The Dogon Creation Story

University of Massachusetts Boston From the SelectedWorks of Chukwuma Azuonye 1999 The oD gon Creation Story Chukwuma Azuonye, University of Massachusetts Boston Available at: https://works.bepress.com/chukwuma_azuonye/74/ The Doqon Creation Story Chukwumu Azuonye Here, Chukwumu Azuonye outlines and analyzes contains the potential for the existence of all real- the creation story of the Dogon people and ity. In the course of its flotation, it suddenly be- explains its relationship to the star Sirius. gins to expand under the pressure of internal vibrations. This happens at the point in space The Seed of the World where the Dogstar, Sirius A (Digiteria) and its The creation story of the Dogon people of the dwarf companion, Sirius B, are now located. To- Bandiagara cliffs in southern Mali and the plains day, these twin stars occupy an important place of northern Burkina Faso in the area of the Niger on the Dogon ritual calendar. The all-important bend in West Africa is one of the most elaborate Dogon ritual of renewal, Sigui, which takes place and fascinating traditional explanations of the every 60 years, follows the time it takes Sirius B origins of the world and of human culture. to complete one orbit around Sirius A, a fact Unlike biblical and similar stories of creation in which has since been confirmed, with only a few other African oral traditions, in the Dogon cre- minor differences, by modern science. ation story the idea of an all-powerful and all- With the intensification of the internal vibra- knowing divine creator is subordinated to an tions within it, the seed of the world expands and evolutionary process in which God (Amma) expands until it reaches the utmost limits of the emerges as a supernatural but imperfect progen- universe, forming an oval mass that the Dogon itor. In place of the traditional idea of creation describe as the egg of the world (aduno tal) or the out of nothing, the Dogon creation story offers womb of the world, using the term me (which can through the magic of the divine logos a more sci- be glossed as placenta or amnion) to describe its entific explanation that anticipates the modern contents. The transformation of the seed of the big bang theory. In the Dogon creation story, we world into the egg or womb of the world takes can see a projection into the cosmos of ideas that place in seven stages. Unwinding like a spiral essentially belong to reproductive biology. from its point of origin, each of the seven stages Underlying these ideas is what appears to be of its expansion is longer than the preceding one. some knowledge of the role of chromosomes and In Dogon iconography, this unwinding process is of DNA in the formation of every new life, as for- represented by a zigzag line called ozu tonolo. mulated in modern genetics. Other ritual drawings depict the seven-stage un- The story begins with the idea of the seed of winding process as culminating in the prefigura- the world. Described by the Dogon as kize uze tion of the human shape. We can see from these (the smallest of things), this tiny seed floated qui- drawings (Fig. 1) that the first and sixth vibra- etly through the dark emptiness of space before tions represent the human legs, the second and the the birth of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Although fifth the hands, the third and the fourth the head, it is as small as the smallest cultivated seed in while the seventh represents the genitals (the male Dogon culture, namely fonio or digiteria exelis, it penis or the female clitoris): 48 The Dogan Creation Story 49 At the seventh vibration, the enveloping sheath breaks releasing all creation into space, just as young lives are released into the world from an egg. An interesting and significant aspect (from the perspective of modern science) of the Dogon view of the processes within the egg of the world before creation is the notion that the egg of the world contained a master plan for creation. This master plan is composed of images or signs called yaJa. -. Each yaJa contains a model or code of all the in- structions needed for the creation of each and every thing now known to exist in the universe, and Figure 1: First Seven Vibrations of the Egg of the World all these, according to the Dogon, are grouped (after Griaule and Dieterlen, 1954) into 22 basic categories. Amma, the supreme being, is among the first Serou, rather than the perfect model of creation, of the 22 categories of beings (deities) who the twin Nommo, that was intended. emerged to become fully differentiated self- Dyougou Serou was a male being without any conscious beings. As god of creation, he set out to complementary female elements. In time, this all- complete the work of creation. But he does so, not male being raped his own mother, Earth. The re- as an omniscient and all-powerful God, but, sult was a breed of incomplete beings that have through procreation, as a great father figure with survived in the universal order as evil beings of all the imperfections of humankind. various kinds. Seized with shame over his mis- Lacking foreknowledge of things, he must also deeds, Dyougou Serou spent the rest of his life in proceed by trial and error. His first task was to pro- restless disgrace. Dogon sculpture represents him create a divine model for humankind, Nommo. in several cringing poses with his hands covering Nommo would be a pair of androgynous twins. his face (Laude, 1973; Imperato, 1978; Goldwa- Each pair would comprise two persons, one basi- ter, 1959; and Ezra, Art of the Dogan, 1988). In cally female but with balancing male attributes, the time he suffered an anti birth by dissolving back other basically male but with balancing female at- into his mother, the earth's, vagina. But his evil tributes. Through further procreation between the offspring have survived to trouble the world. twin Nommo, the ancestors of humankind would The Dyougou Serou episode is only one of sev- come into being. Their offspring, like themselves, eral versions of the explanation of the origins of would preferably come as twins or as individual evil in the Dogon creation story. In other versions, male and female beings with complementary fe- the origin of evil is attributed to a being known as male and male attributes like themselves. But, un- Ogo, who, paradoxically, is an offspring of one of fortunately, Amma's first attempt at procreating the pair of perfect Nommo born of Amma's sec- the Nommo proved to be a failure. ond mating with the now circumcised earth. At first Amma was thwarted by the aggressive While still in the womb, the male person (Ogo) in masculinity of the model earth (then still sus- one of the androgynous pair of twin Nommo tore pended in the heavens). As he approached the pri- his way out into space before the appointed time mordial female Earth in sexual foreplay, a termite of his birth, leaving his female counterpart be- hill, Earth's clitoris, rose aggressively like a gigan- hind. He emerged carrying with him a piece of his tic penis. Amma was forced into a struggle to sub- own placenta. Outside the world-womb, this due this aggressiveness. In cutting down the earth's piece of placenta became his own earth. In addi- clitoris, he set down the rule that subsequent gen- tion to stealing a piece of his own placenta, he erations have followed through clitoridectomy (fe- also stole some of the fonio, which Amma had in- male circumcision) to subdue the potential of the tended to give to perfect humanity to plant for female clitoris to compete with the male penis. Af- their sustenance on the pure earth. Ogo is thus ter this, Amma succeeded in copulating with the also known in Dogon mythology as Yo Ogo (the earth; but unfortunately, the struggle with the thief Ogo) or Yurugu. earth's maleness had already marred this first sex- But Ogo's rebellion was in vain. The earth he ual union. The offspring was the jackal, Dyougou created in such haste before his birth at full term 50 Sub-Saharan Africa was an impure earth in which nothing good or and technological foundations of civilization complete could thrive because of its denial of the were laid by the Nommo turned blacksmiths. female essence. In frustration, Ogo returned to Though he was an evil being, one of Ogo's ac- heaven to search for his soul sister but discovered tions for which he is still remembered in Dogon that Amma had retrieved her and placed her in rituals today was the theft of a piece of the sun. the world-womb under the charge of the remain- Through this act, he brought fire to the world. ing twin Nommo. Ogo then returned to the dark With fire already present on earth, the Master and desolate world he had created with such reck- Blacksmith introduced the major forms of art and less haste. There, Amma turned him into the pale technology for which the Dogon have been fox as a punishment for his misdeeds. The single, known for centuries. First, he taught humans how all-male incomplete beings born of his incest with to weave. Then he instructed them in music and his mother's placenta who now peopled the earth the making of the harp-lute and other musical in- have survived as the breed of evil beings that still struments.

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