What do dogon people eat

These condiments are basic ingredients in Dogon cuisine: they are used in sauces and soups and on vegetables or meat. The Presidium includes several villages and involves the whole chain, from cultivation - using native and self-produced seeds, harvesting, and processing through to packaging. The Slow Food Presidia are projects sustaining quality production at risk of extinction, protecting unique regions and ecosystems, recovering traditional processing methods, safeguarding native breeds and local plant varieties.

Discover the Slow Food Ark of Taste, a world of agrobiodiversity to save. Mali is home to an indigenous group of people who stays true to their ancient culture and traditions. The Dogon people are not shy about sharing their colorful customs with outsiders, which is why tourists love to visit Dogon villages. Most of the ceremonies dances center around agriculture and death.

Masked men will dance several days long to will their crops to grow or mourn their dead. In some of the dances, ceremonial rites, animal sacrifices, seed and grain offerings on the alter and mock battles are performed as an act of worship. The main area that is populated by the Dogon is the Bandiagara Escarpment, a sandstone cliff that is up to 1, feet tall and stretches over 90 miles. Within the mile radius, some live on top of cliffs, below the cliff or on the plains.

The key spiritual figures that the Dogons worship are the Nummo Twins. According to them, the Nummo are often described as amphibian-like, slow moving, upright, and change colors like chameleons.

Some consider them to be representatives of the sun and androgynous. The Dogon believed that in ancient times, everyone was born with a twin and somehow stopped over time. The houses are often windowless and often decorated with motifs to explain the family type living inside.

The Dogon people have ties to several languages including Fula and Bamana dialect, and are believed to be descended from Niger-Congo people.

Toro So is their most popular language, but not every Dogon speaks it. Some converse in lesser known languages such as Jambay and Tommo So. Those who refused to convert migrated to the cliffs along with other non-convert villagers and created the Dogon tribe. After refusing, many males members were murdered while women and children were sold into slavery by Islamic raiders. Dogon people are heavily into sculptures of people, dogs, snakes and other figures. They are very versatile in their art and often use them in altars and near their homes, believing the sculptures will protect them.

The cliffs and rocky terrain provided excellent protection from slave raiders coming from the desert, but they also isolated communities, resulting in at least 32 dialects; many are now mutually incomprehensible.

After the French arrived in , slave raids ended, and the Dogon expanded into the plains around the plateau. This migration severed the Dogon from their religious sites, paving the way for Islam and Christianity. In Bandiagara 80 percent of the population is Dogon. Neighboring tribes include the Peul, the agricultural Mossi, and the Bobo and Bozo, whose main livelihood is fishing.

Of the Dogon settlements, most have fewer than inhabitants; only six have more than 2, The Dogon population has quadrupled over the last 60 years to , with many Dogon living away from the traditional protection of the cliffs. There are two main seasons, a dry season lasting from January to May and a wet season from June to mid-October. The area receives only 20 to 28 inches of rain each year. The Dogon are farmers. Their main crop is millet, planted at the start of the rainy season.

Other crops include rice, beans, peas, peanuts, and sesame. The Dogon divide the land into communal and private plots. The eldest member of each lineage control the lands for miller and other subsidence crop, which are worked communally during the wet season.

In the past 40 years, the plains and the top of the cliffs have become heavily settled, changing the distribution of farming. New dams on the plateau allow Dogon families to grow a cash crop of onions in small plots on the rock face during the dry season. Many villages now rely on cash from onions to pay for millet grown on the plains and at the edge of the cliffs, instead of growing their own.