PARA: How Could They Know That? The Dogon Mystery.

[pressimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9eed6c40ac15.jpg[/pressimg]About sixty years ago, two French anthropologists ventured into the wilds of west Africa to study the natives there. They found the Dogon People along the the great Bandiagara Clffs. A people only a few steps past the stone age.

But they also recorded a mystery. In these people that lived in what was then great isolation, they found knowledge of the planets, and how they move.Knowledge of the stars that need a telescope to see. Knowledge that wasn't confirmed until 1970!

How did these people that call themselves the conduit between Earth and Heaven know what could not be seen with the naked eye? How could they hold in their religion ideas said to be thousands of years old, when the western world was just finding these things?

Or maybe a better question might be to ask, who told them the mysteries of the heavens?



In the 1938s two French anthropologists, Marcel Griaule and Germain Dieterlen, went into the wilds of west Africa to study the indigenous tribes. In Mali they came across a tribe called the Dogon, living near the present day city of Bandiagara, in the Mopti region. Living as quasi-cliff dwellers, much like the Anasazi of North America, they were an athropological gold mine.

In their past the slavers had came, the Fulani, the Ghana, the Mossi, even the Muslims. But the Dogon had endured along the foot of the great Bandiagara Cliffs.Their art tells of a sensitive people, their lives bound in spirituality. In wood and sometimes iron, they speak of life and death, hope and beauty. Religion, then as now, is as much a part of their lives as the blue of the sky and the hardness of the earth.Their oral history is their religion, and in it's richness lies the mystery.

The things told to these two outsiders back in the 1930s were astounding, especially for that day and age, and from that remote a people.Their oral history told of the correct motion of the near planets, and of the moons of Jupiter.They spoke of the rings of Saturn, and of the star Sirius.How could they know that it had an invisible companion, a fact scarcely known to most Europians even then? How could they know it's true orbital length of 50 years? And how could they have all this in their thousands year old oral history?

Because, they said, these things had been told to them by the Nommos, beings that looked something like fish, and came to earth in a spinning ship that landed with great noise. The Nommos said they were from another star in the Sirius system, neither the one they could see in the night sky, nor the companion. The Dogon called the craft an "ark", and thought these beings were gods. And so they must have seemed, for the oral history of the Dogon was said to be over 5000 years old.A time when godswere common.

But even then the western world knew most of these things. Maybe not widely, but known nonetheless. Could these backward people have heard of these strange things and incorperated them into their myths in the near past? Could this just be a case where science became myth overnight to a group that were easily swayed? Was this akin to the "cargo cults" that came later in other places?

Well, there was one more thing. The Nommos had said that their home was the third star system of Sirius. Science has found Sirius B, and photographed it in 1970. As early as the 1840s it had been suspected, due to the wobble of Sirius A. Now flash forward to 1995.Daniel Benest and J.L.Duvent publish a paper in the prestigous journal "Astronomy and Astrophysics" called "Is Sirius a Triple Star?"

According to this realitively new research, the wobble of Sirius A cannot be accounted for by Sirius B alone, and there must be another star in the system. Those who say that oral histories are not reliable, and that there must have been cross contamination, will have a very hard time explaing this if it is found to be true by our new breed of telescopes. Long before anyone dreamed of a Sirius C, the Dogon told of a spinning ship that feel to earth from the third star of the Sirius system.

Either it's true, or the Dogon have a knack for guessing that is way above average. You decide, and while you do, watch the science world for news of Sirius C, home star of the Nommos.


news.nationalgeographic.com...

ethnographica.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

Related Links:
unmuseum.mus.pa
www.crystallinks.com



[edit on 14-10-2007 by sanctum]



[edit on 10-14-2007 by William One Sac]

Interesting. Could these beings be the ones mentioned in the bible as Noah's ark, saving some people and animals from the floods?

This video also ends up talking about the Sirians at the end (at 1h, 6 minutes, 30 seconds if I remember correctly). Before that point in time it mostly talks about how the NASA UFO explanation if bogus and goes into detail talking about the UFO possible interstellar drive mechanics and so on.

Google Video Link

[edit on 12-10-2007 by Copernicus]

The same ETs were visiting many cultures at the same time from the information given in this article.There are claims Saturn "Lord of the rings" was closer to the Earth at one time. I see a relation to Dagon the fish God here. It makes sense ET visited anchient people. They are still visiting today. The problem is evil governments do not want the knowledge out there, they keep it under wraps so the people stay ignorant ,mercury filled,dumbed down slaves to there insecure ego driven "leaders"needs.
The anchient ones allowed the information to assist there people, to make the society intelligent, and connected to the stars. This makes total sense, and this sounds of many anchient storys. Look at the word as well Dogon Dog is Sirius the "dog star", or "God star". In Baalbek "ON" is Heliopolis the suncity. So you get "God sun" when bringing the words together.
Let me be the first to say..Great dogon post NGC!!
IDWT


[edit on 12-10-2007 by dntwastetime]

i dont have anything to add to this thread.
besides great post.ive always been one to belive that some sort of intellegent life had roles in ancient text and such...this just makes me belive that more

There is an excellent - although sadly long since out-of-print - book on this subject from Robert Temple, called "The Sirius Mystery".
It is a lot more intense than the first glance report here shows, as not only did they know about Sirius A & the Brown Dwarf companion, Sirius B - right down to it's orbit being a helix shape (This was only confirmed comparatively recently), they also know about the alleged planets in the Sirius system.

When asked where they got their information from, they are in absolutrely no doubt at all. It was given to them by aliens from the system.

[edit on 12-10-2007 by neil wilkes]

neil, I'm intending on getting that book soon. I find this mystery of the Dogon to be one of those that could give some very hard to ignore ammo to those that think we are not alone in the Universe, and that we have been visited before.

I tried to provide enough links to get others started on the search, but not so much that it was overwhelming. I think this is one "UFO" story that has a lot going for it, at least in that it can prove that something very strange did happen at least once.

And if the new research is proven by finding the third star with a telescope, then there would be no reasonable doubt left that the Dogon were telling the truth.

I had never heard of this tribe and am super interested now! Ill look through your research in the next couple of days!

Amazing post!

Originally posted by neil wilkes
There is an excellent - although sadly long since out-of-print - book on this subject from Robert Temple, called "The Sirius Mystery".

I bought it years ago - and threw it away. It made Von Daniken look good ....

Anyway, apologies for long post but I don't have a weblink to hand for this Fortean Times article by Philip Coppens

The story that the Dogon, a tribe in Mali, West Africa, had possessed in their antiquity extraordinary knowledge of the star system Sirius achieved worldwide publicity in 1976 through Robert Temple’s extraordinary book The Sirius Mystery. It was compellingly argued and became one of the most influential books of the 1970s ‘ancient astronauts’ genre.

Sirius is the brightest star in the sky, a star that became the marker of an important ancient Egyptian calendar, and a star that is said to be at the centre of beliefs held by the Freemasons. According to some cultures, Sirius is where the forefathers of the human race might have originated.

Temple claimed that the Dogon knew about two smaller stars that are closely related to Sirius – Sirius B and Sirius C. The mystery was how they had obtained this knowledge, as these companion stars cannot be seen by the unaided eye. Temple’s solution referred to legends of a mythical creature, the god Oannes, who might have been an extraterrestrial, described as descending to Earth from the stars to bring civilising wisdom to the Dogon forefathers.

www.philipcoppens.com...

(obviously if this goes against what you want to believe in then you'll dismiss it. But that's religion for you )

[edit on 14-10-2007 by Jbird]

I always thought this story was fascinating. I think this case was one of those special ones that deserved more attention than it's given and I often tell many interested people about it. Unfortunately most people flock to the sensationalists and cower in disbelief at photos of Lord Marduk.

Glad you put it up!

Flagged for those that haven't heard and will hopefully read about this mystery.

Originally posted by NGC2736
Could these backward people have heard of these strange things and incorperated them into their myths in the near past?

Personally I don't think the Dogon are "backward" at all. Far from it. The strange things they heard weren't strange but fact as told by the Nomo that visited them and helps participates in watching over us all whether we choose to believe it or not. One of many groups in fact.

The Dogon live a very simplistic, artistic and peaceful lifestyle which in the past as you mentioned usually resulted in them being exploited as slaves. I recall mentioning this information to a colleague and he stated it was false because "If any beings did exist why would they go to those people?"

Proof positive that arrogance and presumed civility have nothing to do with spiritual or even extra-terrestrial enlightenment. It's the assumption of superiority that clouds most from a higher understanding of the universe and our place in it. The knowledge is there for all of us but the price is humility and some refuse to acknowledge how little we truly know or that they aren't the center of the universe. Radical changes would have to be made and much would need to be let go. Materialism and ego especially.

The Dogon are strongly oriented toward harmony, and this harmony is reflected in many of their rituals. For instance, in one of their most important rituals, the women praise the men, the men thank the women, the young express appreciation for the old, and the old recognize the contributions of the young.Wiki

We have a lot of growing up to do to catch up to people like the Dogon.

Basically someone, somewhere thought the Dogon worthy of the information and I do believe their myth is rooted in an actual occurrence. Perhaps if we "civilized" societies adopted a similar peaceful lifestyle we wouldn't be left scratching our heads as to how a tribesman knew more about certain stars and planetary events than the French anthropologists that came to study them.

Although I would have loved to have seen their faces.

This is one of my favorite mysteries. It just adds to the list of ancient people that knew far more about the universe than the average person today.

There is something else interesting about the dogons and sirius. They love their cannabis, and believe that it is an alien plant that was brought by the same creatures. Even the name cannabis come from the latin canna, which means canine or dog, and bis or bi, which of course means 2. So there you have it the 2 dog plant from the 2 dog star. Is it safe to assume they are right about this also?

Edit for spelling. I was going to post a link but I don't think I should...

[edit on 103131p://upFriday by Mushroom Fields Forever]

The book, "The Sirius Mystery" is NOT out of print. Here is a link to the Amazon website to order a copy. Used copies are as cheap as $8 each.

Also, I found this thread about the same topic.. . .

I have a copy of the book and it is interesting. The first couple of pages speculate like Hoagland's Enterprise Mission that beings live in Pheobe, Dione and Iapetus who are from Sirius. They could live in our Moon as well.... they look like ETs head and their bodies have long arms and sort of normal legs.

reply to post by Essan


Excellent post. I too want to see both sides of this. It is only by considering all possibilities that one can arrive at the truth. I looked into this mystery because I wanted to find out how factual it was.

If we take the accounts just as they were written in the latter part of the 20th century, then we still have a mystery. Even if the Dogon were "contaminated" by the original contact, we're still left with the third star idea to ponder. How could even Temple himself have such information so long before this new research and the publication of it in the journal "Astonomy and Astrophysics" in 1995?

Are you saying this was just a wild guess on the part of Temple, to make this a part of his story?

Alas, and most unfortunately, there is more than enough evidence to indicate that all is not as it should be in the world of Dogon Mysteries.

In 1998, Temple republished the book with the subtitle “new scientific evidence of alien contact 5,000 years ago.” The book’s reputation was first dented in 1999, when Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince published The Stargate Conspiracy, in which they allege that Temple’s thinking had been heavily influenced by his mentor, Arthur M. Young. Young was a fervent believer in “the Council of Nine,” a mysterious group of channelled entities that claim to be the nine creator gods of ancient Egypt. ‘The Nine’ became part of the UFO and New Age mythology and many claim to be in contact with them. ‘The Nine’ also claim to be extraterrestrial beings from the star Sirius. In 1952, Young was one of nine people present during the “first contact” with the ‘Council’, an event initiated by Andrija Puharich, the man who brought Israeli spoonbender Uri Geller to America.

A Dogon Shame!

I spent a good number of years following this mystery from back in the early 70s. I don't expect anyone to convert to a "skeptical" point of view on anything I post here. However, the unfortunate facts are that often, in the light of day, these "Wowser!" mysteries have a much more mundane and more plausible (if not correct always, but mostly) explanation.

I apologize to those who might think I am attempting to be a sceptical wet blanket. That is not the case, there are some mysteries out there that boggle the mind. The issue here, as is often the case, is that the mundane explanation makes more "common" sense than the conspiratorila explanation that has more drama, and thus impact. And --

Believe it or not, that makes me feel badly. I do so much want to buy into the thoughts that we were blessed with previous visitations and such. I spent a good deal of my early youth involved in these very studies. Unfortunaely, for the Dogon mystery, there is enough question in my tiny, little mind, to think that this is a bit of over-stated evidence that is probably incorrect, and in the case of the Dogon. at least, some folks, such as I will have to wait for more evidence, one way or the other, before blindly jumping on that wagon, again.

Originally posted by Essan

...obviously if this goes against what you want to believe in then you'll dismiss it. But that's religion for you...

WSorry but what you posted certainly doesn't close the case. If you choose to believe Van Beek well then maybe it does but clearly there are many sides to the story.

There is also more than just one mystery here.

However, daughter and colleague of Marcel Griaule, Genevieve Calame-Griaule, came to defend the project, dismissing Van Beek's criticism as misguided speculation and being rooted in an apparent ignorance of esoteric tradition. There are also several unexplained aspects of the reported Dogon culture that still remain. The assertion that the Dogon knew of another star in the Sirius system, Emme Ya, or "larger than Sirus B but lighter and dim in magnitude" has particularly baffled critics. In 1995, gravitational studies showed the presence of a brown dwarf star circling around Sirius. Neither does an external cause seem to explain the 400-year old Dogon artifact that apparently depicts the Sirius configuration, or reports that the Dogon were aware of the super dense nature of the white dwarf star, Sirius B, since this was only postulated not long before the Dogon came in contact with the anthropologists. Space journalist and skeptic James Oberg collected claims that have appeared concerning Dogon mythology in his 1982 book and concedes that such assumptions of recent acquisition is "entirely circumstantial" and has no foundation in documented evidence and concludes that it seems likely that the Sirius mystery will remain exactly what its title implies; a mystery.

Wiki

The mystery is still on.

Mystery is indeed on. Thank you for posting this. I think it merits further investigation, so I think my next stop is the Library (yes, I still use them )

Thanks again

reply to post by TheJenkster


Great! It will only be through more research that we will know if what we have here is worth considering further. I listed only online links for my original post because that is the medium most used. I think some library research might well turn up things not found online.

I am in hopes that several researchers might follow this out, and give us different perspectives on this.

Great, thought provoking post! Star for you.

Looks like I have a whole lotta reading to do.

Putting Wiki aside for a moment, it seems that Griaule has been battered quite a bit by his own peers due to his, uh, "interpretation", of the Dogon belief systems.

I've read that the Dogon don't know what the heck your talking about when you approach them with Griaule's interpretations/theories.

It is also worth pointing out that while the date 1938 gets tossed about, it was actually decades later when he started writing about these, uh, new interpretations. And yes, one would presume that being employed by a major University did give him access to all the latest research, and postulations about the stars.

Meanwhile, I hope someone posts what is known about the dogstar cluster, and the 400 year old Dogon artifact which supposedly shows them accurately so that we are a bit better informed on that part of the issue.

Truely don't really know much about it, but the link below appears to provide lots of study references for the bookworms among us.

Griaule’s Legacy: Rethinking “la parole claire” in Dogon Studies

Through the extended critique of Lettens (1971), the signal essays of Jamin (1982b) and Clifford (1988), and Hountondji’s attack against ethnophilosophy (1983), Griaule became a favorite target, personifying the violence and duplicity of colonial ethnography and its mystification of cultural traditions. With his substantive research on Dogon deep knowledge questioned on empirical grounds (van Beek 1991a), his interpretive focus on secrecy and hidden meaning—what he called “la parole claire”—has become iconic of the colonial imagination at large (Mudimbe 1988).

the word "god" is from the german "gott."
it is NOT a hebrew word. there was a class of
"gods" in biblical texts called the "Elohiym".
EL was the singular version and was the generic
word used to describe any "god" of the Elohiym
class. So technically-speaking "EL" is the original
biblical word for the generic "god."

Word play is interesting but be sure you're using the
right context.

Wow to think that this is a "new" post on ATS. I read about the Dogons some 25 years ago (strange it was a National Geographic article back then) If I remember correctly there was some folks alleging that the very researchers themselves actually gave the dogons the information about Sirius B(not debunking anyone just remembering a counter argument)

For those interested, who have had no other info about the Sirians, I also recommend looking into the Dropa/Dzopa from China/Tibet. These little guys also were from Sirius and they actually left some rather interesting artifacts behind( see the stone disks of Baian-Kara-Ula here in the ATS archives)

Nonetheless this is a great post and I am glad too see that this mystery is one that still gets people talking.

Long Live the Dogons!