sangha, Bandiagara, ancient people who arrived in Dogon country at the weakening of the Ghana empire in the 11th century (Dogons arrived in 14th century)
Tellem textiles included important symbolism, not just pretty designs, no method of fabrication found with other artifacts, so may be imported (?), tunics from 10th – 12th centuries, lots of indigo color, écharpe = ?, strange red designs (see drawing in journal), striped indigo-white cap cotton, another with vertical triangular stripes to the top center
The flight to Bamako, Mali, went smoothly. In the waiting area, I chatted with a guy from Burkina Faso, a man traveling with his wife from Guinee Bissau, and a French fellow headed for nutrition aid work in Mali. On the plane, I sat next to a wonderful Senegalese doctor who commutes back to Mali to see her family part of her family there a few times a month. My chat with her about my novel led to the fellow sitting next to her offering me a ride to the hotel, rather than paying CFA7000 for a taxi to town.
