Figure - woman with child

Dogon art abounds in depictions of women with children. They symbolically refer to maternal love and female fertility valued in Africa. The birth of a child is a wonderful event for a woman and her family. A local midwife attends it. She is usually an elderly Dogon woman, initiated by other women experienced in delivering babies. After the first pains appear, the midwife checks by touching the position of the child, who is born in the room where it was conceived, that is, in dembere occupied every day by the husband who is not present during the birth. Sometimes, in exceptional situations (when travelling, when working in a field far away from the village), a woman gives birth outside her home. All these places are carefully guarded against female blood. When it is time to give birth, the woman sits down in the middle of dembere, with her face facing south. The child being born slides down to the ground and thus takes possession of two souls: a male and a female. It references the mythical times in which Nommo, wishing to ensure the twinning of born people, drew two superimposed souls of different sexes on the ground. The people coming into the world would lie down on this spot and absorb their twin souls.Today, Dogon women can receive medical care. Some are eager to use new means and specialised midwives' help, while others complain about the reclining birth position imposed in hospitals and delivery rooms and still prefer to give birth in the rooms where they were conceived.

Ewa Prądzyńska