Case file · Folklore / legend
'Dogon Restudied': no Sirius B
In 1991 the Dutch anthropologist Walter van Beek published a restudy in Current Anthropology: after years among the Dogon, his team found no knowledge of Sirius as a double star.
1991 CE · 14.47, -3.30 · status: explained
The account
Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery (1976) had argued that the Dogon learned of Sirius B, invisible to the naked eye, from visitors from the Sirius system. Van Beek's informants knew Sirius but not its companion, and he concluded that Griaule's dialogue with his informants had shaped the account.
The sceptical view
Others had already suggested contamination from European visitors after Sirius B became famous in the 1920s.