Barn Gate

The barn is one of the main buildings of the West African villages. They are given the generic name of barns, but in addition to hosting cereals and grasses, all kinds of foods such as shea butter or cecinas normally made from the meat of hunted animals are preserved for better conservation. But they also keep in them substances intended for magical-religious rites or any object of value to their owner. In Dogon territory these barns are located in the oceans of Bandiagará. As they are usually on different levels to access them it is necessary to use wooden stairs, simple tree trunks in which the steps and artistic figures have been carved in the back.

Traditionally, the doors of these barns are artistically sculpted, with symbols of their cosmogony. Nomes and Kanaga masks, as well as the breasts of the mother nutrition representing the fertility of the woman and the fields are figures that are often not missing in these small doors. Mythical animals and some scenes from the daily life of villages are also frequent.

In this door two nomos flank four dancers the Kanaga masks at the top. In the center, two women grinding the millet, with a calao to the left and to the right the nourishing breasts symbols of fertility. On a lower plane the four prime twin pairs, the first men become nomos. And on the last level, two women dancing to celebrate the outcome of the hunt that men are disquarting to the right. Brown patina.