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LIVING IN A LANDSCAPE OF SCARCITY Materiality and Cosmology in West Africa Laurence Douny Walnut Creek, California left coast Press, inc. 1630 north Main street, #400 Walnut creek, ca 94596 http://www.lcoastPress.com copyright © 2014 by left coast Press, inc. All rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. isbn 978-1-61132-891-2 hardback isbn 978-1-61132-893-6 institutional ebook isbn 978-1-61132-894-3 consumer ebook library of congress cataloging-in-Publication data: douny, laurence, 1977-author. living in a landscape of scarcity: materiality and cosmology in West africa/ laurence douny. pages cm. — (Publications of the institute of archaeology, university college london ; v. 63) includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-1-61132-891-2 (hardback: alk. paper) — isbn 978-1-61132-893-6 (institutional ebook) — isbn 978-1-61132-894-3 (consumer ebook) 1. dogon (african people)—Mali—Material culture. 2. landscapes—symbolic aspects—Mali. 3. cosmology, dogon. 4. architecture, dogon. 5. food supply— Mali. 6. scarcity. i. title. ii. series: Publications of the institute of archaeology, university college london; v. 63. dt551.45.d64d68 2014 306.46096623—dc23 2014005345 all photos by laurence douny unless otherwise noted. Printed in the united states of america the paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of american national standard for information sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed library Materials, ansi/niso Z39.48–1992. Contents list of illustrations 7 Preface 9 transcription notes 15 1. living in a landscape of scarcity: a Materiality approach 17 2. ‘Making and doing’ dogon Microcosmology: some ethnographic, Methodological, and conceptual background 35 3. conceptual boundaries and inside/outside dialectics: a dwelling Process 51 4. the inside of the village: Material symbolism and building Process 67 5. the outside of the village as a ‘life-giving’ reservoir 81 6. dogon ‘Weather World’: local conceptions of rain and Wind 97 7. the compound: fixing, gathering, and enclosing the everyday 111 8. domestic Waste: doing and undoing the compound 127 9. Making an earth granary: embedded and embodied technology 141 10. Pandora’s granary: Material Practices of concealment 161 11. a Microcosmology in a Millet grain: cooking techniques and eating habits 177 12. cosmological Matters: toward a Philosophy of containment 195 appendix a. d ogon’s identity: from immutability to cultural diversities 203 appendix b. d ogon Mande origin through oral history 205 appendix c. dogon exoticism: from ancient egypt to outer space 207 appendix d. c hallenging griaule’s Work: a brief overview of dogon studies 209 appendix e. M ethodology’s development: doing fieldwork in the dogon region (Pre-Malian crisis, 2012) 211 appendix f. the tale of the foundation of tiréli 213 notes 217 glossary of dogon terms 225 references 235 index 247 about the author 257 Illustrations figure 1.1 the village of tiréli 18 figure 1.2 Map of the dogon region 20 figure 3.1 view of tiréli from the top of the cliffs 54 figure 4.1 choreography of onion pounding on a boulder 74 figure 5.1 spatial divisions of the territory of tiréli 82 figure 5.2 young women collecting wood 93 figure 6.1 the wall of sand approaching the village 104 figure 6.2 road eroded by rain 107 figure 7.1 the cooking and brewing place 116 figure 7.2 Gujɔ with tin door and large windows 119 figure 8.1 Millet straw scattered in the compound 131 figure 8.2 sweepings found outside the compound 136 figure 8.3 dogon categories of waste 139 figure 9.1 Gúyɔ ana for storing millet 142 figure 9.2 the gúyɔ ya, a female granary used by women or men 142 figure 9.3 children helping to mix recycled walls with added fonio straws 146 figure 9.4 fixing the áma corner 147 figure 9.5 fixing the mud on the áma 149 figure 9.6 flattening the outside of the wall 150 figure 9.7 building the granary’s vault 151 figure 9.8 the closing of the shell with an ‘inverted’ áma 152 figure 9.9 overview of the asymmetrical granary 154 figure 9.10 Plastering (roughcasting) the granary 155 figure 9.11 operational sequence of the making a granary 156 figure 9.12 tactile experience of mud 157 figure 10.1 Quantity of millet taken daily and given to a woman for coking. 170 figure 10.2 starting to enter the female granary 171 figure 10.3 the torso is in the container 171 figure 10.4 Jumping into the upper compartment 172 figure 11.1 Material extracted from millet plants 180 figure 11.2 Millet parts and uses 181 figure 11.3 operational sequence of the processing of millet ears 182 figure 11.4 sifting millet 183 figure 11.5 Pounding techniques 185 figure 11.6 Pounder broken at the level of the handle 187 figure 11.7 operational sequence of processing millet grains 187 figure 11.8 filling up containers with food 189 figure 11.9 operational sequence of the sagujá meal 192 Preface To my host family in Tiréli In memory of Patrice (1951–2013) in his fctional short story entitled The Aleph, borges (1949/1974/2004) writes of a mysterious object or ‘point in space’, the aleph, that ‘contains all other points’ in the universe (borges 2004, 126); the aleph is discovered in the space of a dark cellar. by looking into the aleph the protagonist is able to see the entire universe. the aleph contains all human experience of the infnite space- time continuum, and it conveys a deep and immediate sense of participation in the world that is felt intensely by those who experience the aleph. The Aleph as a cosmological literary metaphor enables me to introduce this book, which is an exploration into the contemporary dogon cultural landscape of a village in the bandiagara escarpment, a ‘down-to-earth’ point in space from which i examine the villagers’ microcosmology. this book exposes dogon shared embodied worldviews about living in a landscape of scarcity. My interest into the dogon’s perceptions of their environment came out of the context in which i conducted the core of my research in an idyllic, pictur- esque, and ‘touristy’ landscape that quickly turned out to be not ideal to live in (douny 2007). it was harsh, and it was so for everybody. My ethnography is mainly set up in a village of the tɔrɔ sɔ area of the bandiagara escarpment, in Mali (West africa), and it is grounded in my partici- patory observations of daily and seasonal embedded practices of the dogon land- scape throughout an agricultural cycle. the dogon microcosmology i recount is a gathering of interrelated worldviews that emanate from shared embodied experiences of a harsh environment in which the weather, and food scarcity in particular, were and still are the major problems (recorded between 2001 and 2013 and during a seventeen-month feldwork period between 2002 and 2004). With more than 1,000 publications written about the dogon, some of my colleagues asked ‘why another one?’ My answer is simple: the dogon daily domestic practices out of which the people’s material world and thus their cul- tural landscape are shaped remain largely unexplored. in this book i attempt to show that daily practices and so techniques of ‘making’ and ‘doing’ the 9