Door lock with key

The Dogon are people living in the south-central part of the Republic of Mali. Its number is estimated at 500-600 thousand. The largest concentration of their villages is located on a 150 km stretch along the Bandiagara Escarpment. The villages are located on the massif itself, on the plain spreading around it and on the so-called debris, i.e. stony slopes and ravines located at its foot. The lock to the door of the homestead or house of the great ginna family is called in the Dogo-so language ta koguru, which literally means attached to the door. Another type of lock, the duro kunu, which is hardly visible, can be found among the Dogon locks. The richly decorated ta koguru lock is attached to the door from the outside. The most common type of homestead is ginu sala inhabited by monogamous and polygynous couples. The door with a ta koguru lock is made of several planks joined together with iron brackets and leads to the gate room of the lower room, where numerous stools and planks are often set up for sitting or relaxing in a semi-reclining position. Visitors are also received here, thus protecting the privacy and intimacy of family members spending time on various activities in the depth of the farmstead. From the bottom one passes into the courtyard. If there are more wives living in the homestead, there can also be several such separate courtyard areas. Nowadays, the door locks ta koguru are a very popular collector's object. The discussed piece is topped with an image of a pair of ancestors symbolising a guard and his wife, who are at the same time the first couple of people.

Ewa Prądzyńska