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African art > utilitarian objects, pulleys, boxes, loom, awale > Dogon Box

Dogon pharmacopoeia box

This African art object, a box with two movable lids, set on three feet, was probably designed to preserve active medicinal preparations prepared according to the advice of elders who had been initiated into the science of trees or "jiridon". The walls are carved with figures of mythical ancestral Nommo, spirits associated with the creation of the world and guardians of health and fertility. These are believed to activate the healing power of the actives. Brown patina.

The Dogon constitute a people renowned for their cosmogony, esotericism, myths and legends. Their population is estimated at about 300,000 souls living southwest of the Niger bend in the Mopti region of Mali (Bandiagara, Koro, Banka), near Douentza and part of northern Burkina (northwest of Ouahigouya). The villages are often perched at the tops of the talus on the hillside, according to a unique architecture. The history of Dogon migrations and settlements (about ten main groups, about fifteen different languages) has given rise to several hypotheses. For some historians, the Dogon would have fled from an area located to the west of