ABSTRACT
The notion of a compound (Dogon home) refers to a walled-in domestic space that contains multiple buildings and that is occupied by a family. In the Dogon community of Tiréli, which is virilocal, patrilineal, and polygynous, the term gínna 1 (‘family’) is used to describe a single built unit or a compound where the family of the lineage head resides. The term gínna and its multiple variations—commonly referred to in the Dogon and in French as la concession or la famille (‘the family’)—was defined by my sources as ‘Within the walls, you find that there is a family that lives there. This is the place where we were born and that belongs to our ancestors’. 2
