Madougou is a village with a population of about 3,500 in the region of Mali known as Dogon country, located about 35 km. southeast of the rock cliffs at Bandiagara. Tourists love to visit the region of these rock precipices with its picturesque villages where the Dogons, known for their colourful masked dances, sometimes give performances in honour of the tourists. Dogon country is a difficult region to reach, far from public highways and major lines of communication. It is, however, possible to take a Dogon taxi from Bamako to Dogon country on Friday morning after the market. The Dogons dominate the onion trade and use this taxi route to freight their onions into the capital city, and goods from the capital back out to the villages in Dogon country, a distance of about 800 km. There are toll barriers with an entrance and an exit installed at each town along the way, and the traders must pay a toll based upon the quantity of goods they are carrying with them. All the passengers' identity cards are checked, and, since it is costly to be a trader, many of the small retailers have the designation "farmer" on their identity cards. Whenever their subterfuge is detected, it can be very costly to buy themselves out of this scrape.
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| Women examine the display of goods |
Monday is market day in Madougou. In addition to this weekly market there are small shops that are open every day, and small stalls at "the crossroads" of the village. One can buy all the necessities of daily life in these shops and stalls, such items as groundnut oil, matches, candles, cigarettes, spaghetti, tea, sugar, batteries, razorblades, candies and dates.
The marketplace is comparatively large and is located right in the middle of the village. Here wooden pole structures are set up with thatched or plastic-sheeted roofing. One cannot walk upright under this roof, but must bend over all the time to avoid banging one's head and being poked in the eyes by protruding straw. One has to move slowly and control and contort one's body into all possible and impossible positions and postures, for space is tight and low under the roof. Fabric products are sold here in this covered portion of the market, and the vast majority who have their stalls here, are itinerant traders who have purchased their goods in the capital and have themselves brought them out to the village with the help of the bush taxis. Only the few businessmen and functionaries in the area can afford to own cars or motorcycles. When the rest of the local people go to market, they transport themselves on foot, by bicycle, moped, or on the back of a donkey.
One can install oneself around the marketplace and sell whatever one so desires by spreading a plastic sheet on the ground, or selling food from metal pots and pans. Some also use donkey carts as stalls from which to sell fruit. The marketplace gradually fills with local and itinerant men and women who sell agricultural products, dried fish, clothing, textiles and tobacco. There is also a large tree in the market under which nomadic women sell fresh and soured milk from callabashes. On market days they have to share the space with women who sell groundnut oil and the ingredients for sauces.
There is a clear structure to the market in Madougou. The division of labour between different people is clearly defined. Who sells and produces what and where is not left to chance. The handicraft castes are a case in point. There are special occupational groups in West Africa with their own family names; these groups practice different crafts and are referred to as castes. In Madougou one finds a blacksmith caste, a leather workers' caste, a caste that works with jewellry, a wood-working caste. In addition to the Dogon, who are mainly farmers, semi-nomadic Fulbe people also live in the village. These ethnic groups and castes have a division of labour that makes them dependent upon one another. Moreover, most of the work is gender-divided; that is, men and women in a household have different work tasks. The division of labour is revealed on market day, when the various groups offer up their services and their products.
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| A seller in the market |
The blacksmiths and sheet iron workers make tools from scrap iron for agricultural use, while the women make ceramic cooking pots. The leather workers make drums, amulets, and leather scabbards, while women make containers from gourds and inner bark fibre (bast). The jewellry makers travel around to buy up pearls. The women dye cotton material with indigo. The woodcarvers make bowls and stools from wood, while the women decorate both these and calabashes by burning in designs with firing irons. Children can also have their own tasks on market day. Boys help out as porters. Girls make and sell food. There is a further division of labour between agriculturalists and pastoralist nomads who exchange grain and milk. Today a large part of this exchange takes place in the market.
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| Craftsmen making knives |
The reason that the villagers shop so much in the market is that the selection of goods is varied and one can bargain. One cannot do so in the shops. On the other hand, shopkeepers operate with credit because they know the local inhabitants. If one does not have particularly good relations to the seller in the market, it can be difficult to obtain credit there. Thus the markets and the shops satisfy an everyday economic need.
Read more:
Verlore at the Village Market
Issa, an Itinerant Trader
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