engleski

The population structure of the Dogon Villages, Mali

The Dogons of the Sanga region in Mali are one of those Sahelian populations that constitute a fascinating model for studies on population dynamics because of their relative isolation, tribal structure, kinship, the struggle for economic survival in arid surroundings and the contemporary problems of their social, economic and cultural development. Within a multidisciplinary anthropological study carried out by the National Institute for Demographic Studies, Paris, of the Dogon population living in the Sanga region of Mali, the aim of the present paper is to estimate the intensity of local intermigration processes and its interaction with some socio-cultural and biological factors. The overall analysis of migration in the villages of the Sanga region reveals that the intervillage relationships occur on a much larger scale that it would be expected for an integrated small-scale village society such as the Dogon. This is also proved by the mean endogamy rate (49.6%). The analysis also shows the existence of marked differentiation between the villages of the plateau and the villages on the cliff. This differentiation is in harmony with other demographic variables as well as with genetic markers. The analysis of the interactions between geographic, demographic and biological variables indicates a strong influence of the geographic location of the villages on all variables, revealing that an apparently small difference in natural and economic resources plays a vital role in the dynamics of the populations in these two areas.

Dogons; population structure; migration; anthropology

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