Amma is anAfrican tribaldeity – the supremecreator god in theDogon religion.[1] The Dogon story of the creation of the world relates that thesky god Amma mated with theearth goddess, and because Amma was prevented from joining the goddess'sclitoris in the form of a gianttermite mound, he produced only an imperfect offspring – adesert fox orjackal – and therefore eventually removed the termite mound. Leaving the earth, he instituted thereligious ritual offemale circumcision.[2] After removing the termite mound, the god Amma with the earth goddess continued procreating and begat humans. Duality is central to Dogon religion, the heavenly forces also have a dual character: the supreme god Amma hasandrogynous characteristics.[3] The birth of twins is celebrated among the Dogon with a special religious ritual, as twins refer to the original dual structure of creation and to the harmony between earthly and heavenly.[4]
Key figures in Dogon religion are the twinsNummo andNommo, primal spirits of Dogonancestors, sometimes seen as deities.[2] These arehermaphroditic water creatures, seen similarly to water deities (to-vodun)[5] inWest African vodun;[5] they can be depicted with a human body and a fish tail.[3] Nommo is supposed to be the first living creature created by the supreme god Amma.[6] Shortly after his creation, Nommo spawned into four pairs of twins, with one pair defying the order established by creator Amma. To restore order, the god Amma sacrificed another creature, whose body he cut up and scattered throughout creation. A shrine for the god Amma was to be built at each place where a fragment of the body landed.[7]
The cult of the god Amma – like the entire Dogon religion – is closely tied to theBandiagara cliff where the Dogon live. The cult of the god Amma is geographically defined by this cliff, it is not practiced elsewhere.[2] The Bandiagara cliff is a sandstone terrain fault approximately 150 km long, reaching a height of up to 500 m in some places. The Dogon inhabit mud villages built on the upper edge of the cliff, villages directly attached to the cliff at its lower edge, but also at various heights in the wall, also villages scattered under the cliff and a labyrinth of caves right in the cliff.[2] Thearchitecture of the villages and the religiously motivated urban arrangement of mud houses centered on thehogon priestly building is unique in the context of the whole of Africa.[7] The Dogon language forms an independent branch of theNiger-Congo language family and is not closely related to any other language.[8]