Onion gardens, Sanga region, Mali

"Agricultural activity is dedicated to the onion gardens whose small squares full of onion shoots transform the ground into a chessboard. This cultivation is of great economic importance as these onions, pounded, rolled into balls and dried, are the Dogon's only exportable crop. In the Sanga region, the surface area covered by these plots has increased significantly thanks to the dam built by Marcel Griaule in 1949." [Calame-Griaule G., 2004: The Dogon: A Balancing Act on the Cliffs. In Dogon: People of the Cliffs. 5 Continents Editions srl]. 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.