Singing with the Dogon Prophet

Walter E.A. van Beek; Oumarou S. Ongoiba; Atimè D. Saye

doi:10.5771/9781793654267

Summary

In the Dogon funeral proceedings, a major song cycle called baja ni is performed in a session of at least seven hours. The texts of the chants are attributed to a legendary figure called Abirɛ, who as a blind singer in the nineteenth century roamed the heartland of the Dogon. The baja ni songs have escaped scholarly attention thus far. Singing with the Dogon Prophet by Walter E.A. van Beek, Oumarou S. Ongoiba, and Atimε D. Saye provides their first publication in English as well as an analysis of these songs. These texts deal with the relations between man and woman, man’s ambivalent dependency on the otherworld, and with life and death; the whole night performance is one of the high points of the funeral. Additionally, Abirɛ is a prophet, and during his life has uttered a great number of prophecies on a wide range of topics, from local issues to the relation of the Dogon with the Fulbe herdsmen, and from the arrival of the colonials to ecological transformation. This book examines how these prophecies with these songs offer an inside view of the way the Dogon construct the present in a continuous dialogue with their past and their projected future.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-5425-0
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-5426-7
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 240
Product type: Book Titles

1. The Child of Heaven and the Child of Death No access
2. Dedication No access
3. Contents No access
4. List of Figures No access
5. 1. Encountering the Baja Ni No access
  2. Language and Orthography No access
6. Acknowledgements No access
1. The Night of 8–9 May 1989 No access
2. 1. The yu yana, First Funeral No access
3. Funeral Rites and Dogon Religion No access
1. What Is the baja ni? No access
2. The Dogon and Their Abirɛ No access
1. A Special Birth No access
2. 1. Dynamics of Singing the Baja Ni No access
1. Greeting No access
2. Honorific Names: The tigɛ No access
3. Baja Ni and Dogon Folktales No access
4. The Internal Audience No access
5. Death and Its Symbols No access
1. Greetings No access
2. Praises No access
3. The Life of Abirɛ in Songs No access
4. Elegies for the Prophet’s Close Kin No access
5. Songs of War No access
6. Death, Destiny, and the Philosophy of Life No access
1. Revealing the Past No access
2. 1. Ecological Changes No access
  2. Social Transformations No access
  3. External Influences No access
3. 1. Divination No access
  2. Destiny and Agency No access
Appendix 1 No access Pages 211 - 214
Appendix 2 No access Pages 215 - 216
Appendix 3 No access Pages 217 - 220
Bibliography No access Pages 221 - 226
Figure Credits No access Pages 227 - 228
Index No access Pages 229 - 236
About the Authors No access Pages 237 - 240