Figure - man

The Dogon are primarily farmers. The calendar of the fields and the success of the harvest depend on the timely start of the rainy season and the abundance of rainfall. The inhabitants of the Bandiagara Escarpment know and use many ways to bring rain. One of them is making offerings on special altars called andugo. The addressees of these sacrifices are the Nommo deities responsible for all water, standing and flowing, falling from the sky in the form of rain, and even the water in the human body, for example in saliva. The Dogon believe that the most effective offerings to bring rain are made by Hogons from the village of Arou. Hogons are priests of the cult of Lebe, a mythical ancestor who embodies the powers of the earth and vegetation, descended from Arou, the youngest of the mythical brothers who wandered from Mande country to the present Dogon homeland. It was during this journey that Arou received several supernatural gifts, including the ability to make effective sacrifices and to bring rain. Although there are many Hogons in the Dogon country, the one with the greatest power is always considered to be the priest from the village bearing the name of the mythical ancestor. In times of prolonged drought, the Dogon from other villages go to Arou to ask Hogon to intervene in the matter of rainfall.The statue represents the ancestor with his hands raised in the air. The gesture is interpreted as a prayerful effort to unite earth and sky. The sign of this alliance is the rain, so important for farmers. It is believed that originally the Tellem, mysterious people who inhabited the Bandiagara Escarpment before the arrival of the Dogon, carved their ancestors in this way. This motif became part of the Dogon tradition and today the connection with the Tellem is only evidenced by the name tellem, which is used to describe the figures.

Ewa Prądzyńska