The Dogon is a culture made up of many different bloodlines, of which Master Naba's line is one, the Gormanche. The Gormanche specialize in spiritual and astronomical knowledge. They were the keepers of knowledge for the pharaohs.

The Dogon are strongly oriented toward harmony, which is reflected in many of their rituals. In one of their most important rituals, the women praise the men, the men thank the women, the young express appreciation for the old, and the old recognize the contributions of the young. Another example is the custom of elaborate greetings whenever one Dogon meets another. This custom is repeated over and over, throughout a Dogon village, all day. During a greeting ritual, the person who has entered the contact answers a series of questions about his or her whole family, from the person who was already there. Invariably, the answer is sewa, which means that everything is fine. Then the Dogon who has entered the contact repeats the ritual, asking the resident how his or her whole family is. Because the word sewa is so commonly repeated throughout a Dogon village, neighboring peoples have dubbed the Dogon the sewa people.

Master Naba taught a code of human behavior that has 77 commandments. "We say that what you can do does not define you. What defines you is what you will not do under any circumstance. Nowadays we put our ambitions ahead of what we will not do. The Garlic Effect [is] a story that elucidates that humans are vulnerable to manipulations that affect perception, and perception is everything. Those of us on the path to enlightenment, on the path of honesty, integrity, intelligence, we must defend ourselves against these influences [that alter perception] every day. The modern world tells us we can only investigate our world through science. But all life is a dialogue of energies on a universal scale. Everything that exists - yes, non-Earth beings as well - has an influence on us. We are all connected so much more than we know.”   - from http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA12DF7335E5AE0E2"

Photographs © Marguerite Lorimer, taken during one of Master Naba’s spirited teachings at the Attitudinal Healing Connection in Oakland, California