The Dogon Villages of Bandiagara Escarpment

In central Mali, about 90 km to the east of Mopti, rises a dramatic sandstone cliff with a high plateau above and sandy semi-desert plains below. Known as the Bandiagara Escarpment, this cliff stretches for about 150 kilometers, and is noted by the UNESCO as “an outstanding landscape of cliffs and sandy plateaux with some beautiful architecture.” The Bandiagara site is considered one of West Africa's most impressive features, due to its geological and archaeological features as well as its ethnological importance. The site has been settled for at least 2,000 years . Since the last five hundred years it has been home to the ethnic group known as Dogon. Before they migrated to this area from their homeland far to the south-west in what is now Burkina Faso and Ghana, the Dogons were frequently raided by neighboring Islamic tribal groups . Men, women and children alike were captured and thrown into the slave trade. Cliff dwellings in the Bandiagara escarpment. Photo credit: Ferdinand Reus/Wikipedia Around the 15th century or probably earlier, the Dogons started to arrive to this region and settled in the cliffs of Bandiagara taking advantage of the cliff’s natural refuge as defense against potential invaders. When they got there, they found the escarpment already inhabited by the “little red people”, the Tellem tribes, who were pygmies. The Tellem built dwellings around the base of the escarpment and carved burial caves high up on the cliff-face. The seemingly impossible-to-access location of these dwellings made the Dogons believe that the Tellem people could fly. Originally, the Dogons shared the escarpment with the Tellem, but gradually the indigenous people were pushed out and the Tellem disappeared. It is thought that the Tellem people either assimilated into the Dogon culture or migrated to nearby Burkina Faso. But many of the dwellings and structures they left behind survived for centuries and are still visible in the area.