Ceremonial Adobe or the Metaphor of Time: Anthropological Reflections on Djenné’s Mosque in Mali

Abstract

This article discusses time, not in its physical dimension but as a social issue underpinning a cardinal part of culture, history, and identity. The mosque of Djenné is the case study; its characteristics and social circumstances recall several anthropological concepts about time. The main objective is to reflect on how local inhabitants, while performing the ceremony of restoring the mosque, develop a set of symbols about time that shape their social relations, cultural constructions, and the idea about life’s processes. This paper draws mainly on Mircea Eliade’s theory of “eternal return”, and Norbert Elias’s sociological approach to time. References to cognitive linguistics and the philosophy of language are found throughout the text.