The Mythology of the Dogon People

Yurugu's brother in the egg, Nommo, was rewarded for his commitment to Amma's plan, and was made lord of the universe. He had many children and in an attempt to rectify his brother's ill deeds descended to earth in a vessel equiped with all the necessary conditions for life - light and rain, for example. Here he organized the cosmos - turning chaos into order - and began the cycles of life, such as the seasons and inevitable change of night into day.

The Dogon creation story has great impact on the modern Dogon people. The four spirits created by Nommo as he came to the earth were the ancestors of the four social-religious groups of the Dogon people. As well, Pale Fox is still revered for his ability to tell the future and is used in any major undertaking the Dogon people begin. A patch of earth is set aside with bait to lure in a fox, and when the tracks are read in the morning the local elder is able to determine what Pale Fox is trying to communicate.

Finally, it is important to discuss the controversy that surrounds the universe's point of origin at Sirius B mentioned earlier. The star Sirius B, also known as "the Pup", is not visible to the human eye, but seen only with a telescope. Its existence was discovered when it was recognized that Sirius was a member of a binary star system. This, of course, should have been unknown to the Dogon people. Theories abound concerning contact between the Dogon and extraterrestrials. However, the most likely explanation is that the Dogon originally cited the visible Sirius as the origin of the cosmos - a proposition not unheard of in the study of mythology - and stories of Sirius B in Dogon mythology were a misunderstanding of early Western explorers. However, the issue is still debated by some.

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