Tellem

George turned up with a trainee guide and a porter.  It was exhilarating stepping out over the rock of the plateau in the early morning sun when it was cool and refreshing. We passed through a couple of villages, walking up a gentle incline. People were stirring with daily chores as the sun rose. Women were already up and about and heading toward village centres and wells carrying pots on their heads.  Herds of sheep and goats were nudged toward grazing grounds by small boys and men with hoes set off for the onion fields.

Nimbly as mountain goats George and the other guys negotiated a twenty foot scramble which we struggled down carefully.  As we walked toward the edge of the falaise, George in the lead, the two young men helped Margaret to scramble down short rock faces and through steeply descending natural tunnels.  Here George recounted the local legend of an argumentative and unruly local man who became increasingly violent.   The Dogon elders finally decided that this man had become an unacceptable threat to the community and he was banished to one of the natural tunnels.   The paths threaded through spectacular rock falls where we ducked through crevices between gigantic boulders the size of three storey houses. 

Then suddenly we emerged onto a ledge teetering on the brink of the precipice.  The view, south across the plain to Burkina Faso was breathtaking.  George pointed to a distant line halfway to the hazy horizon.  That, he said was an encroaching wall of sand from the desert.  The farmers had planted trees to try to slow the creep of the sand but every year it moved steadily toward the fields and the farmland.  The path across the face of the cliff seemed a bit adventurous until we gingerly rounded a corner and saw kids scampering all over the rocks.  When they saw us approaching the ran over to greet us clearly absolutely at home skipping over edges and ledges hundreds feet above the jagged rocks below that would mean certain death for the unwary. Peering apprehensively over the edge, George showed us a deserted village at the base of the cliff.  Most people, he explained now lived either on the plateau or on the plain.   

As we toured through more villages we saw burial sites where the bodies of families were interred in natural caves.  The entrances were bricked up with loose stone slabs so that the grave could be opened up to place another body inside.  For some reason there was a gap left in the entrance wall of each grave so that you could look in and see the skulls and bones.  Though very private people the Dogon stopped to talk as we walked through their villages.  We chatted to the local headmaster who had taught George to speak English.  He recounted the tale of the Tellem people, whom it was said fled to this site 1077, about the time of the Norman conquest in England.  This was when the Empire of the Soninke Kings was at its height.  This Empire had sophisticated administrative systems, tax collectors and border controls. The capital city also boasted stone built houses. It seems the political development of Africa and Europe was on a par at this point in history. He was very interested in our journey, where we had come from, what we were doing in Gambia and where we planned to go.  As we chatted, women with bowls on their heads walked with sure footed certainty up rocky paths to a small plateau where a group of five women were pounding grain. Their synchronised pounding in one large pot looked for all the world like a party of bell ringers.   

In one village we walked through a large long natural tunnel where there were food stalls set up.  As we approached the far end, walking in the gloom of the cavern, there was a group of young girls singing together.  The intense sunlight at the entrance momentarily blinded us and then an amazing sight opened up. We stood gazing at a vision of beautiful rich green and stunning blue. The bright green of terraced onion fields was contrasted with the intense blue of pools and streams of water, all set off by an immense and flawless pale blue sky.  After the drab surfaces of the rocky villages and the dim interior of the tunnel this looked like a vision of Xanadou.

On a path between onion fields separating two villages we came across an old man tending divination tables drawn in the sand.  The man drew lines in the sand to make small oblong areas.  Then he stuck straws, twigs and stones in various configurations within each rectangular area.  Finally he buried ground nuts strategically in the table.  He explained, through George, that foxes came at night and rooted around looking for the nuts and in doing so disturbed the arrangement of the table.  From this scattering of the contents of the table the old man could predict the future for his clients. 

We returned to the mission house for lunch.  In the afternoon we explored another part of the plateau where there were extensive terraced onion fields and large ponds of irrigation water where the people fished.  This area was some distance from the busy villages we visited in the morning. Here there were abandoned villages which seemed almost intact but eerily quiet.  Given the scarcity of building materials I was surprised that the buildings had been untouched by people building or repairing houses in the other villages.  George explained patiently, as if to a backward child, that the spirits of the people who lived in the deserted village were still there.  To remove or desecrate their homes, or disturb the community burial sites, would bring untold misfortune on anyone ignorant enough try.

Our route back through Sanga in the pleasant early evening light took us past the new mosque.  The Imam and some of the elders were resting under a mango tree and I was greeted warmly as I approached. After greetings and a gift of Kola nuts to each man we discussed the progress being made in converting the locals to Islam.  The Imam said the Muslim community had been growing steadily for the past seventy years but the Dogon were proud people with strong animist traditions.  His eyes twinkled when he said Allah was understanding and patient and there was plenty of time!

We walked up some concrete roads recently built by a French development organisation to open up the Dogon country to tourists and hopefully stimulate a new source of income to benefit the area. There were also new schools built by the Mali government and a new health centre in Sanga, sponsored, built and maintained by an Italian charity.

The early morning sun the next day flooded across the plain and lit up the ochre cliff face with a warm yellow orange light, scattering shadows of trees and stone buildings.  From the top of the road which curved off of the plateau and hairpinned down and down into the plain we gazed across at the full extent of the cliff face.  We could just make out the village on the edge of the cliff where we saw the children cavorting above the abyss.  Casting our eyes downward we could clearly see the stone houses and the conical mud brick granaries of the deserted village at the base of the cliff.  Away from the base, the busy settlements of the plain stretched out to the south like tiny matchboxes randomly scattered on either side of a dusty road on which a tiny plume of dust was raised by an invisible vehicle. 

Returning our gaze to huge light brown cliff face we searched for the fabled villages of the Tellem.  As our eyes adjusted to the light they swam into view. We were completely knocked out by these incredible constructions.  There were three storey stone houses, the same colour as the cliff, built into enormous caves and fissures. The architecture of the cliff villages included smaller buildings and large conical granaries.  These improbable buildings were erected about 1000 years ago by the Tellem people fleeing from invading armies.

This article is part of a series describing our tour of West Africa
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