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The majority of Dogon practice the traditional tribal religion, with its festivals and Sirian mythology, but a significant minority practice Islam, and some have been converted by missionaries to Christianity.
The Dogon record their ancestry through a patrilineal system. Each Dogon community is headed by one male elder. This chief head is the oldest living son of the ancestor of the local branch of the family. Within this patrilineal system local couples will marry monogamously, although polygyny is occasionally known.
They are one of many African tribal groups which practice female circumcision.
Dogon mythology seems to describe the white dwarf star Sirius B, which orbits Sirius but is not visible without the use of a powerful telescope. Some of the information given by Dogon natives on the Sirius system was recorded before it was discovered by Western science in 1862.
The Dogons call Sirius B Po Tolo. This star was the seed of the Milky Way galaxy and " navel" of the entire universeAlternate uses: See Universe (disambiguation In the first half of the 20th century, the word universe was used to mean the whole spacetime continuum in which we exist, together with all the energy and matter within it. Attempts to understand the universe, according to the Dogon mythological explanation of the universe. They describe the universe as "infinite, but measurable", and filled with many yalu ulo, or spiral star systemA spiral galaxy is a type of galaxy in the Hubble sequence which is characterized by the following physical properties: Spiral Galaxy M74 presents a face-on view of its spiral arms. It contains about 100 billion stars, 30 million light-years away toward ts, including the one with our own sunThe Sun (also called Sol is the star in our solar system. Planet Earth orbits the Sun. Other bodies that orbit the Sun include other planets, asteroids, meteoroids, comets and dust. Not all objects passing through the solar system have been orbitally capt.
According to the Dogon perception of the universe, most of the universe is part of the "external" star system, while nearer to EarthEarth also known as the Earth or Terra is the planet on which we live, the third planet outward from the Sun. It is the largest of the solar system's terrestrial planets, and the only planetary body that modern science confirms as harbouring life. The pla is the "internal" star system. The stars in the "internal" system include many that they claim affect the lives of people of Earth and play a part in humanHuman beings are defined variously in biological, spiritual, and cultural terms, or in combinations thereof. Biologically, they are classified as Homo sapiens ( Latin for knowing man , a primate species of mammal with a highly developed brain. In spiritua history, including not only the Sirius binary/ternary system, but also OrionOrion Abbreviation Ori Genitive Orionis Meaning in English the Great Hunter Right ascension 5 h Declination 5° Visible to latitude Between 85° and −75° Best visible January Area Total Ranked 26th594 sq. Number of stars with apparent magnitude 6 Brig, PleiadesOpen cluster M45, visible from both the northern and southern hemispheres, consists of many bright, hot stars that were all formed at the same time within a large cloud of interstellar dust and gas. The blue haze that accompanies them is due to very fine and others.
The tribe neighboring the Dogon, the Bozo, have a similar mythology about Sirius in the sky and refer to it as the "Eye Star."
According to some, the Dogons came in contact with an amphibious alien race, the Nommos, about 5,000 years ago. The Nommos came from a planet orbiting Sirius and passed on information regarding the star system. However, scientists would point out that intelligent life could not have evolved on any planet orbiting Sirius, as the gravity of Sirius B would constantly alter the orbit of any such planet, preventing it from remaining at a stable, life sustaining distance from Sirius.