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A week into our adventure, we at last approached the real Mali. We'd been here all along, of course, but trekking over sandstone slabs between thousand-year-old villages made of mud, villages where animism and ancestral spirits are interwoven with daily life, made us feel as if we'd arrived. This was Pays Dogon—Dogon country—one of anthropology's prized study areas and one of Mali's premier tourist attractions.

In 1947, Marcel Griault published his informal study of the Dogon, Conversations with Ogotemmeli, and traffic to the dramatic Falaise de Bandiagara region of French Soudan (as it was then known) took off. Griault's was a great story: The missionary and his entourage had been in the Dogon town of Sanga for almost 15 years, gathering notes and commentary from the men and women of the millet-farming village but gaining little insight into their culture. Then Griault received a curious message that an old man, a blind hunter named Ogotemmeli, wished to sell him an artifact. It was a ruse to arrange a meeting, upon which Ogotemmeli instead offered to unravel the entire codex of Dogon mysteries. He went on to reveal a dizzyingly complex cosmology and ethic permeating Dogon daily life that Griault had missed. Or had he indeed sold Griault, if not an artifact, perhaps a bill of goods?

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By midday we reached Niongono, a 400-year-old settlement buried in the flanks of a hillside two hours' drive from Mopti over a red washboard road. The Dogon settled in the Bandiagara region between 400 and 1,000 years ago. Forced into the remote quarters by advancing bands of Muslims, the Dogon constructed towns virtually impossible to overcome—walled villages overlooking every approach—and the Dogon way managed to survive the sometimes intolerant spread of Islam. Niongono was almost silent as we walked between millet fields toward the head of a canyon. On either side, the peaked roofs of Dogon granaries peered over the clay walls. Children and goats hopped in and out of sight. The goats bleated, as goats do, and the children chatted and giggled among themselves until the boldest cried out "Ça va!" With that, they formed our entourage.

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We followed Alberto and the children into the winding alleys of the village, on a pilgrimage to the hogon's house. A hogon is usually the oldest man in the village. He lives apart from the rest of his people, and in his office is held the wisdom of his years and his clan. An array of square windows decorated the facade of this hogon's house. The windows were plugged with mud and birds' nests along with what appeared to be offerings. As animists, the Dogon have a slew of spirits to appease, and they do so with everything from birds' bills to bat's wings to antelope horns.

This was our first visit to a Dogon town, and we found ourselves entranced by the architecture, the single-legged ladders pronged at the top, the flat roots that serve as drying platforms for the crops of the fields. But the people, by far the most intriguing component of the village, were uncommunicative, unwilling to be photographed, reticent even in the face of Alberto's infectious amiability.

We had lunch in the shadow of an open-air manger, enjoying a bean and potato salad John had fixed while we toured the village. Several ailing villagers approached us to ask for medicine—aspirin for fevers, something for diarrhea, eyedrops for conjunctivitis, perhaps a magical European cure for tuberculosis. Meanwhile, a group of black-and-white crows cawed from the cliffs above. I asked Alberto what kind of birds they were. "These are crows," he said. "Sometimes they do not have the white."

"Alberto, if you want to lead more Americans into your country, you must learn the names of the birds," I admonished. "Lots of Americans are bird-watchers and won't be satisfied with an answer like crows. You should at least call them Moroccan magpies or something."

"Moroccan mud-pies," he said. "I like that!"

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We drove for another two hours toward Sanga, the village Griault had originally studied, making a stop at Songo en route. Known for its painted caves, Songo has been "discovered" in a way native villages often are. A campement, or hostel, sits just outside the town walls. It has plenty of parking and urban-style signage of its services—a three-pronged fork, a steaming cup, a clean cot, all painted in the traditional Dogon colors of red, black, and white. A mosque dominated the town. Although the Dogon were fierce defenders of their culture for centuries, Muslims and modern times have made inroads, and villages closest to the road are those most infiltrated by the larger world.

A flowing Muslim bobo enrobed the hostel manager, who volunteered as our escort and took us to meet the elders gathered around the town's togu-na, a men's shelter comprised of eight intricately carved pillars supporting a thick thatched roof. The carvings portrayed graphic representations of the Nommo—the twin deities of Dogon cosmology, one male, one female. Other gods and animals were carved on the doors, window shutters, and locks. Crocodiles, men on horses, and mythical beasts watch over Dogon towns.

Once the elders had agreed to our visit—accepting a small cash token of our respect from Alberto—the hostel manager led us through town toward the pink cliffs looming above. The children who had followed us through the village suddenly stopped and waited patiently as the manager led us to the sacred initiation grotto.

Inside, on the wall behind him were thousands of crude images. They represented the spirits of clans whose boys underwent circumcision in this den. Some of the drawings looked like drums, some like animals, some like pure geometry. All were in the three primary colors of blood, of coal, of light. On a series of rock seats beneath the wall, black stained the boulders, the dried blood of generations. Standing before this animistic wall in his long purple robe in the last light of day, waving his hands in explication, our escort looked like a guide to a strange universe, a parallel time zone on a different planet, a magician revealing his secrets, or a charmer concealing them.

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