20

The Sacrifice of the Nummo

There is a complex cosmological theme that is central to a correct understanding of the Dogon tradition but has not been discussed previously in any book of this series. Griaule and Dieterlen include a chapter in their definitive Dogon study, The Pale Fox, titled “Sacrifice and Resurrection of the Nommo.”¹ (Note that the Dogon terms Nommo, Nomo, and Nummo are used interchangeably to represent the same Dogon concept.) This cosmological theme centers on an outlook in which our material universe is seen to be an impure counterpart to its nonmaterial twin. The cause of the impurity stemmed originally from what was described as an incestuous act on the part of Ogo, a character who plays the role of light in the Dogon cosmological myths. As the storyline of the myth explains, Ogo mistakenly imagined that he could create a universe as perfect as Amma’s and, in trying to do so, stole a square piece of Amma’s placenta to create a second universe. Once it was created, Amma could not simply reintegrate this second universe into the first one because of its perceived impurity, nor did Amma want to merely abandon the second universe. So instead, the choice was made to try to atone for the flaw in the second universe by doing what would be necessary to effectively remedy its impurity.

Similar themes are found in other ancient traditions, including Kabbalism, where the perceived flaw was introduced to the material universe by Adam and Eve, through a choice they made to consummate their relationship too soon. Because of what are essentially described as differences in time frames between events that occurred during creation and those that happened within a material frame, the remedy to that impurity is described by the Kabbalists as one that will take approximately six thousand years to work its effect. The vehicle for the remedy in Kabbalism rests with the annual celebration of the High Holy Days, which take on the cosmological symbolism of stages of creation.

According to the Dogon myth, Ogo had a twin brother who, “being of the same essence as Ogo,” felt that he shared a moral responsibility for his brother’s act of thievery. Consequently, it fell to Ogo’s twin (known as the nommo semu) to implement the necessary remedy. The Dogon word semu combines the prefix se (meaning “to have”) and mu (implying the concept of “individuality”). The terms suggest a nonmaterial nommo who somehow became materially individualized, in the same sense that multiplicity arises from unity. Significantly, Calame-Griaule gives a Dogon word for “sacrifice” as numo.² A comparable Egyptian word, nemit, also means “sacrifice,”³ and a symbolic reading of its glyphs can be rendered as “waves know the spiral of existence and perceive matter.”

In support of this outlook, Griaule and Dieterlen outline a conceptual structure for the universes in their article titled “The Dogon” published in the 1954 book called African Worlds. A caveat to the article emphasizes that it is based on only partial knowledge of the Dogon esoteric system, whose meanings can evolve somewhat as an initiate gains more precise knowledge through more privileged status. From the perspective of the article, the universe consisted of an egg that surrounded two placentas, each of which was supposed to have contained two nummos: one male and one female. However, the impurity that afflicted the placenta of the material universe, fostered by Ogo’s actions, left it with only one male “soul.” Griaule and Dieterlen write, “Seeing this, Amma decided to send to earth the Nommo of the other half of the egg,”⁴ referring to the placenta of the nonmaterial universe.

Griaule and Dieterlen write in The Pale Fox, “The sacrifice was a preparation for the descent on Earth of an ark containing the principles, agents, and material for the reorganization.”⁵ The underlying purpose of the reorganizational effort was to remedy the perceived impurity. The Dogon term ark is a designation that is applied to their stupa-like granary shrine, and one that we also associate with the megalithic sanctuaries at Gobekli Tepe and those on Orkney Island. The notion of a mythical ark that ultimately came to rest on a mountainside in the region of Mount Ararat (the same region where Gobekli Tepe is situated) following a global flood is one that is also supported biblically.

The sacrifice was also to allow for “the expansion throughout the universe of the power and forces possessed by the couple of nomo anagonno, who were to remain with [Amma] in the sky.” The Dogon word anagonno combines the term ana (meaning “male”)⁶ and gono (meaning “to wrap around”).⁷ Within the mind-set of the cosmology, the fundamental component of matter, called the egg-of-the-world, consists of a spiral in which a feminine nonmaterial essence akin to light becomes entwined (or “wraps around”) a masculine material substance to form a spiral. Based on evidence such as the pair of carved arms and hands that wrap around the end of a pillar at Gobekli Tepe, we see this “embrace” as a symbol for a real-world instructional effort carried out in archaic times at sites such as Gobekli Tepe, which is also conceived of as an embrace between the nonmaterial and material universes.

In the Dogon view, one purpose of this instructional effort was to “restore humanity to culture” by effectively raising us up from the level of hunter-gatherers to that of farmers. Similar concepts are reflected in the Maori word for “sacrifice,” which is hapainga. According to Tregear, the same term also means “to lift up,” “to elevate,” “to take hold of,” or “to take in the arms” (embrace).⁸ In keeping with both the agricultural purpose of the Dogon instructed tradition and its symbolic association with baskets, the Maori term can also refer to “a small basket for cooked food.”

In order to put these references into context, it makes sense here to briefly recap our emerging outlook on the history of the Dogon and their cultural memory of having received civilizing instruction in ancient times from a group of mythical teachers called the Nummo. In The Mystery of Skara Brae, we presented evidence, first reported by the earliest Scandinavian visitors to Orkney Island in Northern Scotland, to suggest that a group of “strange” pygmies (called the Peti) had lived there in close association with a group of average-sized clerics (called the Papae) in Neolithic times (circa 3200 BCE). This occurred in a setting that might well have served as an instructional sanctuary, perhaps similar in nature to a college campus. An Egyptian word for “pygmy” is given as nem or nemma, comparable to the Dogon term nummo. The clerics, who were described as being outwardly distinct from the Scandinavians, were also said to have always worn white, as is a typical practice among the Dogon.

Likewise, we demonstrated that the architectural plan of the first Neolithic houses at Skara Brae, which included what researchers there called “unique” features, was an outward match for a traditional Dogon stone house, based on a design that carries specific cosmological symbolism. The common architectural plan implies that knowledge of a similar cosmology also existed in Northern Scotland. Dogon cosmology offers a framework within which to understand a series of megalithic sites on Orkney Island, and locale names on the island that have no known etymology make sense in relation to Dogon and Egyptian words. The Orkney Island sites are understood to have been abandoned by around 2600 BCE, seemingly under urgent circumstances. Through myth, folklore, and a minimal set of historical records, we seem to trace at least some of these pygmies to Ireland by the late centuries CE, after which time they may have been permanently driven out. Similarly, the Dogon recall that after a period of time their Nummo teachers either chose to leave or were forced to leave—an event that is seen as a turning point for humanity.

Based on these references, the suggestion is that like other aspects of Dogon cosmology, the symbolic theme of the sacrifice of the Nummo might well have had a real-world parallel. If we allow the possibility that following the last ice age, in some way unknown to us, a nonmaterial intelligence somehow came to manifest itself in our material realm, the process of that manifestation might have allowed for only a one-way transition. From that perspective, the sacrifice made by the Nummo may have lay with the choice to consign themselves to life in the “impure” material realm, permanently abandoning their nonmaterial universe for humanity’s benefit. Appropriate to this interpretation, the Maori term for “sacrifice,” hapainga, can also mean “to carry you away to a place you do not wish to go.”

In keeping with the ostensible mission of the Dogon Nummo teachers, the Maori term hapainga is based on the root hapai, which means “to lift up.” A similar meaning might conceivably lie at the root of the name of the Egyptian god of the inundation, Hapy, whose symbolism as a deity was aligned to the annual rising of the Nile River. We see another possible association with the agricultural aspect of the ancient civilizing plan in the Maori term hapara, which means “spade.”

As we might expect, the more generalized Dogon concept of sacrifice also centers on cosmological themes. The Dogon expression for “sacrifice” is given as numo pugu and is considered by Calame-Griaule to be “an ancient term used only by the elderly.”⁹ A similar ancient Egyptian word, puga, means “to divide,” “to open,” or “to be opened.”¹⁰ It combines the word pu, which can be interpreted symbolically to mean “space enfolded by time,”¹¹ and the word ga, meaning “to be deprived of something.”¹² If we read the glyphs of the word symbolically, they can be interpreted to mean “the spiral of space deprived of the embrace of time.” Conceptually, the notion of an arrow of time would not exist within the massless realm of the nonmaterial universe, since due to an implied quickness of the time frame that goes with less mass, all events there can be thought of as occurring simultaneously; in effect, we could say that the nonmaterial universe, which is characterized by an absence of mass, is “held in the embrace” of time and mass. Additional insights into possible implications of the meaning “to open” can be seen in the phonetically similar Maori word poaha, which means “to open” or “to appear.”¹³ If we were to base our interpretation on the meanings of the Maori word, the term numo pugu could convey a sense of the “Nummo who appeared.”

Our initial insights into the meaning of the Dogon phrase resurrection of the Nummo come out of an examination of an Egyptian word for “resurrection,” which Budge gives as nehas-t.¹⁴ However, because the processes of creation are characterized by various ancient cultures as an awakening, it seems highly significant that the same word for “resurrection” can also mean “to awaken.” The implication is that the numo pugu, who from our perspective may have been deprived of their nonmateriality, then made their appearance in the material realm through a process of materialization that, like the formation of matter itself, is described as an awakening. Similar meanings come together in the Dogon word for “to awaken,” which is pronounced yeme. The word combines the term ye, which implies the notion of “a sacrifice offered to remedy a fault,”¹⁵ and the term me, meaning “placenta.”¹⁶ We can link the Dogon word to these same cosmological concepts since, as a part of her dictionary entry for the word me, Calame-Griaule restates the Dogon symbolic outlook that the twin universes constituted two placentas.

This same mythic theme in which a character is said to be sacrificed and then regenerated in the material realm is one that is expressed in Buddhism in relation to the god Prajapati and the formation of the two universes. It can be seen to underlie the concept of a primordial unity that becomes the source of multiplicity. We see possible traces of it in the myths of India, in which the goddess Sati comes to be dismembered and have her body parts fall to earth, and in the very similar myth of the Egyptian god Osiris, whose body is dismembered, its pieces scattered, and then reconstituted. If we choose instead to interpret the word for an awakening as referring to a resurrection, then the theme arguably comes to encompass later events such as the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ in the Christian tradition.