Ancient Dogon maternity - Dogon - Mali (No reserve price)

The Dogons are a people of Mali, in West Africa. Their total population in Mali is estimated at about 700,000 people. They occupy the region called the Dogon Country, which runs from the Bandiagara Escarpment in the southwest of the Niger bend. Some Dogons are settled in the north of Burkina Faso, others have settled in Ivory Coast.

The Dogons are primarily farmers (mostly millet) and blacksmiths. They are renowned for their cosmogony and their sculpture. The language spoken by the Dogons is Dogon, which comprises several dialects. There is also a secret language, sigi so, a language reserved for the Mask Society. The Dogons are linked with the Bozo ethnicity by joking kinship (called sinankunya in Mali). Dogons and Bozos mock each other, but, at the same time, owe mutual assistance.

In Mali, the Dogons are heirs to an exceptional ethno-artistic tradition: each work of art bears witness both to the intimacy of the families—these works are not meant to be seen but rather kept in the shadows of the houses, as in a sanctuary—and to the representation of a unique cosmogony that structures daily life, including the rhythm and rituals of societal or initiatory ceremonies.