The Dogon and Sirius mystery

The Dogon, a tribe in West Africa, are believed to be of Egyptian descent. After living in Libya for a time, they settled in Mali, West Africa, bringing with them astronomy legends dating from before 3200 BCE. In the late 1940s, four of their priests told two French anthropologists of a secret Dogon myths about the star Sirius (8.6 light years from the earth). The priests said that Sirius had a companion star that was invisible to the human eye. They also stated that the star moved in a 50-year elliptical orbit around Sirius, that it was small and incredibly heavy, and that it rotated on its axis.
All these things happen to be true. But what makes this so remarkable is that the companion star of Sirius, called Sirius B, was first photographed in 1970. While people began to suspect its existence around 1844, it was not seen through a telescope until 1862 -- and even then its great density was not known or understood until the early decades of the twentieth century. The Dogon beliefs, on the other hand, were supposedly thousands of years old.

The Dogon name for Sirius B (Po Tolo) consists of the word for star (tolo) and the name of the smallest seed known to them (po). By this name they describe the star's smallness -- it is, they say, "the smallest thing there is." They also claim that it is "the heaviest star" and white. The Dogon thus attribute to Sirius B its three principal properties as a white dwarf: small, heavy, white.

Even if these people had somehow seen Western astronomy textbooks, they could not have known about Sirius B. Also puzzling was their knowledge of the rotations and orbits of planets in our solar system and of the four major moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. How did they learn all this? Dogon folklore says that this knowledge came from unearthly sources.

The Dogon tell the legend of the Nommos, awful-looking beings who arrived in a vessel along with fire and thunder. The Nommos, who could live on land but dwelled mostly in the sea, were part fish, like merfolk (mermaids and mermen). Similar creatures have been noted in other ancient civilizations -- Babylonia’s Oannes, Acadia’s Ea, Sumer’s Enki, and Egypt’s goddess Isis. It was from the Nommos that the Dogon claimed their knowledge of the heavens.

The Dogon also claimed that a third star (Emme Ya) existed in the Sirius system. Larger and lighter than Sirius B, this star revolved around Sirius as well. And around it orbited a planet from which the Nommos came.