The Dogon

Lost Civilizations (@lostcivilizations)

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· 1 year ago

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The Dogon population in Africa provides a clear representation of what would have happened in the past millennia on earth, precisely when "the Gods reigned on earth". It seems that the Dogon Gods, understood as deified visitors from other planets, saw them and learned amazing things from them.

The Dogon live in a concept far from modernity and development. They are settled in the area of the other Niger, precisely in the Bandjagara plateau and are thought to be the successors of very ancient lines of nomads coming from ancient Greece, who, however, itself is a mystery to history.

The Dogon have lived and still live far from civilization and development, although they have not had much contact (except in the period of explorers) with other human societies. They have a complex, well-organized social system and live by hunting, fishing and agriculture.

The reason that brought the Dogon to the fore must be sought in their deep bond that they maintain with the star Syrius. After about twenty years of study of this population, two French researchers and anthropologists reported a careful examination of the Dogon, discovering some very interesting data.

Their mission began in 1930: Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen learned to deeply understand the Dogon by learning about their traditions, habits and customs, but their curiosity was aroused when they witnessed a strange celebration.

Every 50 years the Dogon celebrate a sacred ceremony called the "Sigui" festival in which veneration is expressed for a star, which the Dogon say is located near the star Sirius, the largest star in the constellation Canis Major.

The Dogon called this star "Po Tolo" and knew its precise location, its period of revolution around the star Sirius, which they established as 50 years (this is the reason for the celebration of a festival every 50 years). The Dogon did not stop there: they knew the elliptical orbit of this star and also knew that it was very heavy. The most thought-provoking thing is that it is not even possible to see this star with the naked eye, and that, in order to see it today, a very accurate telescope is needed and that very complex mathematical tools and formulas must be used to know its orbit, as well as several years of scientific and IT research.

The knowledge of the Dogon dates back hundreds of years ago, even they no longer know when they came into possession of these notions, but the fact is that in any case when the two researchers came into possession of this information it had still not been possible to discover any star, much less even the star Sirius was well known.

Today's science, however, gives an additional aura of mystery to the knowledge of the Dogon; another star has been discovered near Sirius and called "SyriusB": as the Dogon already said, it has been confirmed that the star has an orbit elliptical, and that its heaviness would derive from the fact that it is a white dwarf.

In addition to these extraordinary discoveries, an important scholar also intervenes in our days, and he too, after studying the Dogon, learned of another disconcerting truth: the Dogon described in their tradition the existence of a third star: well it was discovered recently also the existence of a third star in the Sirius system, a red dwarf.

The researcher, a certain Robert Temple, goes further by considering a correlation between the cult of the star Sirius with the image of the dog, of which it is part in the constellation of the same name, saying that the sphinx in ancient times was a dog, just like the god Anubis, venerated by the Egyptians, therefore a common culture between Dogon and Egypt.

The question becomes intricate, how could this ancient population, so backward and far from civilization, have been aware of this star? Even more important, if one were to object that the Dogon were educated by colonizers prior to the arrival of the two researchers, one can very well recognize that there was still a long time to come for the same star to be discovered; after all, the Dogon knew of the existence of a triple star system when only one had yet been discovered.

The spatial hypothesis becomes the most plausible, in the past we have in various cultures (such as Sumerians and Akkadian peoples) which remember the descent from the heavens of amphibious beings, such as the Sumerian "Oannes". The Dogon precisely reported having learned their knowledge from the "Nommo", beings halfway between man and reptile, who arrived from the stars aboard large luminous disks. The Dogon are convinced that one day the Gods will return, as many other ancient peoples thought and for them that day will be called the "day of the fish" (All this reminds us of the correlation of the veneration of the fish-men who came from the common space to almost all peoples who had alleged contact with beings from the stars).

Precisely an extraterrestrial hypothesis: contacts of ancient populations with visitors from space from whom ancient populations learned teachings and distorted into religion and divinity what in reality in their past was what we could be in the future.

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Lost Civilizations (@lostcivilizations)

The Dogon are a population living near Mandiagara, 300 km south of Timbuktu, in Mali.

Two anthropologists, Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, studied them from 1931 to 1952 and described a ceremony associated with the star Sirius, held every 60 years.

Griaule and Dieterlen claimed that the Dogon had advanced knowledge about the Sirius system, knowledge supposedly impossible to obtain without "modern" means. In particular, they reportedly knew of a companion star (Sirius B) that orbits Sirius with a 50-year cycle and is composed of incredibly dense material.

Sirius B is visible only with a reasonably powerful telescope, and its mass was determined using the theoretical tools of early 20th-century astronomy.

Griaule and Dieterlen did not speculate on how the Dogon might have acquired this knowledge. However, the story gained attention after the publication of a book by Robert Temple, who hypothesized that the Dogon had known these facts for at least 500 years and learned them from amphibious beings from Sirius. Other "researchers" suggested that this knowledge came from the ancient Egyptians, who they claim had telescopes capable of observing Sirius B.

These hypotheses, however, are based on flimsy evidence. None of these "scholars" conducted further research but instead built imaginative theories on the work of Griaule and Dieterlen.

For instance, the 500-year dating is based on the Dogon's practice of making a ceremonial mask for each ceremony. In one location, six masks were found, along with two piles of dust that might have been other masks. Even assuming this dates back 480 years, it would only prove that the ritual is very old.

The claim of Egyptian telescopes stems from the discovery of a well-crafted glass sphere, which supposedly demonstrates that the Egyptians could make glass, hence lenses, and therefore telescopes—leading to the assertion they could build LARGE telescopes.

Back to the Dogon. Griaule and Dieterlen's work has been criticized on several fronts. They always worked through interpreters, and the entire Sirius story comes from interviews with a single informant. They failed to consider that the Dogon tend to avoid conflict and are unlikely to contradict a respected figure (like Griaule) even if their ideas seem far-fetched.

Griaule and Dieterlen also claimed that the Dogon knew of a third companion to Sirius, which has never been found. Even their documentation of Sirius B as a binary star is poorly substantiated in their work.

What ultimately undermines the theory is that the Dogon are not isolated. They have been studied by other anthropologists, none of whom have found any evidence of this anomalous knowledge. Outside of Griaule and Dieterlen's informant, no one among the Dogon speaks of companion stars, 50-year cycles, or ultradense matter. This cannot be explained by "secret knowledge" because the Dogon do not have a secret mythological caste—knowledge is shared openly within their culture.

Walter Van Beek, who spent 11 years among the Dogon, found that very few even use the names Sigu Tolo and Po Tolo (Sirius A and Sirius B, according to Griaule). Sirius holds minimal importance in their culture. None of the Dogon, including Griaule’s informants, have any concept of Sirius as a binary star. The idea of a third companion or ultradense matter does not exist.

Jacky Boujou, who spent 10 years with the Dogon, fully agrees. He emphasizes that Griaule’s theories may be distorted interpretations confirmed out of politeness by his informant.

Carl Sagan suggested that the anomalous knowledge might have come from Western visitors and then entered Dogon culture. While this hypothesis is plausible—especially since the Dogon have adopted other "white myths" into their culture within a generation—it appears unnecessary given the evidence outlined above.

2 weeks ago