Funeral rites among the Dogon people, Sanga, Mali

The photograph depicts men firing blank charges during mock battles intended to guide the spirit of the deceased onto the path to the afterlife. "The Dogon believe that after death, the spirit of the deceased is not immediately transformed into an ancestor. It is when in this state that a person's spirit can be most malevolent and dangerous. Funerals, bago bundo, which are held several weeks, and sometimes months, after burial, are public rites at which agnatic and affinal kin venerate the life and actions of the deceased." [Lane P., 1988: Settlement as History: A Study of Space and Time among the Dogon of Mali. University of Cambridge.]. During his trip to Mali, Elisofon visited the Dogon people in Sanga (Sangha), a group of thirteen villages lying east of Bandiagara at the top of an escarpment. The photograph depicts men firing blank charges during mock battles intended to guide the spirit of the deceased onto the path to the afterlife. This photograph was taken when Eliot Elisofon was on assignment for Life magazine and traveled to Africa from August 18, 1959 to December 20, 1959.