A generational event offers a chance for local unity and self-discovery.
Malian journalist and videographer
Malian journalist Mamadou Tapily speaks to tourists while working as a guide before a jihadist insurgency swept through large parts of his country from 2012 onwards.
Malian journalist Mamadou Tapily speaks to tourists while working as a guide before a jihadist insurgency swept through large parts of his country from 2012 onwards.
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BANDIAGARA, Mali
I can remember many moments of wonder from my youth.
I recall gathering by moonlight in my village to hear fireside tales about people singing with trees, and about foxes that somehow spoke our language. It felt like watching television.
I remember learning about our culture – our long greetings, our deep ties to the natural world, and the importance of respecting our elderly.
But there is one memory that stands out more than most: being told the story of Sigui, the greatest ceremony and one of the most revered traditions of my people, the Dogon of central Mali. It has occupied my mind ever since.
Search for Sigui on the internet, and you will find much that would captivate a young mind – striking masks, rhythmic dances, drum sounds, and dazzling displays of color and movement.
But Sigui is far more than a spectacle. It is a profound cultural event, deeply rooted in Dogon tradition. It marks the death of our first ancestor and the passing of one generation to the next. It is a festival of initiation and renewal, of life and death.
It is a rare event too. Sigui takes place every 60 years, making it a once in a lifetime experience for many Dogon. The last one began in 1967, which means the next is scheduled in just two years. I am hoping to witness it for the very first time.
Yet, a problem stands in the way: the conflict that has ripped through my country.
Over the past decade, a jihadist insurgency has spread across Mali, starting in the desert north before sweeping into central regions, reaching the heartland of the Dogon people.
For such a small community, we have suffered badly. While Dogon communities often resisted the jihadists, some of our neighbouring Fulani communities were pressured to accept them, sparking deadly inter-communal conflicts.
At the same time, many of the militias that formed to protect us turned into predators. Some Dogon communities supported them, while others rejected them. We became divided as a result.
Sigui now offers us a shot at unity and cohesion – but only if it takes place.
Will jihadist groups allow sacred masks to journey from village to village over Sigui’s seven-year ritual cycle? Or will Sigui become another cultural casualty of this conflict, just like the burning of Timbuktu’s manuscripts or the destruction of Sufi shrines?
If all goes well, I aim to be the first Dogon videographer to capture Sigui in all its glory, but here too, I must admit, there is a problem: my understanding of the beliefs on which Sigui is based.
In Dogon society, much of our local knowledge is reserved for the initiated, a group to which I do not belong. Knowledge of the cosmos and our ancestral practices are closely guarded – with some of it transmitted only through a secret language.
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While much has been written about Dogon beliefs – our supposed astronomical knowledge and our intricate mythology being on a par with the ancient Greeks – much of this work comes from colonial anthropologists and is strongly contested.
This journey is, therefore, also one of self-discovery and self-knowledge. I want to better understand who I am, and I want to tell a story of who we are that is not shaped by outsiders. It will be a journey of renewal, much like Sigui itself.
Sigui’s many meanings
Dogon lands are divided into three distinct regions: a rugged sandstone plateau; the Bandiagara escarpment – a towering cliff where small villages are nestled into the rocky face – and a sandy plain stretching beyond it.
History suggests that the Tellem people were the original inhabitants of the area, arriving as early as the 10th century. The Dogon are thought to have migrated a few centuries later, seeking refuge from Islamisation and slave raiding.
Our belief system is rich and complex, featuring many deities and spirits. Among them are: Amma, the high god and creator of the world; the part-human, part-fish Nommo; and Lébé – the god of fertility, agriculture, and the earth.
There are many interpretations of the founding myth behind Sigui. One centres on a young cattle herder, Sen Senu, who was swallowed by an elephant and, after three years inside, emerged with sacred knowledge and rituals. Another focuses on Dyongu Seru, the first human to die.
Whatever version one believes (mine is closer to the Dyongu Seru story), Sigui takes years of meticulous planning in which skilled artisans make wood-crafted masks representing ancestors and deities to be used in dances and rituals.
Young men are meanwhile initiated into the Mask Society, spending several months learning the secret language of Sigui (sigui so). Some see the ceremony itself as marking the revelation of this language to humanity.
Several villages are directly involved in the Sigui ceremony, which lasts for seven years and sees masks taken from one place to the next. There are vibrant celebrations with dancing, singing, and the sharing of locally brewed millet beer.
The celebrations serve as a time of spiritual renewal and the transmission of ancient secrets. We observe the beginning and end of a generation, seek forgiveness for our sins, and ask for prosperity.
Experiencing Sigui shapes one into a complete Dogon, “someone with power, someone with fertility”, according to the Dutch cultural anthropologist Walter E. A. van Beek.
It is also time for an unforgettable party.
A landscape photo of The Bandiagara cliff in Mali.
The Bandiagara cliff is one of central Mali's most visually striking features, though tourism has significantly declined since the onset of conflict.
Healing my homeland
The cultural and spiritual significance of this should make it clear why Sigui matters, but there are at least two extra factors that make the upcoming event even more important than normal.
The first is, what I believe to be, a loss of tradition. This has happened as urbanisation has led many young Dogon to abandon village life and because many have also converted to Islam or Christianity.
Though many Dogon still blend animist and monotheistic principles, there is invariably some sacrifice of our cultural heritage. As someone from a Muslim family who lacks complete knowledge about Dogon traditions, I can speak to this loss.
The second factor is the war. While we are no strangers to upheaval – having faced slave raiding and a French colonial system that undermined our traditional structures – the current conflict has brought immense disruption.
Many Dogon have been displaced by jihadist violence or by the resultant conflicts with our Fulani neighbours. Everybody knows somebody who has been killed.
Before these conflicts began, I was one of the best-known tourist guides in central Mali. But transitioning to work as a journalist forced me to see my homeland in a radically different light.
On one reporting trip for The New Humanitarian in 2018, I traveled through Dogon villages documenting the destruction. I was familiar with all of the villages we passed, yet somehow I felt like I didn't recognise them at all.
I had good Fulani friends who went off to fight and got hurt. I knew they were fighting against my community, and that left me feeling powerless – unable to stop the violence, unable to change anything.
Fractures soon appeared within Dogon communities, especially on the contentious issue of our anti-jihadist self-defence groups, which had formed from village-based traditional hunting fraternities.
A bird's eye image of a Dogon village in the Bandiagara region.
A bird’s-eye view of a Dogon village in the Bandiagara region.
Many Dogon supported their efforts against the jihadist groups, but others resented their heavy taxes, recruitment, and the way they attacked Dogon leaders who sued for peace and Fulani civilians they unfairly typecast as jihadists.
I don’t believe that Sigui can overcome these deep challenges, but I do think it offers a weakened people a very rare opportunity to celebrate together as one community and to show pride in who we are.
While the Sigui masks will not reach every village, most Dogon in the region will hopefully be involved in one way or another, either as direct participants or simply as curious onlookers.
At a time when violence has fractured social ties, Sigui’s rituals could provide an important space for collective healing. It is a chance to reinforce social cohesion free of international NGOs and their logframes and donor-driven targets.
Whether we seize it or not, though, depends on external factors. Many aspects of Sigui – millet beer, animist rituals, and mask carvings – will not be seen favourably by jihadist groups, even if they do sometimes demonstrate a pragmatic streak.
Worse still, some of the main villages where Sigui takes place have been emptied of their residents because of jihadist attacks. I don’t know if they will be able to return in time to prepare, let alone to participate.
If Sigui is significantly disrupted, my fear is that it will mark the beginning of a gradual abandonment, with the tradition fading little by little. This is one of the reasons why I am so determined to film it — to capture a vital part of our culture in case it slips away.
Learning and unlearning
I am also determined to film it because no other Dogon journalist has done so before. The only substantial visual record of Sigui comes from Jean Rouch, a French filmmaker and anthropologist who documented it in the 1960s and 70s.
Still, producing a documentary about Sigui is incredibly difficult, especially given the security risks I face on the ground and given the challenges in financing such a project.
A few years ago, colleagues from international media asked me to pitch a documentary idea from Mali. When I suggested Sigui, they laughed. A ceremony that wouldn’t happen for another decade? That’s not newsworthy, they told me.
Filming the documentary will also be complicated by the fact that I have not been initiated and therefore do not fully understand the complexity of Dogon beliefs.
I have had to rely on publicly available texts about Dogon traditions and belief systems, yet many have been produced by French anthropologists, usually from an outsider’s perspective.
Of particular note is the work of Marcel Griaule. His books turned the Dogon into a focal point of African anthropology, revealing our complex cosmogony (our theories about the origins of the universe) and how it apparently regulated social life.
One of Griaule’s most famous (and controversial) claims was our ostensible knowledge of Sirius B, the companion star to Sirius. Invisible to the naked eye, Griaule found oral traditions describing Sirius B, centuries before Westernerns confirmed it with telescopes.
Griaule’s work has had a profound impact on me. It helped shape my understanding of Dogon beliefs and played a crucial role in bringing global recognition to the Dogon people, something I benefited from as a tourist guide.
But Griaule’s work is contested. Some of his best-selling work rests on a single source: Ogotemmêli, an elderly Dogon man who, in a series of conversations with Griaule in 1946, supposedly revealed the intricate beliefs of the Dogon people.
I have long wondered how Griaule obtained the information he did, given the fear that colonial authorities instilled in people. Many Dogon, like myself, never have access to such knowledge, so why would it be shared with a foreigner like him?
Anthropologists after Griaule criticised him for using intrusive and coercive tactics to extract secret knowledge, and for constructing an idealised and exotic account of Dogon society that did not reflect its dynamism and diversity.
Griaule’s work played a major role in turning the Bandiagara region into a must-visit destination for foreign tourists, yet they had expectations of seeing an “untouched” and “unchanging” African society of the kind Griaule described.
We guides often gave them what they wanted, exaggerating details or making things sound more magnificent, to impress clients or because we simply didn’t know how to answer their questions.
Guides who were not from the Bandiagara region would work with tourists despite not knowing much. Relying on local porters for scraps of information, they often passed along inaccurate details. Bad information sourced online began to inform reality.
Guides would also ask local people to perform mask ceremonies for tourists, draining these ceremonies of power and meaning. Tourists were allowed to approach the masks, touch them, and take photos – actions that were otherwise forbidden.
Renewal
I am not arguing that tourism or guiding work was all bad. I loved what I did. Guiding allowed me to experience my own culture and to piece together fragments of knowledge I hadn't been given as a child.
Tourists wanted to hear about the Tellem houses, our migration to the Bandiagara escarpment, and the meaning of Sigui. I often found myself learning alongside them, discovering things about my own heritage as if I were a visitor too.
Guiding exposed me to people from all over the world – French, Germans, Americans, Japanese, Chinese. Our homeland felt like the centre of something big. We used to ask ourselves: Why do all these people come here? It seemed crazy.
Two collage images of Mamadou in his youth, guiding groups of tourists around the Bandiagara region.
Mamadou, in his youth, guiding groups of tourists around the Bandiagara region.
Still, part of my journey to document Sigui is shaped by the discomfort I felt during my 20 years of working with tourists. Today, I want to have better information so that I can talk about myself and my people with more confidence than I did before.
Of course, it is not my intention to reveal important Dogon secrets. Unlike those foreign anthropologists and researchers, I understand that my people want to keep certain things guarded.
Still, Sigui is no secret, and it is a celebration that belongs to all of us Dogon. It is a story that deserves to be told, and I see it as part of my life’s work to do it justice, especially in times of crisis like these.
For many years now, all I have heard about is death – the mother of a friend, a cousin of a neighbour. At some point I stopped feeling terrified, and that numbness felt like another loss.
In a time when so much has been taken from us, Sigui is a moment to reclaim something. For once, it is not about loss or fear – it is about renewal. It is a moment to remember who we are and what makes us proud.
Edited by Philip Kleinfeld.