I’ve mentioned the Dogon tribe of Mali, West Africa in two other posts (Sirius, Out of Bounds). Their villages were established in the Bandiagara Highlands of Mali about 1000 years ago, nestled in cliffs for protection against religious persecution.

When trying to understand a culture with a language you don’t understand, there are inevitably going to be errors in translation. Most western scientists were so dumbfounded by the Dogon’s advanced knowledge of astronomy that their first instinct was to assume one of two things.

First: that there was no way a “primitive” culture could have an advanced knowledge of the solar system without proper scientific instruments. This has been an ongoing prejudice in the scientific community. An assumption was made that the Dogon must have learned advanced astronomy from contact with western scientists.

Second: that the creation story of the Dogon, regarding the divine twins called the Nommo, is about an encounter with extraterrestrial beings. This translation implied that, again, the Dogon couldn’t possibly have formulated such advanced ideas about the Universe on their own. They must have learned what they know from extraterrestrials.

Marcel Griaule, a French anthropologist, wrote a book about the Dogon, which was heavily criticized in the anthropology community. It was an earnest attempt to break the language barrier and reveal some fascinating information.

What I have learned about this remarkable tribe is that their ideas are as advanced as any discovery in western science in the past 150 years. I had first read that somehow the Dogon knew, without telescopes, that the Sirius star system was binary, or a two-star system, even though only one is visible to the naked eye. I have since learned that they believe Sirius has three stars: Sirius A, Sigi Tolo, Sirius B, Po Tolo and Sirius C, Emma Ya Tolo.

Their creation myth is centered around the concept of twins, or dualistic forces. These twins are called Nommo, who were born of the duality Amma and Ogo. Amma and Ogo existed inside a cosmic egg, described like a womb or a spinning ball that contained the seeds of all existence.

Amma, the main deity of creation, is androgynous, or non-binary. Amma is the same root of both the Egyptian and Semitic word Amen, which is spoken at the end of a prayer to “make firm” or “to fortify”.

The strong vibrations of Amma uttered seven words into a seed called Po, which represents both an atom and a black hole. When Amma split in two, Ogo was created, representing disorder and chaos. Ogo descended to Earth in an ark by way of the Milky Way galaxy, which thrust primordial matter in a downward spiral pattern. Ogo was the source of destruction on Earth.

Author Chukwumu Azuonye writes in a summary of the Dogon creation myth:

“The master plan is composed of images or signs called Yala. Each yala contains a model or code of all the instructions needed for the creation of each and every thing now known to exist in the Universe, and all of these, according to the Dogon, are grouped into 22 basic categories. Thus we have images of the egg of the world, the womb of the world, the placenta, the amnion, the sperm, etc. If this is so, then the 22 basic categories cannot be understood outside of the biology of human reproduction. The yala may refer to super-genetic code and the 22 yala signs may refer to 22 of the 23 pairs of chromosomes that carry the genes of the codes of life.”

To create order, Amma designed the Nommo, which comprised of 4 sets of twins, so a total of 8. These 8 Nommo were the ancestors of human beings, who also arrived on Earth in an ark or boat. This vessel fell to Earth in a cataclysm of fire and thunder.

In simplistic terms, Amma is order, Ogo is disorder – the two forces of creation.

The Nommo created reservoirs of water on Earth, which they needed to survive as they were amphibious. Ogo returned to Sirius to reclaim his twin Amma, but they refused to leave. Amma created the perfect Nommo who was then sacrificed; its dismembered body spread across the Universe and eventually down to Earth.

Azuonye writes:

“We now know that the secret knowledge that constitutes the Dogon philosophy is based on solid scientific knowledge of the Universe, which is founded on 4 major pillars: first, the idea that the Universe is a system of forces (dynamism), second, the idea that everything in existence comes in pairs or twins (dualism), third, the idea that human beings are the centerpieces of all creation (anthropocentrism) and, finally, the idea that everything in the Universe is a miniature of the whole (microcosm).”

Nommo translated from the Dogon dialect Bantu has several meanings. The most common translation is “to make one drink”. It is also translated as “the power generated from the spoken word”. Nommo denotes the magical power of words to create change.

In ancient Egypt, Nommo was known as Nu Ma, which means “perception of waves”. Visualize that the Nommo are perceived as waves in pairings of two. What does that sound like?

The double helix strands of DNA.

Two complementary strands of nucleotides are held together because of hydrogen bonds that form a long spiral. Each of these strands is made up of 4 different nitrogenous bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine. This is the genetic code as we know it, or as western science knows it. Scientists only recently discovered they could expand this DNA sequence with 4 natural and 4 artificial bases. They called this “hachimoji” DNA. “Hachi” meaning 8, “moji” meaning letter.

The Dogon already understood this sequence of 4 sets of two, totaling 8, hundreds if not thousands of years ago without scientific equipment. Even though these observations involve mystical storytelling, there is noteworthy astronomical information in its creativity. They understood quantum physics long before it was established terminology. Western scientists were too busy discrediting the Dogon or too enamored with the idea of extraterrestrials that they failed to notice some important details.

As much as I love Carl Sagan, he was one of the scientists who dismissed even the possibility that the Dogon had an advanced understanding of astronomy without western influence. This is one of the reasons the scientific community has lost the plot in many ways. This goes deeper than just science.

Claiming a unified theory of anything that has to be proven under the rubric of one ideology, or one language, is more than just narrow-minded. This is the definition of supremacy.

The concept that western scientific discovery is ultimate truth and all other ideologies should not be seriously entertained is not only hubris. It is racist and elitist. Beyond that, it attaches ego to such “discoveries”. The Dogon aren’t tweeting about how they discovered the 8-letter sequence of DNA at least a millennia ago. They understand that this is not what life should be about.

The demystification of the world is a far deeper crisis than I think many westerners realize. What happens to a world so sure of itself that it thinks mysticism is the opposite of intelligence? It starts to rot a little on the inside. Because everything has been formatted, formulated and unified into one stagnant idea.

The implications of such narrow minded views are one of the reasons why the western world is in decline. Exposure to the west in recent years has been hard on the Dogon, as our values have encouraged their younger generations to seek money and attention. This extraordinary culture has been sullied by our own spiritual crisis.

Digging ourselves out of this hole begins with letting go of needing to be right – about anything. Humility is only the beginning. Learning how to be open and explore ideas that contradict a limited belief system is going to be a long process. But the alternative will be a slow and brutal fall.