Door

The door to the large ginna house (in the Dogo-so language ginna means big house, but also big family), which is the seat of the family’s patriarch (ginna bana) and his family. Ginna is also a temple in honour of the ancestors. It houses the wagem altars on which offerings are made to them. Ancestors are also commemorated in small niches formed on the façade. They are formed from the upper right corner of the house. The niche located there is the oldest and symbolises the first ancestor - the founder of the family. The next one representing the successive ancestors is added to this horizontally. When the last one in the row is created, the next ones start to form below, this time from the left to the right. Successive niches, a chain of successive ancestors, and in a broader sense – generations, form a serpentine pattern referring to the way a snake moves. The façade has a door on a pole (a kind of hinge) with two pivots: upper and lower, set in a wooden frame. They are made of several boards joined together with metal brackets. The doors of the house always open inwards. Above the main door leading to ginna there are smaller doors leading to an attic which serves as a storage room. The doors of the house are locked with wooden locks. Among them, two types can be distinguished: duro kunu, which is not very visible, and ta koguru, which means attached to the door. The lock is attached to the door from the outside and is richly decorated.The door is decorated with relief anthropo- and zoomorphic motifs. Among them one can recognise ancestral figures, ayo-geu crocodiles, a snake and agunuru turtles.

Ewa Prądzyńska