Ogotemmeli
Ogotemmeli (also: Ogotemmêli or Ogotommeli, died 1962) was the Dogon elder and hogon who narrated the cosmogony, cosmology and symbols of the Dogon people to French anthropologist Marcel Griaule during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, that went on to be documented and adapted by contemporary scholars. A lot of what is known about the Dogon religion, cosmogony and symbolism came from Griaule's work, which in turn came from Ogotemmeli—who taught it to him.Indian Council for Africa, Indian Centre for Africa; ''Africa Quarterly, Volumes 45–46'', Indian Centre for Africa (2006), p. 51. Early life and work Ogotommeli was blind since his youth as a result of his gun accidentally exploding in his face during a hunting expedition. That incident occurred as he was about to fire at a porcupine. Despite the painful accident and his disability, Ogotemmeli attributed it to fate. As a diviner, elder and hogon, Ogotemmeli recounted that this fate was previously made known to him, but he chos ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dogon People
The Dogon are an ethnic group indigenous to the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa, south of the Niger bend, near the city of Bandiagara, and in Burkina Faso. The population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000. They speak the Dogon languages, which are considered to constitute an independent branch of the Niger–Congo language family, meaning that they are not closely related to any other languages. The Dogon are best known for their religious traditions, their mask dances, wooden sculpture, and their architecture. Since the twentieth century, there have been significant changes in the social organisation, material culture and beliefs of the Dogon, in part because Dogon country is one of Mali's major tourist attractions. Geography and history The principal Dogon area is bisected by the Bandiagara Escarpment, a sandstone cliff of up to high, stretching about 150 km (90 miles). To the southeast of the cliff, the sandy Séno-Gondo Plains are found, and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marcel Griaule
Marcel Griaule (16 May 1898 – 23 February 1956) was a French author and anthropologist known for his studies of the Dogon people of West Africa, and for pioneering ethnographic field studies in France. He worked together with Germaine Dieterlen and Jean Rouch on African subjects. His publications number over 170 books and articles for scholarly journals. Biography Born in Aisy-sur-Armançon, Griaule received a good education and was preparing to become an engineer and enrolled at the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand when in 1917 at the end of World War I he volunteered to become a pilot in the French Air Force. In 1920 he returned to university, where he attended the lectures of Marcel Mauss and Marcel Cohen. Intrigued by anthropology, he gave up plans for a technical career. In 1927 he received a degree from the École Nationale de Langues Orientales, where he concentrated on Amharic and Ge'ez. Between 1928 and 1933 Griaule participated in two large-scale et ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dogon Religion
The Dogon religion is the traditional religious or spiritual beliefs of the Dogon people of Mali. Dogons who adhere to the Dogon religion believe in one Supreme Creator called Amma (or Ama). Insoll, Timothy, ''Archaeology, Ritual, Religion'', Routledge (2004), p. 123–125, (retrieved March 3, 2020/ref> They also believe in ancestral spirits known as the Nommo also referred to as "Water Spirits". Veneration of the dead is an important element in their spiritual belief. They hold ritual mask dances immediately after the death of a person and sometimes long after they have passed on to the next life. Twins, "the need for duality and the doubling of individual lives" (masculine and feminine principles) is a fundamental element in their belief system. Like other traditional African religions, balance, and reverence for nature are also key elements. The Dogon religion is an ancient religion or spiritual system. The Dogon religion, cosmogony, cosmology and astronomy have been su ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mali
Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east by Niger, to the northwest by Mauritania, to the south by Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, and to the west by Guinea and Senegal. The population of Mali is about 23.29 million, 47.19% of which are estimated to be under the age of 15 in 2024. Its Capital city, capital and largest city is Bamako. The country has 13 official languages, of which Bambara language, Bambara is the most commonly spoken. The sovereign state's northern borders reach deep into the middle of the Sahara, Sahara Desert. The country's southern part, where the majority of inhabitants live, is in the Sudanian savanna and has the Niger River, Niger and Senegal River, Senegal rivers running through it. The country's economy centres on agriculture and mining with its most promine ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster is considered one of the Big Five (publishers), 'Big Five' English language publishers. , Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different Imprint (trade name), imprints. History Early years In 1924, Richard L. Simon, Richard Simon's aunt, a crossword puzzle enthusiast, asked whether there was a book of ''New York World'' crossword puzzles, which were popular at the time. After discovering that none had been published, Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster, Max Schuster decided to launch a company to exploit the opportunity.Frederick Lewis Allen, ''Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s'', p. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nommo
The Nommo or Nummo are primordial ancestral spirits in Dogon religion and cosmogony (sometimes referred to as demi deities) venerated by the Dogon people of Mali. The word Nommos is derived from a Dogon word meaning "to make one drink." Nommos are usually described as amphibious, hermaphroditic, fish-like creatures. Folk art depictions of Nommos show creatures with humanoid upper torsos, legs/feet, and a fish-like lower torso and tail. Nommos are also referred to as "Masters of the Water", "the Monitors", and "the Teachers". Nommo can be a proper name of an individual or can refer to the group of spirits as a whole. For purposes of this article, "Nommo" refers to a specific individual and "Nommos" is used to reference the group of beings. Nommo mythology Dogon religion and says that Nommo was the first living creature created by the sky god Amma. Shortly after his creation, Nommo underwent a transformation and multiplied into four pairs of twins. One of the twins rebelled aga ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Serer Creation Myth
The Serer creation myth is the traditional creation myth of the Serer people of Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania. Many Serers who adhere to the tenets of the Serer religion believe these narratives to be sacred. Some aspects of Serer religious and Ndut traditions are included in the narratives contained herein but are not limited to them. The Serer people have many gods, goddesses Kellog, Day Otis, and Smith, William Robertson, "The Encyclopædia Britannica: latest edition. A dictionary of arts, sciences and general literature", Volume 25, p. 64, Werner (1902) and '' Pangool'' (the Serer saints and ancestral spirits represented by snakes), but one supreme deity and creator called Roog (or Koox in the Cangin languages Ndiaye, Ousmane Sémou, "Diversité et unicité sérères : l’exemple de la région de Thiès", Éthiopiques, no. 54, vol. 7, 2e semestre 199/ref>). Serer creation myth developed from Serer oral traditions, Serer religion, legends, and cosmogonies. The sp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Serer Religion
The Serer religion or Serer spirituality (''Serer language, Serer:'' A ƭat Roog, meaning "the way of the Divine", "path of God", or "religious life"Kalis, Simone, ''Médecine traditionnelle, religion et divination chez les Seereer Siin du Sénégal'', L'Harmattan, (1997), p.31, [inL'Harmattan(accessed 25 March 2025). Quote: :''La vie religieuse ou "chemin de De Dieu" / a fat Roog se fonde sur le culte des ancêtres / pangool . Ils sont le pivot autour duquel s'originent tous les rituels que composent les pratiques religieuses et thérapeutiques . Le prêtre / o yaal pangool, maître du culte, se situe à mi-chemin entre le monde de l'au-delà et de l'ici-bas ; l'invisible et le visible, les morts et les vivants.''), is the original religious beliefs, practices, and teachings of the Serer people living in the Senegambia region in West Africa. The Serer religion believes in a universal Creator deity, supreme deity called Roog (or ''Rog''). In the Cangin languages, Roog is referred ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Anthony West
John Anthony West (July 9, 1932 – February 6, 2018) was an American author and lecturer and a proponent of the Sphinx water erosion hypothesis. His early career was as a copywriter in Manhattan and science-fiction writer. He received a Hugo Award Honorable Mention in 1962. After recovering from cancer, West died from pneumonia at the age of 85. Sphinx hypothesis In 1979, in his book ''Serpent in the Sky'', he expanded on the ideas of French mystic and alternative Egyptologist Schwaller de Lubicz, suggesting the Great Sphinx of Giza had been eroded by Nile floods after being created 15,000-10,000 BC by Atlanteans. Ten years later, he teamed up with geologist Robert M. Schoch, seeking validation for his ideas. Schoch initially made the more conservative estimate of between 7,000 and 5,000 BC, but later pushed his minimum estimate back to 10,000 BC. This challenged the conventional dating of the carving of the statue to ''circa'' 2500 BC. In 1993, the work of West and Sch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Henry Gravrand
Father Henry Gravrand (France, 1921 – Abbey of Latrun, Palestine, 11 July 2003) was a French Catholic missionary to Africa and an anthropologist who has written extensively on Serer religion and culture. He was one of the leading pioneers of interfaith dialog and believed that African religion was the "'first covenant between God and man". His works about the Serer people are cited by other historians and scholars writing on Serer history, religion and culture, for instance Martin A. Klein, Charles Becker, Alioune Sarr, Marguerite Dupire, Issa Laye Thiaw, etc. Papa Massène Sene argues that his approach lacks scientific rigor and include fundamental linguistic and historical errors. Alioune Sarr noted that Gravrand reported an oral tradition describing what he called the "Battle of Troubang", a dynastic war between the two maternal royal houses of Ñaanco and the Guelowar, an off-shot and relatives of the '' Ñaanco'' (''Nyanthio'' or ''Nyanco'') maternal dynasty of Kaa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Luc De Heusch
Luc de Heusch (7 May 1927 – 7 August 2012) was a Belgian filmmaker, writer, and anthropologist, professor emeritus at the Université libre de Bruxelles. His 1967 film '' Thursday We Shall Sing Like Sunday'' was entered into the 5th Moscow International Film Festival. Life Luc de Heusch began his career in film in 1947 as assistant to Henri Storck. From 1949 to 1951 he lived in an artists' commune, the Ateliers du Marais. In 1951, under the pseudonym Luc Zangrie, he directed ''Perséphone'', the only film produced by the CoBrA artistic movement. In 1953 and 1954 he carried out anthropological fieldwork in the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi Ruanda-Urundi (), later Rwanda-Burundi, was a geopolitical entity, once part of German East Africa, that was occupied by troops from the Belgian Congo during the East African campaign in World War I and was administered by Belgium under milit .... Like Henri Storck and Charles Dekeukeleire, he also made documentary films about ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Manchester University Press
Manchester University Press is the university press of the University of Manchester, England, and a publisher of academic books and journals. Manchester University Press has developed into an international publisher. It maintains its links with the University. Publishing Manchester University Press publishes monographs and textbooks for academic teaching in higher education. In 2012 it was producing about 145 new books annually and managed a number of journals. Areas of expertise are history, politics and international law, literature and theatre studies, and visual culture. MUP books are marketed and distributed by Oxford University Press in the United States and Canada, and in Australia by Footprint Books; all other global territories are covered from Manchester itself. Some of the press's books were formerly published in the US by Barnes & Noble, Inc., New York. Later the press established an American office in Dover, New Hampshire. Open access Manchester University Pr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |