Antique African Dogon Carved Wood Door. From Mali, West Africa. Relief carved with repeating figural designs. A wire has been attached on the back for wall display. 

Size: 27 x 18 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. 

The Dogon are an ethnic group of 400,000-800,000 people living on the central plateau of Mali near Bandiagara and in parts of Burkina Faso, speaking Dogon languages that form an independent branch of the Niger-Congo family. They are renowned for their religious traditions, mask dances, wooden sculpture, and distinctive architecture, much of which developed after they settled the Bandiagara region about a thousand years ago, reportedly to avoid conversion to Islam. Dogon art, primarily wooden sculpture, is deeply tied to spiritual beliefs and is often kept from public view in homes or sanctuaries under the guidance of the Hogon, or spiritual leader; common motifs include figures with raised arms, women with children or vessels, horsemen, musicians, and animals, with stylistic influences attributed to the earlier Tellem people. Central to Dogon ritual life is the Awa, a masked dance society open to initiated men (but not women), governed by strict codes and a secret language called sigi sǫ, whose elaborate masks represent various deities and concepts; since the 20th century, increased tourism has brought wider attention to these once largely secluded cultural practices.

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