Cosmic lore of the Dogon

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In 1931, the famous French ethnographer Professor Marcel Griol, traveling across West Africa, visited one of the Sudanese tribes living in the bend of the Niger River on the territory of the Republic of Mali. These were the Dogon - part of the ancient people, in terms of their level of civilization, it would seem that they did not stand out among their neighbors. However, the professors were interested in unusual legends and myths, which were orally passed down from generation to generation by these farmers who did not know the written language. They were, neither more nor less, about the origin and structure of the Universe, as well as about the long-standing ties of this people with space.

Since then, Professor Griaule and his colleagues regularly went on expeditions to the Dogon, scientists lived for a long time among hospitable Africans, and they gradually imbued with confidence in the benevolent and inquisitive white people and gradually initiated them into their innermost secrets. The most "dedicated" were Griaule himself and his main assistant, Professor Germaine Deterlin, who, after Griaule's death in 1956, continued their common cause. Griaule and Deterlin presented the truly sensational results of their research in a number of publications, the first of which was published in 1950.

Modern science says that the universe was formed as a result of the initial Big Bang, before which all of its matter, compressed to an incredible density, occupied an infinitely small volume, and such categories as space and time were absent. Since the Big Bang (about 13 billion years ago), there has been a continuous expansion of the Universe, the so-called scattering of galaxies. And this is how the Universe was formed according to the ancient Dogon legends: “At the beginning of all things, there was Amma - God who did not rest on anything. Amma was a ball, an egg, and this egg was closed. Apart from him, nothing existed. " In the modern language of the Dogon, the word "amma" means something motionless, strongly compressed and very dense. And further: “The world inside Amma was still without time and without space. Time and space have merged into a single whole. " But the moment came when “Amma opened his eyes. At the same time, his thought came out of the spiral, which, whirling in his womb, marked the future growth of the world. " According to legend, the modern "world is endless, but it can be measured." This formulation is very close to that given by Einstein in his theory of relativity.

Our Galaxy - the Milky Way - is the "boundary of place" for the Dogon. “The boundary of a place denotes one part of the starry world, a part of which is our Earth, and this whole world is spinning in a spiral. Amma created an infinite number of stellar worlds in the form of a spiral. " (Most of the galaxies known to modern science have exactly the shape of a spiral).

It is characteristic that, unlike all other religious myths, the Earth, according to the dogon beliefs, is not the center of the universe, and earthlings are not the only living beings in the Universe. “Spiral stellar worlds are inhabited worlds. Amma, who gave the world movement and form, simultaneously with all things created all living beings … both on our planet and on other Earths … "Incredibly, in the Dogon legends there are not only such concepts as" stars ", but also" planets”and even“satellites of the planets”. “Fixed stars are stars that do not revolve around other stars. The planets and satellites of the planets are stars that revolve in circles around other stars. "And how could people, who were, in theory, in a semi-primitive state, know that "the Sun revolves around its axis as if under the action of a spiral spring … and the Earth revolves around itself and at the same time runs around space in a large Circle?"

Of the planets of the solar system, the Dogon pay attention mainly to those visible to the naked eye - Mars, Venus, Saturn and Jupiter. It turns out that they know that Venus has a satellite. Modern science does not yet know this. Initiating French scientists into esoteric knowledge, the Dogon illustrated their narratives with symbols and diagrams, sometimes quite complex, but always very visual. They depicted Jupiter in the form of a large circle, on which four small circles are located - the satellites of the planet. Today we know 16 satellites of Jupiter, four of them, discovered in 1610 by Galileo, are the largest and brightest. The Dogon Saturn was depicted as two concentric circles, explaining that the outer circle is a ring (or rings).

However, the central place in the mythology of this mysterious people belongs to Sirius, the brightest star in our firmament. According to Dogon concepts, Sirius is a stellar system that "had a major impact on the development of life on Earth and is the basis of the foundations of the universe." This star system consists of Sirius proper, a second star (Sirius B) and a third star (Sirius C). The Dogon say that all three "additional" celestial bodies are so close to the main luminary that they cannot always be seen. To date, astronomers have discovered only the second of these stars. The existence of Sirius C is still the subject of discussion among astronomers.

The Dogon say of Sirius B that “this star revolves around Sirius, making one revolution in 50 years. When Sirius B approaches Sirius, he begins to shine very brightly, and when he moves away from him, he starts to flicker, so that it seems to the observer that Sirius B has turned into several stars. Incidentally, this periodicity of the Sirius glow has been confirmed by astronomers.

Sirius B is not visible to the naked eye, but until the middle of the 19th century. no one, except for the amazing Dogon tribe, even knew about its existence. “Sirius B,” say the Dogon, “is the heaviest of the heavenly bodies. It has such a density that if you bring together all the people, then they would not be able to lift even a small piece of it. " Indeed, Sirius B was the first "white dwarf" discovered in the Universe - burnt out and compressed to an incredible density of 50 tons per cubic centimeter!

Dogon myths connect with Sirius the appearance of the first people on Earth. One of them says that people were transported to Earth by spaceships - "heavenly arks from the planet, the sun of which was the star Sirius B before its explosion"; Descending, the ark "described a double spiral, displaying with its movement the course of life in that vortex that revived its very first particle." It is known that a molecule of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) - the carrier of our genetic code - has the form of a double helix!

Dogon legends tell about two stages of space travel. The first is associated with the arrival on Earth of a creature named Ogo. The second - with the landing on Earth of the ark, on board which were Nommo and the first people. About the personality of Ogo himself, it is said vaguely. It seems that this is a subject like Satan - a fallen archangel who rebelled against Amma and took possession of some of his innermost knowledge. Oho allegedly visited space three times, and he made his space sorties in small arks. There is an interesting mention that the source of energy for his space arks were particles "po" - the fundamental basis of the cosmic universe.

Another character - Nommo - appears in the form of an archangel executing Amma's orders. Its main task is to create life on Earth and populate the planet with people. The myth describes in detail the preparation of such an important mission. On board the ship was everything needed to create life on Earth, as well as people - four pairs of twins, or eight Ancestors. The ship flew to Earth through a special temporary "window" in the sky, which was created by Amma.

After landing, Nommo first descended to Earth, followed by all the other arrivals. When the ark was empty, Amma pulled into heaven the brass chain on which the ship hung and closed the heavenly window. This meant the end of all ties between the crew of the ark and the civilization that sent it. For the people who became the first earthlings, there was no way back. It was necessary to settle down on a new planet, cultivate life on it, “be fruitful and multiply”.

I must say that today no one studies the Dogon. What is known about them was obtained during the expeditions of the 1960-1970s. Who knows how many discoveries astronomers and ethnographers could have made had they worked with the Dogon today, at the beginning of the third millennium, using computers!