Talk:Dogon people

message: from http://acpizza.livejournal.com/529828.html
"It seems entirely likely to me that the Toguna also served the function of a catabatic swamp cooler." This represents a much better opportunity to prove an early technological accomplishment of the Dogon, for it does not rely upon the need to discover stashed telescopes, time travellers, or space aliens, but rather, simply to test the effectiveness of structures that still exist and everyone agrees existed long ago.
Zaphraud 18:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original Research on the Toguna 

message: Most of this should be okay. The Dogon are an actual tribe, and apparently like Sirius very much. Dysprosia 09:22, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Still, there should be some critical piece added - one anthropologist describes the Dogon myth about Sirius B, but a few others deny having come across it. Andre Engels 12:41, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. —Frecklefoot 17:46, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

text: The whole controversy revolved around disputes between western scientists. There was no mention about the Dogons' own mythology regarding the Nommo (the gods from the sky, "the teachers"). Added that in the beginning of the Sirius paragraph. --Astikain (talk) 21:26, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

text: Well, thanks for fixing 'er, Frecklefoot. I thought about just removing the C information but thought that maybe I was missing something. Omnipotent Q 23:18, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

text: Well, it was my fault for adding it. Sorry about that. I am not an astronomy expert and thought I had heard reference to Sirius C in my investigation. :S —Frecklefoot 15:14, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sirius 

message: Consider this passage:
::Information from those other cultures [i.e. advanced civilisations on Earth] do talk about dark companions [i.e. invisible companions of stars] circa 3000 BCE in their mythology which may have reached the then less isolated Dogon.
In other words, this sentence claims that cultures like the ancient Sumerians or Greeks were talking about dwarf stars back in 3000 BC. This sounds like bollocks to me. Is it?       The Singing Badger 17:27, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: 3000 BC?

message: #When did the tribe first describe that companion of Sirius? Before 1860 as it says in the first section, or before 1970's as the last section implies? 
# Why are the article talking about a binary/trinary system? If there are no evidence of a third companion star, it would reduce confusion to remove that trinary-reference, or at least mention that we don't know if the system is binary or trinary. 
# They are most noted for their descriptions of the Sirius star system. - What is this? In the first section of an article - which is the only part most people will read - one cannot have such disputed statements presented as facts. I wouldn't mind if it had said something about a claim that they are noted for the claim that their mythology describes the star Sirius B or some such weasel terms. But giving such a statement without any explanation, that's no good... \Mike(z) 09:27, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, no problem. As I said, there are some stuff that should be removed - at least from the first paragraphs. If one wants to mock these exotists (I like that name, btw), one could of course keep it at the end of the article... Or rather just refer to some other article about those creatures and their beliefs of other peoples... :P \Mike(z) 08:32, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing facts 

message: French anthropologist Marcel Griaule took part in several expeditions to the Dogon in the 1930s, which resulted in his highly controversial (but also highly interesting - IMO) book "Conversations with Ogotemmeli". (I´ve addded the ref. at the end; was quite suprised to find that there was no ref. to him.) The french version of the book was published around 1952, me think. I also believe Griaule was the first to connect the knowledge of Sirius with the Dogon.
I believe the (english?) anthropologist Mary McCartny (??..spelling probably not correct) and other english academics were very critical of it; they thought Griaule "read" too much into the Dogons belief. Feted them as "the Greeks of Africa", etc.  Especially after the book was published in english (in 1965), several anthropologist  wrote critically of it. -I read about this controvercy years ago -will try to find the references.
To sum up: not always easy to differentiate between what knowledge originated with the Dogons, and what knowledge originate with the anthropologist :->  Huldra 00:38, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: what does this mean, or rather, why is it significant enough to be here? "Marcel Griaule stimulated the construction of a dam near Sangha and incited the Dogon to cultivate onions."  --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 14:21, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Marcel Griaule

message: This sentence "It is only natural that conversations with visitors would eventually turn to astronomy" sounded dubious to me at first. But it does make sense when I think about it. For a westerner visiting non-electrified peoples, it is amazing how dark it gets after dusk. So it is easy to imagine that a visitor, wondering what to do in the dark (not being used to going to sleep so early) and sitting outside because of the heat, would start talking about the stars above.  208.145.81.25 14:25, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  natural to talk about astronomy? 

message: I noticed that the whole Dogon mythology heading now falls under the theory of Robert Temple. But is the part about Sirius, Orion and other stars being important to the Dogon really only said by Temple? Is the sentence about the Bozo people also a theory of Robert Temple? We really don't know anything about Dogon mythology but Temple's theories? AdamDobay 13:04, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, we probably do know more, but this article (or at least this section) doesn't mention much more, which is why I attributed it to him. The wording might need to be improved, but that's my reasoning. — mark ✎ 13:25, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Completely by Robert Temple?

message: An interesting online resource on the Dogon has come recently available: the NECEP database. There is much to be found there that could be of use for expanding the article. — mark ✎ 21:17, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New online source available 

message: What is the etymology of the name Dogon? Alexander 007 20:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Etymology of Dogon

message: *Oppose - XXXX people is standard. PeaceOnEarth 01:47, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Who requested a move? Alexander 007 01:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested move

message: The numbers don't add up in this sentence: 
"Sigui: the most important ceremony of the Dogon. It takes place every 60 years and can take several years. The last one started in 1967 and ended in 1973, the next one will start in 2007."
Should it be 40 years, or does the next one start in 2027? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.200.49.25 (talk • contribs) 03:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks and you are right it should be 2027. It has been changed. --User:AAM | Talk 08:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Numbers

message: There has been a modification that changes the signification of the text (look at age groups last AAM version vs the current version). This might be a language matter (I am not a native english speaker) so I would like somebody that is to verify it.
What I tried to express in the original version that there is a circumcision ceremony every three years and that all boys of the 'age group of 9-12 years' are taken together to be circumsized at that same moment. I mentioned 'age groups' as this is very important for the ceremony and their social position afterwards (their age in that specific group), so this aspect should not get lost the way it seems in the current version. It now reads as if boys are grouped at random at some moment between the age of 9-12 years and circumsized. If nobody could help me I will revert to the original version. --User:AAM | Talk 18:50, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, you are right, I'd revert the 'circumcision' section to your version; 'age group' is a common term in ethnography. However, not all changes in that edit were bad, so please don't simply revert it; a change that should stay, for example, is the change from "and were not a technologically advanced civilization" to "did not have telescopes or other astronomical technology". — mark ✎ 07:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks - only the edits in the CC part are reverted as suggested. --User:AAM | Talk 17:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

text: We go by that sources that meet WP:RS say. Doug Weller talk 05:15, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

text: I have no clue what you mean. The reference backs the text it's attached to. You really need to be more specific, and I've asked for protection as your reasons make no sense. Doug Weller talk 19:48, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I've restored the sourced material but it now reads "female circumcision", not mutilation. What you seem to want is a change in the title of Female genital mutilation. I don't know what you mean by report to security. And I don't have a first paragraph, I didn't write any of that. Doug Weller talk 07:43, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

text: Sorry but I've never edited the circumcision before, none of that material is anything I wrote or checked and I can't take any responsibility for it. Do you want to rewrite it on this page to be moved to the main page? Doug Weller talk 15:32, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

text: I didn't lock the page. You really expect me to do something because you're blackmailing me? But honestly, I don't understand a lot of what you are saying about the reference numbers, which I don't think have been scrambled. However, I have checked the bit abut type II and you're right. But it's unreasonable to ask me to rewrite the whole section entirely since I don't know have the resources, eg Griaule. Doug Weller talk 20:43, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: And it's never a good idea to believe everything you read on the Internet. True, my website  has upset some people, see  but that goes with the territory, as does getting flack because I'm an admin. Doug Weller talk 21:14, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: And as I said, I didn't lock it. But you can create a count and edit after 10 edits/4 days. Doug Weller talk 05:35, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Circumcision + age groups 

message: The recent changes by  are not all bad, but they are all unsourced, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to revert them. What do others think? — mark ✎ 06:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think they are good-faith edits. I would let them stand. Wizzy…☎ 07:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that came across too curtly, I also think the edits are in good faith. But who's going to provide sources for say, the population number and the change from 60 to 65 years for the interval of the Sigui ceremony? — mark ✎ 07:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent changes 

message: I think that this entire little part of the article should be considered for deletion or revision.  It's obviously someone who professes New Age beliefs trying to argue for the Dogons being contacted by extraterrestrials.  
While most people with any or no science background think stuff like this is bunk, we're on Wikipedia here, so maybe could we just make sure it's mentioned somewhere in this or another article that certain religions believe "the following".
Not only all this, but this "Sirius" addendum is not very continuous with the thought stream of the rest of the article.
You'd think because I do lots of work on a fictional language called "Atlantean" that I'd have more leniency for such causes.  Think again.  This alien-astronaught business is merely a figment of modern imagination and literature. 
Epigraphist (talk) 02:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would support the moving of this whole thing to a sub article.  It has precious little to do with Dogon people, and a lot to do with some by westerners.  It is quite notable and should not be deleted, but the actual living Dogon community plays no role in it.  If you can get concensus, I'll help with the move, perhaps to Dogon Sirius theory?  T L Miles (talk) 20:07, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Sirius" addendum 

message: I'm going to suggest again that the Sirus controversy section be moved to its own article.  At over 8,000 bytes it represents just about 1/3rd of the article, and seems to have much more to do with Western researchers debating than the voices/lives/history of actual Dogon people. I'll tag the page, but people should weigh in here so we can get some concensus. T L Miles (talk) 20:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As it happens, I moved the whole Robert Temple section to the entry on The Sirius Mystery only yesterday, but one Taharqa reinstated it without good reason. There seems widespread agreement that it is not relevant here, irrespective of its validity. If it is reinstated again, we can be sure that the person concerned has a POV agenda that is not compatible with the aims of Wikipedia.Skeptic2 (talk) 21:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That may be the answer, but I think it would be nice if we could reach some kind of consensus on this instead of just a revert war.  The first answer, I would suggest, is that this debate has little to do with the Dogon people, unless we can get accepted Dogon writers debating this topic.  But because it's an issue that, given the ink spilled, deserves a place on Wikipedia (whether I agree with the veracity of it or not), I'd hope that partisans on either side can agree where it should be placed, rather than one editor sticking somewhere, and another sticking it back.  Can we get an agreement between both sides to where this should be moved?  T L Miles (talk) 02:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think previous editors had realized there was an entry on The Sirius Mystery book, otherwise we would probably have been having this argument on that page instead. As a comment on the now-removed text, let me note that it attributed information on the Dogon knowledge of astronomy to "A number of researchers". As far as I am aware this number is One, i.e. Griaule, with the inevitable support of his colleague Dieterlin. As we now know, other anthropologists seem to disagree with Griaule, some quite strongly. In reply to Taharqa's comment on Oberg's views, Oberg wasn't aware of the criticisms of Griaule's work when he wrote about Sirius mystery. It seems to me there is little point discussing supposed explanations for Griaule's findings about the Dogon when it's not even established that there is anything to explain. These points were made at much greater length over two years ago, particularly by AdamDobay (see above). Skeptic2 (talk) 09:03, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

text: PS: If Taharqa knows of independent confirmation of Griaule's findings then I'm sure we would all would welcome the reference(s). The unsourced statement at the end which Taharqa objects to was inserted by another editor (anonymous), although it strikes me as fair comment. Skeptic2 (talk) 09:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Move

message: Do the Dogon have their own alphabet?  In reading "Mali: A Prospect for Peace", Rheal Drisdelle, An Oxfam Country Guide I came across the following "Dogon culture, with its own alphabet, its five day week, and references to stellar bodies...".  However, no further information is provided.  Does anyone know anything more about this?  I'm not able to find anything much on the internet.  There is a website here:
Dogon and Bangime Linguistics
This site has a section titled 'Alphabet' but does not present a script, rather it seems to be a vocabulary. 86.143.69.15 (talk) 21:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Dogon Alphabet?

message: This line in the religion section sounds non NPOV to me. So I changed it to a minority practice Christianity, like the existing sentence about a minority practicing Islam. Maybe saying "there is a minority who are Muslims and a minority who are Christians" would say the same thing in fewer words.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marfinan (talk • contribs) 15:18, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "converted by missionaries to Christianity" 

message: "Enlarged family" sounds contrived, perhaps due to translation (since the sections that mention "enlarged family" do not explicitly cite sources, it's likely that the "enlarged family" mentions all stem from the same source that is quoted near them). "Extended family" is a lot more commonly used, I should think.--JeR (talk) 13:47, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Enlarged -> Extended family? 

message: The section was enlarged - no comment on that, but the hidden comment that was removed stated "ethnographer: Marcel Griaule (a good start; but he seems to have focused mainly on the Dogon of Sangha; and don't believe everything he says about the language) (see also talk)". Dougweller (talk) 19:18, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hidden comment on Griaule just deleted from the Culture and religion section 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The Geography and history section contains some strange information relating to slavery.
"It is often difficult to distinguish between pre-Muslim practices and later practices, though Islamic law classified them and many other ethnicities of the region, (Mossi, Gurma, Bobo, Busa and the Yoruba) as being within the non-canon dar al-harb and consequently fair game for slave raids organized by merchants."
Well, merchants didn't really organise raids in Africa. Most people sold into captivity were war prisoners (as you will learn in the articles about slavery). Plus, different ethnic group of animist beliefs also took part in the slave trade, so it didn't really matter which religion you belonged too. Considering this, it is unlikely that the Dogons would have been "faire game for slave raids organized by merchants" because they were non muslim. The source of this sentence is apparently a book about the archeology of islam in Sub-Saharan Africa. Now I wonder if the person who wrote that sentence did rely the entire sentence on that book, or rather, as I suspect, that some islamic scholars (Islamic law doesn't really exist as such, but this is yet another debate) classified as not being "dar al-harb" ?
"As the growth of cities increased, the demand for slaves across the region of West Africa also increased. "
First, you would need to specify which cities, where and when they increased. Secondly, the demand for slave in West Africa mostly rose from the Atlantic slave trade, not the growth of African cities. Secondly, in Africa, slaves were mostly put to work in fields. How does this relate to the growth of cities ? Thus it is unlikely that the Dogons would have been under increased pressure of slave raids due to "growth of cities".
"The historical pattern has included the murder of indigenous males by Islamic raiders and enslavement of women and children"
This is SO strange. Male slaves were sold at a high price (at least until 1850), so killing them when they could have been sold wouldn't make much sense. Plus the "islamic raiders" would have been as indigenous as the Dogons. It was mostly very young children or elderly people who run the risk of being murdered by slave traders who knew they would have trouble selling them. The "source" of this sentence is meant to be in a book about a postcolonial and islamist militant. Which is also strange, woudn't you rather be expecting the source of such a sentence to come from a book related to the pre-colonial history of Mali ?
I say the Geography and history section contains some strange information as it seems to contradict the Wikipedia articles on slavery. It also contradicts my own knowledge on the subject of slavery, what I read for instance in Randy J. Sparks, 2014, Where The Negroes Are Masters : An African Port in the Erea of the Slave Trade or Patrick Manning, 1983, Contours of Slavery and Social Change, The American Historical Review (this is an article you can read online for free).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Braveheidi (talk • contribs) 04:24, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slavery 

message: (This was written into the edit summary of a botched edit by an IP. I am moving it here) --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:32, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It just says that some imagined beings have been compared to sloths. This has nothing to do with where sloths live. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:32, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sloths 

message: What's the origin/etymology of the name 'Dogon'? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:25, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the name? 

message: The introductory paragraph claims there's 400,000 and 800,000 Dogon people. The infobox then lists an unsourced 1,591,787, and then also 1,751,965 calculated from the CIA World Factbook. What source should we go with there? Cortador (talk) 06:55, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population number