[ Silence ]
>> From the Library of Congress, in Washington, D.C.
[ Pause ]   >> Mary-Jane Deeb: Okay.
Good afternoon and thank you all for coming today, and I'm really --
I'm very delighted to see you here.
I'm Mary-Jane Deeb, Chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division.
And I'm really happy that we're having such a timely topic today
that we're having Janet Goldner coming and talking to us about Mali,
a subject that has worried us tremendously especially,
in the last couple of months.
We at the library here have been for more than a decade working on Mali
on and off depending on our resources which,
have been rather limited.
And our -- West Africa, [inaudible] Africa specialist Marieta Harper,
has been in the forefront.
She almost 10 years ago brought to us to the library --
the President of Mali was here and were able with the Smithsonian
as well, to have a major display of manuscripts on Mali.
Chris Murphy who is not here now but also worked
on this project helped the division, the African
and Middle Eastern division,
put together an absolutely splendid exhibit on manuscripts from Mali.
And for most of the people who visited the library at that time,
it was the first time they had seen not only a manuscript from Mali,
but also had seen the literary tradition that existed for hundreds
of years in Africa, and which they were not aware of.
So it was a surprise and it was also a discovery.
And building on that exhibit which lasted briefly a few weeks,
we were able to digitize those manuscripts to make them available
to people who were -- who wanted to follow this up;
and indeed there was a great deal of interest.
We had media coverage;
major newspapers were -- covered the subject.
And then, again, with very meager resources, we pursued the subject
of time to get more manuscript digitized.
But of course, there were all kinds of problems.
So problems of patrimony laws where, you know,
you really cannot take materials out of a country.
We cannot purchase them, but we could digitize them.
And so perhaps you've been following some of the programs on television
and you've seen Abdel Kader Haidara, the head of one
of the private libraries in Mali appearing and talking.
And he himself came to the library and carried
with him some of his own manuscripts.
And Mike Neubert who's sitting here worked with us as well,
to get those manuscripts digitized and made available to the public.
And today, those manuscripts are on the web.
Not only are they on the web but there are photographs as well,
that have accompanied it.
And, again, I want to thank Marieta Harper for pursuing the subject
for getting some very important photographers like,
Alexandra Huddleston who took some absolutely extraordinary photographs
in Mali.
And we purchased those photographs and again put them up on the web
to make those photographs available to get people --
give people a sense that they're not only manuscripts
but there are people who live around those manuscripts,
who live with those manuscripts, who use those manuscripts.
Those manuscripts are really live things.
I wanted also to share with you before I sit down some of the things
that are available online that for those of you who are interested
in Mali, I could find
in our collections digitized -- digitally available.
The law library has done a great job in getting some
of the documents of Mali online.   For example, human rights reports.
It also has U.S. government reports are available on Mali.
There are special -- there's a special guide to law online,
laws from Mali including Constitution; the Constitution,
the laws regarding family laws, regarding Islamic laws
at times at making changes.   It modernized family laws.
There are Sharia laws, Islamic laws there.
There are also a number
of the photographs we've just been talking about.
There are maps of Mali.
And there are media reports, some as recent as two or three months ago.
So, please, after this presentation, if you want to follow,
go on our online catalog and you'll find all these wonderful materials
available online.
And, again, I really want to recognize the important role
that Marieta Harper has played in the past decade in getting Mali
on the map at the library and worldwide, because whatever we put
on our website was -- is available today everywhere else.
So, again, thank you for coming, Marieta [applause].
>> Marieta Harper: Thank you, Mary-Jane.
[ Noises ]
You know that I'm Marieta Harper and I'm the area specialist
in the African section of African and Middle Eastern Division.
I met today's speaker in Mali, Janet Goldner, in 2002 when I participated
in the Ink Road Conference in Bamako, Mali.
My presentation at that conference was on the existence
of Muslim manuscripts in the United States during slavery --
during the period of slavery, and in particular the existence
of a biographical manuscript written by Omar Ibn Said,
who lived in slavery in North Carolina.
The purpose of that Ink Road Conference in 2002 was discussed how
to continue to preserve ancient manuscripts
from around the continent of Africa, in particular, Mali, Niger, Morocco,
Nigeria, Chad, South Africa, just to name a few of the countries.
And it was a discussion to find out how can we continue
to preserve these manuscripts because at this point in time,
we have problems with infestations of insects and other water damage
and things of that -- that happened to these manuscripts
that were hidden during the period of colonialism,
and a lot of instances then.
At this time they would've preserved them
so they can bring them out as such.
So later, during that conference, the -- since it was --
the government of Mali sponsored --
was co-sponsored with the U.S. Embassy,
the support of this particular conference
and they actually took participants -- and I was included,
[laugh] to Timbuktu where we actually saw the manuscripts
in their natural habitat and for me, the rest is history
because we were able, here at the Library of Congress, to actually put
about 13 of these manuscripts on exhibit in the summer of 2003.
And was able to show the President of Mali who visited during
that period of time because during that summer,
the Smithsonian Folklife Festival highlighted Mali
and all its cultural attributes of that time.
And so for the library, we were able to later in 2003
to actually digitize the --
more manuscripts as my chief mentioned earlier.
And there is our beginning involvement with Timbuktu.
Now, Janet Goldner spends much time in Mali.
She makes [turning pages] --
she was awarded a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship to Mali
in 1999 -- '95, my glasses aren't clear [laughter].
She also served as a Fulbright scholar and specialist in Mali,
as well as, in Zimbabwe on the art.
She makes freestanding steel sculptures
and wall-bound installations at a reference,
her autistic lineage going back
to the welded sculpture of Julio Gonzalez.
Her work displays her social consciousness
and her deep continuing interest in African art.
Her work has been exhibited throughout the U.S.
and internationally.
Highlights include the Global Africa Project at the Museum of Arts
and Design 2010 and '11, Women Facing AIDS at the New Museum
in 1989, and [inaudible] "Have We Met?"
at Colgate University in 2007.
Janet's work is the collection of the American of -- I'm sorry.
Janet's work is in the collection of the American Embassy in Mali,
and the Islip Museum on Long Island.
Janet, would you come up and talk some more
about the heritage [laughter] of Mali.
[Applause] So I want to thank Marieta and the library
for inviting me to come and speak here and I want to thank all
of you for coming, as well.
What's on the screen that you've been looking at is an image
of my work that's in the collection
of the American Embassy in Mali, in Bamako.
I first traveled to West Africa in 1973 as an undergraduate
in Antioch College in Ohio.
I spent three months in Ghana with the experiment
in International Living and then traveled in West Africa
for the rest of the year.
The heart of my journey was Mali and so these photographs are from 1973.
At the top, you can see Dogon dancers
and just a little flavor of my trip in 1973.
Whup -- there it goes.
Okay. During my Fulbright Senior Research fellowship in Mali,
I worked with potters, metalsmiths and contemporary artists.
A practicing artist myself, my African experiences since 1973 began
to coalesce and emerge in my artwork.
Since then, I've spent several months in Mali, almost every year,
working on a wide variety of cultural, educational
and women's empowerment projects including short documentary videos
and writing, collaborations with contemporary artists,
and mentoring a group of Mali and women artists.
And my photo book, "Obama in Mali," was published recently.
There it is.
My artwork, teaching, writing, and lecturing are methods
of communicating my experiences, observations, and convictions.
On the screen, you see my large public sculpture,
"Most of Us Are Immigrants," which was originally sighted
in the Sara Roosevelt Park on lower east side of Manhattan,
and is now in the permanent collection
of the Islip Museum on Long Island.
This work celebrates immigration as an integral and continuing part
of the American experience, the 5'8" foot tall steel vessels weave
together the words of "immigrants" across history, [turning pages]
and across time, across ethnicity,
linking those of us whose families have been here for a long time,
with those of us who have arrived very recently.
We're having an issue with the advancing.
There it is.   This piece is called "Granary."
It's a -- the Association Segou-Laben, a group of artists
in Segou, Mali, invited me to collaborate with them
to create a steel sculpture for a traffic circle on the major highway
that leads from Bamako further north in the country.
The work is based on Bamana history, symbolism and mythology
and the sculpture plays an important role in the renewal of Segou.
So there's the finished piece and then there's some
of my collaborators as we were working on the sculpture.
Okay. In this talk, I will introduce Mali's four UNESCO World
Heritage sites.
Djenne, Timbuktu, the Tomb of the Askias
in Gao, and the Dogon country.   But first, a little history.
The Republic of Mali is a landlocked country
in the center of West Africa.
It was the site of three great empires --
the Ghana Empire, the Wagadou, the Mali Empire and the Songhai.
The Niger River traverses the country from the savanna area
in the south to the desert area in the north.
The climate is of the tropical Sahelian type characterized
by a single rainy season,
which lasts roughly from June to September.
The hottest time of the year is April and May.
The first of the empire -- and this you can trace the three empires.
The first of the empires was the Wagadou, which from the 4th
to the 11th Century grew rich from cattle and gold.
And you can see it's the...
The Mali Empire reached its pinnacle of power
and wealth during the 14th Century, extending over almost all
of West Africa and controlling virtually all the rich Trans-Saharan
gold trade.
It was during this period that Mali's great cities, Timbuktu
and Djenne became fabled centers of wealth, learning and culture.
The 15th Century -- in the 15th Century, the Mali Empire fell
to the Songhai who would establish the capital at Gao.
The old kingdoms of Mali and Ghana are not the present-day countries
of Mali and Ghana, but their names pay homage to these empires.
At its peak from 1200 to 1300, the Mali Empire extended
across West Africa to the Atlantic Ocean
and incorporated an estimated 40 to 50 million people.
The administration of such an enormous territory was formidable
and relied on the establishment of government sensitive
to the diversity of the land, population and cultures
and accepting of indigenous rulers and their customs.
What distinguished the empires of West Africa, particularly Mali,
and later, Songhai, was their ability to centralize political
and military power while allowing local rulers
to maintain their identities alongside Islam.
The imperial powers were located in active commercial centers
like Djenne, Timbuktu and Gao.
The wealth of the Mali Empire is illustrated by the Mali emperor,
Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324.
His entourage reportedly included thousands of soldiers, officials
and attendants and he distributed so much gold on his pilgrimage that,
he depressed the world gold price for several years.
The journey brought Mali to the --
to international attention as is shown in the 1375 Catalan Atlas,
and this was kind of the first time that Mali appears
in an international document like this.
In the late 19th Century, Mali became a French colony
and gains its independence in 1960.
On the screen is an image of Modibo Keita, Mali's first president.
Since then, it has had a socialist government for eight years
and then suffered 23 years of dictatorship.
Since 1992, Mali has had a new Constitution
and an elected government.
Mali's constitution provides for a multi-party democracy
with the only restriction being a prohibition against parties based
on ethnic religious, regional or gender lines.
Mali has a tripartite system of government consisting of executive,
judicial and legislative branches.
In 2012, the ongoing political crisis erupted.
That's another conversation which I'd be happy to have,
but we don't have to do this and that at the same time.
But the current lecture is part of the discussion about some
of the consequences of the crisis and about how --
what happens in Mali should be the concern -- of all of us.
Mali's population consists of a number
of different people's including Bamana,
who are the largest single segment; the Songhai;
Mandinka; Senufo; Fula; Dogon.
The last of these groups, the Dogon, are well renowned for their artwork
and their cliff dwellings, which are another of the world heritage sites.
The majority of Mali's people are Muslim although Mali's government is
secular and the official language is French.
Bamanankan, however, is the country's true lingua franca.
So here's a map of Mali and you can see the little light, rose colored,
that shows you where Djenne is.
[Background beeping noise] Inhabited since 250 B.C., at least,
Djenne became a market center and an important link
in the Trans-Saharan gold trade.
In the 15th and 16th Century is one of the centers of Islam;
its traditional houses of which nearly 2000 have survived are built
on hillocks to protect from seasonal floods.
Djenne is known for its Grand Mosque,
the largest adobe building in the world.
Construction blocks made from a mixture of rice husks,
earth and water; it is an impressive four-story high structure
with three minaret's almost 60 meters tall.
Djenne and Djenne-Djenno -- ancient Djenne --
are successive tells settlements in the upper --
in the Niger delta of Mali, which together span over 2000 years
of continuous occupation and both are UNESCO world heritage sites.
Today's -- today, Djenne's stunning adobe architecture
in distinctive Sudanic style exemplified
by the Grand Mosque is a legacy
of Djenne's trade roots with North Africa.
The original mosque was built in the 13th Century.
The current one was reconstructed by the French
in the early 20th Century using local masons.
In the 13th Century, Djenne rivaled Timbuktu
in prosperity and Muslim culture.
Djenne, a city of mud, brick houses lining narrow-winding streets
continues to be an important center of Islamic learning.
And pay attention -- whoops -- pay attention to this door on the --
in the slide because you'll see it again when we get to Timbuktu.
And so here is a picture of the mosque
with the market in front of it.
A remnant of its trading history is the world-renowned Monday Market
around the mosque.   And then on the other side,
thousands of students come every year to study
in Djenne's Quranic schools.
Djenne is a spiritual center with a great impact on the teachings
of imams and marabouts in all of West Africa.
Here, students learn the Quran by heart, plus reading and writing,
Three kilometers southeast of Djenne is an 82-acre mound
of Djenne-Djenno.
Scientific excavations in the '70s and '80s by Rod and Susan McIntosh
of Rice University penetrated six meters of deposits
that revealed Djenne-Djenno was founded in 200 B.C.E.
by iron-using peoples who cultivated rice, millet, herded stock, fish,
hunted and shows early indigenous growth
of trade and social complexity.
So this is important because there's --
to show that they were iron-working peoples
because there had been theories that the iron-working came
from North Africa and Europe and all of that, but this shows
that it was practiced here in Djenne at a very early time.
The population that settled Djenne-Djenno used and worked --
fashioning metal into both jewelry and tools.
Since there were no sources of iron ore in the flood plain,
the earliest inhabitants of Djenne-Djenno were already trading
with areas outside the region.
They also imported stone grinders and beads and the presence
of two Roman or Hellenistic beads in the early level suggested
that a very -- that a few very small trade goods were reaching West
Africa, probably after changing hands through many intermediaries.
And so this is the head of the cultural mission at Djenne
and there's a big plaque and this is the entrance
to the archeological site.
And this is a round brick, some of the --
part of why this is important to World Heritage is
that there are these use of round bricks for the construction
in ancient Djenne, and so you can date the old buildings by the ones
that still show the round bricks.   And this is a house foundation.
The settlement grew rapidly.
This is in Djenne-Djenno, the archeological site,
reaching its maximum size by about 850 A.D. Other excavations
and surface investigations document the development during the same
period of most of the nearby 69 sites.
And this is a cemetery.
The natural flood plain environment was effectively transformed
into a cultural constructed landscape
of large man-made seasonal islands.
This created a remarkable concentration of population,
10,000 to 27,000, people within the integrated multi-site system known
as the Djenne-Djenno urban complex.
And so this is a burial ground and people were buried
in pottery vases and sunk in the ground.
And here you can see in one of them, as there's erosion,
so then these pots get exposed.
And so you can see in this one there is a part of a skull that's in --
that's -- can you see it?   >> Yes.
>> Janet Goldner: Yeah.   That's been exposed recently.
The appearance of exotic trade goods such as copper and stone suggests
that the population went hand in hand with increasing trade.
And this is an empty pot, so there's --
this is another one where it's been exposed, but there's also despite
with people who are raiding the site to sell artifacts,
and so this is part of that story as well.
The discoverers effectively refuted the assumption
that urban settlements and long distance trade
in West Africa were secondary to the development of Trans-Saharan trade
by North African Arabs after the 9th Century.
And the whole site is littered with pottery shards, and so this is a few
of the many images I have of the pottery sherds,
but showing the different ways that they're decorated shows --
they happened in different times,
and so it's showing different periods of development.
So the settlement at Djenne-Djenno started to decline around 1200 A.D.
and the settlement was definitely abandoned by about 1400.
These are pots at the cultural mission in Djenne,
that most of the nearby mounds follow the same pattern.
This abandonment was approximately concurrent with the early settlement
at the current city of Djenne.
So all of these could be the subject of, you know,
day long lifetimes worth of conferences.
So this is just a little bit of smattering
of the richness of what exists in Mali.
So now we're going to move to Timbuktu, and you can see
that left Djenne on there but then there's --
you can see Timbuktu kind of highlighted
in a rose colored further north.
Timbuktu, a sacred city in Mali, the City of 333 Saints,
was an important center of commerce and learning in the Middle Ages.
It has been the natural meeting point of...
[ Noises ]
Okay. It has been the natural meeting point of Songhai, Wangara,
Fulani, Tuareg and Arabs.
Timbuktu was listed as UNESCO World Heritage site due to its holy places
which were vital to the early Islamization of Mali -- of Africa.
Timbuktu's Mali show a cultural
and scholarly golden age during the Songhai Empire.
The construction of the mosque, still mostly original,
shows the use of traditional building techniques.
Timbuktu has three of the oldest mosques in the world.
It is the sister city of Djenne
and an important intellectual and spiritual center.
Merchants from northern Africa traded salt and gold
in the markets of Timbuktu.
According to inhabitants of Timbuktu, gold came from the south,
salt from the north, and divine knowledge from Timbuktu.
And this is just from the roof of a building over the town of Timbuktu.
[ Silence ]
This is Sankore, the mosque, which was the site
of the University of Timbuktu.
During the 15th Century, a number of Islamic institutions were erected.
The most famous of these is the Sankore Mosque,
also known as the University.
It had 25,000 students in the 16th Century and became a center
of Islamic scholarly community in Timbuktu.
And it was composed of a series of independent schools or colleges,
each run by a single master.
Students associated themselves with the teacher and courses took places
in open courtyards of mosques, the mosque complexes
or in private residences.
Scholars wrote their own books as part
of a socioeconomic model based on scholarship.
The profit made by buying and selling of books was second only
to the gold and salt trade.
And among the most formidable scholars, professors
This is a part of the Djinguereber Mosque which was initially --
the initial construction dates back to the Sultan Kankan Musa,
returning from his pilgrimage to Mecca and was built and enlarged
in the -- in 1570 and 1583 when the southern part of the wall was added.
The central minaret dominates the city and is one
of the most visible landmarks in the landscape of Timbuktu.
So just to add a little bit about the current crisis here,
so this is what's been hard for people to understand.
I mean, this is an Islamic holy city that was occupied and many
of its monuments were in danger, and I think to call the people
who are occupying Islamists does a disservice to Islam.
I think that they are fanatics and that fanatics
of any stripe often hide behind philosophies.
But this is a divine city and so to put these sacred structures and way
of life into danger, can't be a way to advance Islam.
[ Silence ]
I told you to pay attention to that door in Djenne.
These are the doors of the Sidi Yahya mosque,
and these doors were damaged,
a part of what was damaged during the occupation.
The construction of the Sidi Yahya Mosque was begun in 1400
by a marabout Sheikh El-Mokhtar Hamalla in anticipation
of a holy man who appeared 40 years later in the person
of Sharif Sidi Yahya, who was chosen
as its first imam and head professor.
This marked the beginning of the mosque as a madrasa and a center
of great learning for the region.
Now, this is a picture, a before-and-after picture of one
of the mausoleums which is part of what was --
part of why Timbuktu is a world heritage site and part
of what was destroyed during this occupation.
And so you can see an old picture of it before
and then there's a small inset of its more or less current.
I think the full assessment hasn't been done yet,
so this is the best I could do in terms of --
and these are really the burial places of some of these 333 saints,
and so the people who are occupying said that the worship
at these sites was idolatry, and so that was part
of their justification for destroying them.
[ Pause ]   And so this is -- the most --
but one of the most outstanding treasures
at Timbuktu are the 100,000 manuscripts kept
by the great families in the town.   Now, this is a trunk.
I went to Timbuktu every year for several years
and before there's a library.
This is the condition that many manuscripts that many
of these great families have their manuscripts in.
They've been preserved in these trunks and so this effort
by the world community, and the Malians,
and the South Africans have done a lot of digitizing.
These are people's heritage and so some of them are
in the Ahmed Baba Centre but some of them stay with the families,
and so this is with the library they were trying to raise money
to open a building, but he opened -- this man opened up the trunk.
I believe this was from the formation of the [inaudible] library
to show us what the condition of the manuscripts were in, at that point.
So this manuscript -- the manuscripts in Timbuktu,
some of which dated from pre-Islamic times had been preserved
as family secrets in the town and other villages nearby.
Most were written in Arabic or Fulani
by wise men coming from the Mali Empire.
Their context were didactic especially the subjects
of astronomy, music and botany.
More recent manuscripts deal with law, sciences,
history, religion, and trading.
The Ahmed Baba Centre, founded in 1970 by the Malian government
with collaboration of UNESCO, holds some of these manuscripts
to restore and digitize them.
More than 1800 manuscripts have been collected at the Ahmed Baba Centre
but there are an estimated 300,000
to 700,000 manuscripts in the region.
So one of the thing -- okay, so this is -- and this is the --
from the Mohamed Haidara Library that Marieta talked about.
So you can see that there's a difference
between this manuscript's kind of crumbling in the trunk
and what happens when these library --
these manuscripts can be put into a better condition
and preserved in a better way.
Private libraries in towns have -- so have preserved the manuscripts.
There's -- so there's the Mamma Haidara Library,
there's also the Fondo Kati Library which has about 3000 records from --
of Andalusian origin, and many other ones.
And these are just examples of some of the documents.
This is music and genealogy.
At one time there were 120 libraries with manuscripts in Timbuktu
and surrounding areas, the full extent
of the manuscripts is unknown.   And this is an illustrated Quran.
After the fall of the Songhai Empire, many libraries
and scholars were forcibly exiled to Morocco and their libraries stolen.
During the colonial era, efforts were made to conceal the documents
after a number of entire libraries were taken to Paris, London,
and other parts of Europe.
So, the, you know, the reach and reports of the burning
of manuscripts in Timbuktu and the librarians knowing how and where
to protect them is something that's really just a part of the history
of the really courageous people who take care of these manuscripts
and the manuscripts themselves.   This is not the first time.
I think what's shocking for us is that history continues today,
but it's really part of their history.
[ Pause ]
Some manuscripts were buried underground.
Others were hidden in the desert or in caves and many
from that period are still hidden today.
[ Pause ]
So during the current crisis, the Ahmed Baba Centre was burned
but manuscripts -- but reports indicate that most
of the manuscripts had been removed for safe keeping.
Again, as part -- this is just part of their history.
And a little bit of the life --
this is an embroidery workshop in Timbuktu
where the traditional embroidery is still carried
on by the same family that's been doing it for centuries,
and here's a picture of the hand embroidery mainly
for Rambabu [assumed spelling] that's done there.
And there's a special kind of bread, just to give you a --
it's living a city where -- and so I don't want you to think
that there's only ancient artifacts that are there.
[Laughter] And so...   Okay. So now we're moving on to Gao.
And this is the Tomb of the Askias which is the protected site in Gao.
The dramatic 17-meter pyramidal structure of the Tomb
of the Askia was built by Askia Mohammad, emperor of the Songhai,
in 1495 in his capital, Gao.
It bears testimony to the power and riches of the empire that flourished
in the 15th and 16th Century through its control of the --
again, the Trans-Saharan trade, notably salt and gold.
So they were trading, you know, gold comes from the south
and salt comes from the north.
So there was this bartering of salt for gold.
[ Pause ]
It's also a fine example of monumental adobe traditions
of West African Sahel, this complex including the pyramidal tombs
and two flat mosque buildings.
And there's this often this kind of external scaffolding that appears
on adobe buildings in West Africa; part of it is decorative
and also these buildings have to be re-mudded, re-plastered just
about every year and so this provides the way to get up there
and perform the maintenance on these buildings.
And this is a staircase that leads up to the door to the tomb.
So the mosque cemetery and open-air assembly ground was built
when Gao became the capital of the Songhai Empire
after Askia Mohammad had returned from Mecca
and made Islam the official religion of his empire.
And the tomb is a 500-year old adobe pyramid with a view over the river
and town as well as a small mosque,
whose original building materials were imported from Mecca.
And now we're moving to the Dogon and where you can see a circle
over there, and -- Dogon country has an outstanding landscape of cliffs
and sandy plateau with beautiful architect, age-old social traditions
that live on in the region.
The communities at the site are essentially the Dogon
and have very close relationships with their environment expressed
in their sacred rituals and traditions.
The sandstorm cliff rises about 500 meters
above the lower sandy flats in the south.
It has a length of approximately 93 miles.
The area of the escarpment is inhabited today by the Dogon people,
but the Dogon -- before the Dogon, the escarpment was inhabited
by the Tellem and many structures from the Tellem remain.
Most of the Dogon live in more than 700 small villages scattered
over 15,000 square miles in the Bandiagara region,
a high cliff area, and the natural caves.
And the Tellem dwellings -- ancient dwellings --
are the ones that are higher up the cliff right under the -- in that --
those little caves under there,
that those were the Tellem dwellings that still exist.
Some Dogon live on the sandy plateau above the cliffs;
the rest live in the sandy plains.
In 1930, the -- until the 1930, the Dogon were isolated from the rest
of the world and were opposed to foreign influences
For many years, this protected the Dogon from attacks by outsiders.
The Dogon are famous for the distinctive village architecture,
beautiful carved wooden masks and granary doors.
And the building at the back with the holes in it,
is called an etage [phonetic].
I don't know what it's called in Dogon.
The hogan, which is -- who is the spiritual leader of the village,
is in charge of all the religious agrarian rituals that are
to guarantee sufficient future crops and by extension
to ensure the perpetuation of his people.
And so this is the -- this is the hogan's house, the chief's house;
and there's another one further back in this courtyard.
And there's this wonderful texture of the adobe -- with these --
with the stones, and so there's this really wonderful almost fabric-like
texture that is in Dogon villages.
And just -- and in many, many houses,
you can see this blackboard that's implanted in the wall,
and that so that the kids can practice their lessons
when they go to school.
In certain cultural areas, the Dogon villages comprise
numerous granaries.
For the most part, square with thatching tapering roof.
It's -- the granaries are generally built on two levels.
Its faade is windowless but has a series of niches and doors,
often decorated with sculptural motifs.
And this is a -- there are male granaries where the grain
of the family is kept and that's really like the bank of the family.
And this is the female granary which is where women store their objects
and her husband has no access.   It looks like a mail granary,
but it's constructed a little bit differently and this is
where women can store their personal belongings such as clothes,
Dogon artists primarily sculpture.
Themes found throughout Dogon sculpture consists of figures
with raised arms, superimposed bearded figures, horsemen, stools,
women with children, figures raised -- covering their faces,
women grinding millet, women bearing vessels on their head.
And this is one of the carved doors.   And here is a carver.
So one of the UNESCO criteria for making this a world heritage site,
the land of the Dogon is the outstanding manifestation
of a system of thinking linked to traditional religion
that has integrated harmoniously with architectural heritage,
very remarkably in the natural landscape of rocky scree
and impressive geographic features.
And that's the detail of what he's carving.
The intrusion of new written religions, Islam and Christianity,
since at least the 18th Century has contributed toward the vulnerability
of the heritage that today's suffers
from the adverse effects of globalization.
Again, this is still from the UNESCO criteria, and here's a weaver.
The relationship of the Dogon people
with their environment is also expressed
in the sacred rituals associating spiritually the Pale fox,
the jackal and the crocodile.   And here's a blacksmith.
The villages and their inhabitants are faithful
to the ancestral values linked to an original lifestyle.
Nevertheless, the traditional practices associated
with living quarters and building constructions have
The toguna is the town hall.
Men [inaudible] discuss and take important decisions in the toguna.
The roof of the toguna is made by eight layers of millet stalks.
It is a low building in which one cannot stand upright.
This helps avoid violence so that if somebody gets mad and stands up,
they'll hit their head and sit down.
[Laughter and Inaudible Audience Response ]
And there's a -- so there's different toguna.
So there's one and there's a stone one.
And then here are some people that are reworking some of the designs
on the original toguna that I showed you.
And this is the market at Sangha with --
and the red patches are peppers drawing on the roof
of the low adobe buildings.
And you can -- this is the walking to -- in the escarpment,
and there's -- Dogon grow a lot of onions, and more onions closer
on the onion fields, which is irrigated by this water.
There's a form of -- many forms of divination.
This is sand divination where you take your question to the diviner
and he traces out a system of symbols in the sand,
and at night the fox comes and walks over the table
and displaces the designs; and by the way that things are displaced,
that's how you get the answer to your question.
And, of course, the renowned Dogon dancers.
And this is all part -- and again, I want to leave with you
that this is not just ancient heritage,
but this is also living culture, as well.
Culture is a thing that lives and changes and breathes.
And so while we're trying to protect what's ancient, I think we also need
to protect what's contemporary.
And so here are some pictures of the answers.
[ Pause ]   Thank you.
[ Applause ]   >> Marieta Harper: Thank you, Janet.
We do have some time for questions that you have about Mali.
>> I'm just wondering, you know,
I see the men were doing the artworks [inaudible].
>> Janet Goldner: Okay.
She's saying that the males are doing the artwork, the weaving.
That's my fault.
That's not true that men do all the artwork in Mali, but weaving,
a lot of the different occupations are gender-based
and so men are weavers whereas, in most of Europe women are weavers.
But women make pottery; they spin cloth, they dye it.
So it's making of cloth is really -- takes both men and women.
So men and women grow it, women spin it, men weave it, women dye it.
[Laughter] So it's really as in many things
in Mali it really takes the whole community to exist.
Yes?
>> First of all, I wanted to thank you
because it is a wonderful presentation;
I learned a great deal.
But I wanted to ask you, you talked about [inaudible]
and the use of iron, right?   Now, is that also found to be --
I mean, in the constructions that you see,
I thought it was primarily wood and ceramics for --
but is metal also used in construction, in buildings?
>> Janet Goldner: Not so much in building, in construction;
it is more adobe and wood in the construction.
But metal is certainly an important part
of Malian culture in terms of...   >> Tools.
>> Janet Goldner: ...tools and as well
as ritual objects, as well jewelry.   Yeah.
>> [Background talking]   >> Janet Goldner: No, no.
Okay.
>> I was very interested in the way which talked about the collections
of manuscripts in trunks by families.
Is being one of the ways in which these things have been preserved
[inaudible] and I'm curious if -- there's seems to be a matter --
attention between access and security,
and everything is easily accessible on the library [inaudible]
and I'm thinking of how an anthropological colleague of mine
who went back and [inaudible] Nigeria
which is recording the distribution of [inaudible] objects in villages
for the region, because she found after she returned to the state,
those object packed up showed up in collectors' catalogs.
Collectors were going
for [inaudible] identifying the artworks, driving directly
to the village naming the object, and introducing [inaudible].
>> Janet Goldner: Well, this...
>> What she did was to go back and destroy her own records.
She went back to the center and destroyed the records
in the interest of preserving the art objects and communities
where they were made, and preventing to see access by collectors;
and of course, also preventing easy access by sellers.
So my question is this.
Efforts of trying to preserve, conserve these manuscripts,
are they only oriented towards centralizing them
like in those nice drawers [inaudible] or for slide shows
or whatever, or do you try at all to work
with increasing [inaudible] gatekeepers to their culture,
these hundreds of families that have these libraries in their trunks.
Do you work with them directly
to have them preserve their objects in their own way?
>> Janet Goldner: Okay.
Well, that's a really great question and one of the things I want to add
to that is that besides the things
that were destroyed during the occupation, you know.
The manuscripts are -- have always been in danger and have been bought,
and sold, and stolen, from the Middle Ages through today,
and this -- the current crisis makes them be in more danger,
okay, so that's one thing.
But this is actually part of -- I'm not a specialist in the manuscripts
but what I know is that part of the kind of controversy
around Ahmed Baba is that -- I mean, the trunk that I showed you,
that's a family -- that's like somebody opening
up their family jewel box.
Those are the diamonds and the rubies and the emeralds.
And so not -- the Ahmed Baba Centre was encouraging these families
to give them or lend them -- I don't know what the terms were --
to be protected at the Ahmed Baba Centre, give them the manuscripts.
And as you can imagine because this is family's heritage,
people were reluctant to do it, so that's why I said there were
so many manuscripts in the Ahmed Baba Centre, but there's many,
many more; nobody knows how many all over the area.
Because you can imagine if there's 25,000 students all studying
on with manuscripts, there's going to be a lot of materials.
So, yes, these are very important questions.
And, you know, I mean there was a couple of days there
when we were all kind of walking around really depressed
and then there was this wonderful story of triumph when it came
out that these manuscripts had yet again been rescued
and so it really puts our time, as I said, into just the flow
of time, the flow of history.   Yeah.
>> I wanted to ask about the bogolan, the mud cloth,
[inaudible] Is it now like an industry or are individual workshops
of people creating mud cloths still able to survive
because I can imagine [inaudible].
>> There is all sorts of levels of bogolan production
from fine art work to tourists -- to commercial workshops,
and everything in between.
So it's still very much made in Mali.
I'm -- yeah, there's a whole range of the industry and one
of the groups that I work with and have been working
with for almost 20 years.
There's a group of artists who are the ones who are responsible
for revitalizing bogolan, in they were art students in the '70s
and it's called the Groupe Bogolan Kasobane; and they --
when they went to art school, the only --
are techniques that were being taught in the arts school
in the '70s were European painting techniques.
And so they looked around as artists do all over the world
to see what existed in their own culture that could be used
where they wouldn't have to buying oil paint and canvasses
and really starting working and experimenting
and finding the meaning of this ancient tradition and taking it
from this craft that had been used as --
for women's skirts and hunter's tunics into fine art.
So there's this whole range of production.
>> All right.
Does the government control any of that production...
>> Janet Goldner: No.   >> ... or certain standards?
>> Janet Goldner: There have been efforts to brand bogolan as kind
of a trademark, but they're --
and they've been working on it for a long time -- not the government.
This is part of the other conversation
that we'll have some other time, I hope, but not today.
[Laughter] But we haven't been able to establish the kind
of like bogolan as a brand, but, yes, it would be very important
and it -- so that the people who this belongs to
and who are making this can actually make a living off
of it, but it hasn't happened.   >> [Inaudible].
>> Janet Goldner: Yeah.   >> That seems to be [inaudible].
>> Janet Goldner: Could you stand up?
I can't -- I want to hear you.
>> I was talking about occupation [inaudible] I was looking
at the slides and you showed [inaudible] thought
to be useful occupation.
I'd like to know what is the present climate there now and since
that area has always been occupied [inaudible],you know,
under French because [inaudible] than it is now or any other time.
That's what I'm hoping for a question...
>> Janet Goldner: What's the state of the monuments in Timbuktu?
>> Yes.   >> Janet Goldner: Well, I think
that the full UNESCO report hasn't been done yet.
I mean, they were just on Monday I think it was, there was a conference
in Paris where the Malian Minister of Culture, the French Minister
of Culture and -- met at UNESCO which is in Paris to talk about
and commit themselves to doing what they need to do
to restore these elements of world culture.
Was it better under the French?
I can't say that, you know, that's a whole another conversation.
I think -- I'm not quite sure what else -- did I answer your question?
I'm not sure I'm getting to it?   >> Well, [inaudible].
>> Janet Goldner: Well, tell me what...
>> Well, I was just wondering your analysis
of conditions [inaudible] as opposed [inaudible].
>> Janet Goldner: Well, the recent occupation where these criminals,
which is all I can call them, were occupying the northern two-thirds
of Mali was a very -- was probably the harshest period
of Malian history -- at least that's what I've been talking
in here, hearing about.
But that's not to say that the French period was less harsh.
I think it was just longer ago [laughter].
>> [Background talking] French minister [inaudible].
>> Janet Goldner: You know, this is a really long conversation
and I don't think that I can answer it satisfactorily or --
I mean, this is opinion, so, you know, I mean, what do I think?
I think that the Malians should have a strong responsible government
that is responsive to its people, and its heritage, and its history
and that, you know, that's what I think should happen, you know,
whether it's -- you know, recent fanatical criminals
or colonial occupation; I mean, I think we're --
you know, neither one of them are good [laughter].
>> [Background talking] I wonder if you could comment on the position
of women and [inaudible] ethnic groups in Mali, it could Dogon
and Bamana, and especially [inaudible].
>> Janet Goldner: There's been a big push
for girls' education partly funded by USAID.
You know, that's very complicated and I'd hate to generalize,
because especially, about Africa because there's too much kind
of generalized half information running around about Africa.
So, you know, you really need to be very specific about which culture,
at which time, and which aspect, and that's -- you know.
So if you have a more specific question,
then I will take a stab at it [laughter].
>> Well, what percentage of girls are educated
and compared to [inaudible].
>> Janet Goldner: Well, this question is actually hard to answer
because -- and this is taking me a little bit into the crisis
because the corruption of the deposed government in Mali
that erupted the current crisis meant that the statistics
that came out were cooked.
So we can't really know is the answer.
Not an -- but not enough girls and not enough boys go to school.
Yeah.
>> Could we have two -- we have time for about two more questions.
>> [Inaudible] and I'm wondering if there is any [inaudible].
>> Janet Goldner: Mali --
a large majority of Mali's people are Muslim,
but Mali is a secular state.
A nd that's been part of what this crisis has been about and part
of what Malians are very fierce to hold on to was their secularness,
and that's part of the conflict with the people
who are occupying the north and why -- okay.
But Mali's Islam is very influenced by Sufi.
So this kind of Sunni-Shia thing doesn't --
it could exist now with incursions but that's not part
of the Malian dialogue; it's Sufi.   >> [Inaudible response].
>> Janet Goldner: The people occupying the north.
>> [Inaudible response].
>> Janet Goldner: But they're not Malians.
>> [Inaudible response].
>> Janet Goldner: They're not Malians.
>> [Inaudible response].
>> Janet Goldner: The people who are occupying the north were --
infiltrated the population and had long enough to intermarry and all
of that and so I'm sure there is some influence, you know.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia have been pouring money into Mali
and many other places for a long time, so there is some influence
but it's really not part of Malian culture.
It's another kind of colonialism.
That's -- I see two hands, so let's do both of them.
>> I have a question about the Dogon.
>> Janet Goldner: Yep.   >> [Inaudible response].
>> Janet Goldner: Can you stand up so I can hear you?
>> Where are the Dogon people currently living...
>> Janet Goldner: Yep.
>> ...is that very traditional and do you have any idea
of really the origin of the Dogon people [inaudible]?
>> Janet Goldner: Well, this is a lifetime --
the question you just asked is a lifetime.
I once -- it could take a lifetime to answer it.
Originally, they -- what I understand and I'm not a specialist
in Dogon and my friend [inaudible] [laughter] while I answer.
They originally came from the Mande which is further south in Mali
and they moved to the current area to protect themselves,
and I don't know what date, maybe Dom can tell me.
And so they've lived in this area since they moved from the Mande,
and I'm sorry, I don't have the dates.
I've....   >> [Inaudible response].
>> Can you repeat that for us?   >> Janet Goldner: Say it...
>> [Inaudible response].   >> You came from Egypt.
>> Janet Goldner: But from Egypt, when you landed...
>> [Inaudible response].   >> Janet Goldner: Yes.
[ Inaudible Audience Response ]
>> Janet Goldner: So just to repeat so everybody can hear,
[inaudible] says that the Dogon came from Egypt.
They eventually arrived in the Mande, which is another part
of Mali, and then they went to their current land
to preserve themselves from outside influences.
>> [Inaudible response].   >> Janet Goldner: Yeah.
Yeah. There's another question over here.
Yes?
>> [Inaudible] so far but can you give us now any idea
of what the [inaudible]?
>> Janet Goldner: Well, I -- you know, I only --
I don't think that this has really been established.
I know that there were -- what the UNESCO documents keep talking
about that I've been reading is that --
well, there were 16 mausoleums that were protected under UNESCO,
so those mausoleums, there has been destruction I believe of --
some level of destruction, I can't tell you what.
I don't think it's known yet because UNESCO hasn't really gone --
felt like its safe enough to go and do the report.
So there's some level of destruction.
I believe to 12 of them but I'm not sure.
>> [Inaudible response].   >> Janet Goldner: Yeah.
And that the manuscripts, we don't know how many have been --
were burned as they were leave -- as the occupiers were leaving Timbuktu;
it's not known because the report hasn't been done yet.
We don't know -- I mean, one can suppose that if a lot
of the manuscripts -- I know these are not accurate numbers
but there aren't any accurate numbers --
were safeguarded somewhere else.
What was left to make it like it look
like this wasn't happening are probably the ones that, A --
I'm guessing -- were already digitized, less valuable --
I don't know; but they were -- they had to leave something there
so that it wouldn't look like it was all bare, so what are they leaving?
I mean, these are the questions.   There's not answers yet.
UNESCO hasn't sent a mission there.
They haven't put through there a plan of action yet,
but they've committed to doing that and having a plan of action.
This is new, I mean, it's happening now.
[Laughter] I mean, the place just got liberated a couple
of weeks ago [laughter].
>> Marieta Harper: With that, we have to close today's lecture
and let's give a round of applause to Janet.
[ Applause ]
The past 10 months to the present [laughter].
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.