A Ginna, the ancestral adobe of a Dogon lineage, with adjacent binu ginu, a shamanistic shrine. Sanga, Mali

"In the village's wards, each clan and lineage has a central house, usually a very old structure, called gina [ginna (gin'na)], like the word for clan. On the cliffside they are usually simple; on the plateau they are decorated with rows of small holes. Inside this building, some altars and a small shrine form the focus of the clan cult. In most Dogon villages, the head of a clan lives in the gina until his death. The binu ginu, a shamanistic shrine, serves the binu keju (shaman), who makes sacrifices on behalf of the whole village. The binu are spirits belonging to the place and they are so powerful that they make take possession of the shaman and put him in a trance." [Hollyman S. and Van Beek W., 2001: Dogon, Africa's People of the Cliffs. Harry N Abrams, Inc.]. 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 most important villages are Ogol-du-Haut and Ogol-du-Bas. This photograph was taken when Eliot Elisofon traveled to Africa from March 17, 1970 to July 17, 1970.