Sigi Tolo & The Red Giant Star
The oral history of the Dogon people reveals interstellar stories of amphibious alien visits, an obsession with twinned suns and the explosion of a giant red star! Although these stories weren't written down until 1946 (by Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen), they closely compare to ancient cosmogenic creation stories we’ve long since theorized.
During my research on the Dogon people, it was hard to decipher the difference between fact and folklore, but where I arrived inevitably evoked a sense of wonderment. Normally I’d reject the notion that ancient African civilizations underwent alien intervention, but the Dogon apparently revered extraterrestrial entities and spoke about them with certainty and gratitude. At this point in our galactic exploration of Dogon folklore, I’d like to highlight the fact that stars and suns are one and the same. Put simply, suns are just stars at different growth stages, and since we reside in the solar system the closest star is known as our Sun/Sol/Soleil.
Toloy dwellings, now abandoned, in the Bandiagara Escarpment in Mali.
Thousands of years ago, the Dogon observed one of the brightest stars in the night sky — Sigi Tolo. They believed it had two companion stars (invisible to the naked eye), Pō Tolo, and the allegedly non-perceptible Emme Ya Tolo. Basically, the Dogon people discovered a multi star system, and they celebrated Pō Tolo’s orbit around Sigi Tolo every 60 years at the region-wide Sigi Festival. Astronomers and historians have made the correlation between Sigi Tolo and Sirius A, however, my research has pointed me to a different constellation. And the multiplicity of parallels I’ve drawn between early Kemetism, The Dogon, Greek Art & Mesopotamian Mythology are more eerie than I was prepared to account for.
Dogon Dwellings at foot of clifff.
The Dogon villages were apparently formed by a mass exodus of diverse ethnic groups retreating from Islamization and Jihadic persecution after the fall of the Mali Empire. These continued spiritual threats forced the Dogon people to flee from their ancient origins (evidence shows they migrated from Egypt/Kemet) to preserve their indigenous traditions and find a more protected territory. In the 14th century, they found the Bandiagara escarpment, a sandstone cliff stretching 90 miles wide and 1,600ft tall.
The Bandiagara Escarpment is in Burkina Faso, the central plateau region of Mali, West Africa. The Dogon people make up 80% of the Bandiagara population, which includes neighboring tribes: the Mossi, Bobo and Bozo. The Dogon language Jam Sai (translates to: ‘peace only’) is comprised of many Egyptian and Hebrew words amounting to 12 dialects and 50 sub-dialects. Amma is the supreme creator god in the Dogon religion, a common thread they share with their North African neighbors in Kemet who call their creator deity Amun/Amun-Ra.
Satimbe Mask
Upon the Dogon peoples arrival to the plateau region, they discovered the remnants of their predecessors, the Tellem (11th century) and Toloy people which bared cultural artifacts (carbon dated back to the 2nd century) and infrastructure like pottery, pearls, granaries and dwellings built into the face of the cliff. Another essential amenity influencing their choice of relocation was access to water in the wet season, running from the Niger River’s rivulets at the foot of the cliff.
The Awa (male initiation society members) obtained touristic popularity for their ceremonial masks, unique adornment and exuberant dances. But the meanings behind their traditions and vibrant attire are ones that do not gain as much attention as the Dama funerary dance and Sigi Festival itself. So, I endeavored to look for written records and cultural parallels that unveil their mysterious spiritual origins. Dogon spirituality suggests all forms of life are interconnected and linked with the stars. Their handcrafted masks are made to represent the connection between heaven, earth and the afterlife. The ‘Dama’ dance is specifically performed to honor the deceased and peacefully transition their souls. Although the women of the village are excluded from the ceremonial practices, they are honored and represented in the masks created by the Awa. The Satimbe mask in particular is said to represent the women ancestors who discovered the original purpose of the masks as spirit guiding tools.
“More than eighty different types of masks, of both wood and fiber, have been documented in dama performances. They represent various human characters familiar to the Dogon community, such as hunters, warriors, healers, women, and people from neighboring ethnic groups. The masks may also depict animals, birds, objects, and abstract concepts.”
- Dr. Christa Clarke, for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2006.
The Dogon people have apparently known about multi star systems, genetics and cosmology before modern science and the invention of the telescope or microscope in the 16th century. Which leads many to question how their vast knowledge of astronomy and biology even came to be!
According to the Dogon elder Ogotemmêli's description, the Nommo were amphibious serpentine shape shifters, and he identified them with chameleons and fish. The Dogon considered these primordial entities as ‘The Monitors’ and ‘Masters of the Water’. And recount stories of their creation by Amma and descent from the sky into the ocean with a thunderous flying vessel.
A Nommo figure of the Tellem people
“Nommo was the first living being created by Amma (the sky god and creator of the universe) and he soon multiplied to become four sets of twins. One of the twins rebelled against the order established by Amma, thereby destabilizing the universe. In order to purify the cosmos and restore its order, Amma sacrificed another of the Nommo, whose body was cut up and scattered throughout the universe. This distribution of the parts of the Nommo’s body is seen as the source for the proliferation of Binu shrines throughout the Dogon region.”
- Martin Gray; Anthropologist, World Pilgrimage Guide.
The Nommo told the Dogon of an ancient failed cosmic experiment which lead to the loss of our second sun (binary star). Accounts from NASA have also stated that our Sun is ‘unusual in that it is alone’, because most stars exist in multi or binary systems. Our lonely star’s existence is at the core of the Dogon/Nommo folklore.
Red Giant Star | European Space Agency.; Photo: ESA Credit JAXA
Dogon drawing for the Sigi ceremony
It has been said that the Dogon people have an obsession with the cycle of stars, and even designate genders to certain stages. White dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes are associated with masculine symbols, while main sequence (our Sun’s stage) and red giant stars are considered feminine symbols. These evolving identities lead the Dogon to believe that suns are hermaphrodites. When a star enters the red giant phase (death cycle) it expands, swallows nearby planets and regurgitates them during the supernova phase to form a nebula. Nebulas are ‘stellar nurseries’ made of cosmic clouds of gas and dust where planets and stars are reborn. This star cycle is well known to the Dogon, which is why they compared red giant stars to pregnant suns called Po Pilu and associated it with the red calabash gourd.
After combing through all the information I could find about the Dogon people, I began researching other creation stories and multi star systems that may align with the Nommo origins. Sirius is the most mentioned star in Griaule’s accounts of Dogon folklore, but I speculate that the Nommo may have come from a nearby water-bearing terrestrial exoplanet (Proxima Centauri b) in the Alpha Centauri star system.
Alpha Centauri is a triple star system consisting of Centauri A, Centauri B, and the closest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri (Centauri C). The Alpha Centauri system is the third brightest star in the nights sky, Centauri A + B orbit a common center of gravity approximately every 80 years. But Proxima Centauri is gravitationally bound to them both and has a longer orbital period of 550,000 years.
What I found most interesting in my research was the fact that as well as having three exoplanets (Proxima Centauri b,c and d); Proxima Centauri is an earth-sized red dwarf flare star with it’s nearest planet (Proxima Centauri b) residing in it’s habitable zone, an area where planets are able to support liquid water. A flare star is known to emit bright fluctuating flickers of light (x-ray emissions). The Alpha Centauri system is actually more luminous than our Sun, and was listed in the 2nd century star catalog of Ptolemy since it was easily observable in that period of time from Alexandria, Egypt (Kemet). Apparently, the Alpha Centauri system was also strongly featured in ancient Egyptian deity temples, whereby the principal features of the temple aligned with the point on the horizon where the star system rose.
Currently, Sirius sparkles brightly in our night sky at approximately 8 light years away from our Sun. The historical distance data of the Alpha Centauri system shows how close it used to be and how fast it’s moving away from our solar system. The first recorded distance was marked at 2.8 light years in 1839 and the last recorded distance was marked at 4.3 in 2012. I’m not going to bog you down with too many numbers here, but the point I’m trying to make is: If the Alpha Centauri tri-star system (having a water-bearing exoplanet) was 1.5 light years closer to earth in the 19th century, than imagine how close it was in the 14th century when the Dogon people first observed it. My estimate calculations say it may have only been 1 light year away from our Sun in the time of the Dogon. Therefore, the ultra luminous star flare quality of the Alpha Centauri system must have caught the eye of these ancient ancestors. Astronomers are still exploring this star system to this day, with a paper published as recent as February 2021, revealing exciting (yet unconfirmed) evidence of a Neptune-sized planet residing nearby Alpha Centauri A.
An Apkallu Fish-Man. Oannes was the Greek name for the first of them.
In Roman/Greek mythology Centaur refers to a creature with the upper body of a human and lower body of a horse. Late classical Greek art also depicted a hybrid creature with the upper torso of a human, legs of a horse and the tail of a fish, it was called the Ichthyocentaur. The earliest depiction of this creature was found to date back to the 2nd century within the relief sculptures at the Pergamon Alter in Greece; around the same time Ptolemy recorded the Alpha Centauri system in his catalog. In Mesopotamian mythology, Oannes was a half man half-fish Babylonia god that emerged from the sea to spread wisdom and cultivate civilization. The ancient written and drawn accounts of hybrid creatures and binary star systems are suspiciously similar to the descriptions the Dogon had of the Nommo and Sigi Tolo star sytem.
There has been so many pseudoscientific assumptions of Africa’s ancient past. The contemporary Dogon tribesmen are said to be quite discreet and discordant about the elusive origins of their folklore. Skeptical speculations are still being made by astronomers because they doubt the validity of the Dogon oral history. You may think that any master builder, mathematician or astronomer would utilize the written word to transfer and preserve knowledge. But I have a strong sense that it’s a lot more cryptic than we have ever conceived. I believe the Dogon people, like many ancient civilizations, discovered universal signs and symbols that exist beyond language. And to protect this inherited knowledge from invaders seeking to overthrow their spiritual selfhood and conquer their culture, they intentionally kept it as secret as a whisper.
For the Dogon people, the keeper of this sacred story being passed on from generation to generation is the Hogan (eldest man in the village). There are three primary sects of the Dogon religion: Awa, Binu and Lébé. The Awa are a cult of the dead, concerned with funerary practices and reordering the spiritual forces disturbed by the death of Nommos. The Binu sect has a totemic practice, focusing on ancestor worship and spirit communication. While the Lébé is associated with agriculture and the Hogon.
The Awa have a language called Sigi So, spoken during the ceremonial procession of the Sigui festival and kept secret from the women of the village. Dogon legend states that the first Hogon was a hybrid Nommo descendant named Lébé, and the patrilineage of this bloodline dictates who the subsequent Hogon will be. When a Hogon dies, a copper ring is put round each of his ankles and arms to align with their ancient theory that blackholes (which often feature thin copper rings of light) exist at the four corners of interstellar space and play a role in the four arms of the Milky Way Galaxy (home to our solar system).
Binu Shrine in Mali
I find it absolutely astonishing that the Dogon cultural practices and folklore stories about the birth of our universe have lasted centuries long, avoiding spiritual subjugation of any kind. No telescope and no historical texts, just signs etched in the sand and stories whispered in ears. As the humanity continues to dream of and search for life off Earth, I can’t help but go back in time to find the stories that connect us to the stars.
Sigi Tolo | 2021 | Djenabé
