The document discusses the Dogon people of Mali and their reported astronomical knowledge, specifically about the Sirius star system. Anthropologists Griaule and Dieterlen studied the Dogon in the 1930s-1950s and reported that the Dogon believed Sirius has two companion stars. Robert Temple later argued this revealed precise knowledge only known to modern astronomy. However, other researchers have argued the Dogon knowledge is a result of contamination from contact with outsiders and over-interpretation. While the possibility of an undiscovered companion star to Sirius cannot be ruled out, the evidence for the Dogon having intrinsic advanced astronomical knowledge is circumstantial.
3. ...or even more recent “ancient
technological civilization” enthusiasts
4. The
Dogon
The Dogon are an ethnic group living in the central
plateau region of Mali, near the city of Bandiagara. The
population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000. The
Dogon are best known for their religious traditions, their
mask dances, wooden sculpture and their architecture.
The past century has seen significant changes in the
social organization, material culture and beliefs of the
Dogon, partly because Dogon country is one of Mali's
major tourist attractions.
5. Anthropologists
From 1931 to 1956 the French
anthropologists Marcel
Griaule and Germaine
Dieterlen studied the Dogon.
In 1946 Griaule spent thirty-
three days in conversations
with the Dogon wiseman
Ogotemmêli, the source of
much of Griaule and
Dieterlen's future
publications.
6. They reported that the Dogon believe that the
brightest star in the sky, Sirius (sigi tolo), has
two companion stars, pō tolo and ęmmę ya
tolo.
7. IT DOES – or at least one. Sirius is a binary system (two stars).
We can see ‘Sirius A’, Sirius B is a white dwarf invisible to the
naked eye.
“The problem of knowing how, with no instruments at their
disposal, men could know the movements and certain
characteristics of virtually invisible stars has not been settled,
nor even posed.” – Griaule.
8. The Sirius Mystery
Robert Temple’s 1976 book The Sirius Mystery argues the
Dogon's system reveals precise knowledge of cosmological
facts only known by modern astronomy:
Sirius is part of a binary star system whose second star, Sirius
B, a white dwarf, takes 50 years to complete its orbit.
The existence of Sirius B had only been inferred to exist
through mathematical calculations in 1844.
Temple then argued that the Dogon's information, if traced
back to ancient Egyptian sources and myth, indicated an
extraterrestrial transmission of knowledge of the stars.
Importantly, neither Griaule nor Dieterlen had ever made
such bold claims.
9. The Nommo
The Nommo are ancestral spirits described as
amphibious, hermaphroditic, fish-like
creatures. Folk art depictions show
humanoid upper torsos, legs/feet, and a fish-
like lower torso and tail.
The Nommos are also referred to as “Masters of
the Water”, “the Monitors”, and "the
Teachers”.
The Dogon reportedly related to Griaule and
Dieterlen a belief that the Nommos were
inhabitants of a world circling Sirius.
They descended from the sky in a vessel
accompanied by fire and thunder. After
arriving, the Nommos created a reservoir of
water and subsequently dove into the water.
The Dogon legends state that the Nommos
required a watery environment in which to
live.
10. "We have in the Dogon information a predictive
mechanism which it is our duty to test, regardless of
our preconceptions.
“If a Sirius-C is ever discovered and found to be a red
dwarf, I will conclude that the Dogon information has
been fully validated." - Robert Temple
11. In 1995, gravitational studies indeed showed the
possible presence of a brown dwarf star
orbiting around Sirius (a Sirius-C) with a six-
year orbital period.
13. Walter van Beek
In a 1991 article in Current Anthropology,
Walter van Beek concluded after his
research among the Dogon: "Though
they do speak about sigu tolo they
disagree completely with each other as
to which star is meant; for some it is an
invisible star that should rise to
announce the sigu [festival], for another
it is Venus that, through a different
position, appears as sigu tolo.
“All agree, however, that they learned
about the star from Griaule”
14. Is the supposed "advanced" astronomical
knowledge of the Dogon a mixture of over-
interpretation by commentators and cultural
contamination?
The Dogon had more than one opportunity to
come into contact with travelling astronomers.
15. Objections
"The obviously advanced astronomical knowledge must have come
from somewhere, but is it an ancient bequest or a modern graft?
Although Temple fails to prove its antiquity, the evidence for the
recent acquisition of the information is still entirely circumstantial.”
– James Oberg
James Clifford notes that Griaule sought informants best qualified to
speak of traditional lore, and deeply mistrusted converts to
Christianity, Islam, or people with too much contact with whites.
Griaule's daughter Genevieve Calame-Griaule argued Van Beek did not
go "through the appropriate steps for acquiring knowledge" and
suggested his informants may have thought that he had been "sent
by the political and administrative authorities to test the Dogon's
Muslim orthodoxy."
16. Epilogue: Whatever
A more recent study using advanced infrared
imaging concluded that the probability of the
existence of a triple star system for Sirius is
"now low" but could not be ruled out because
the region within 5 AU of Sirius A had not
been covered.
