Home UNESCO Lists Intangible Cultural Heritage Intangible Cultural Heritage in Mali Septennial Re-roofing Ceremony of the Kamablon, Sacred House of Kangaba

Septennial Re-roofing Ceremony of the Kamablon, Sacred House of Kangaba

Septennial Re-roofing Ceremony of the Kamablon, Sacred House of Kangaba

Every seven years, the Mandé Peoples of southwestern Mali gather to celebrate the installation of a new thatched roof over the Kamablon of Kangaba, which dates to 1653 AD. The re-roofing process is an occasion to evoke the history and culture of the Mande peoples through oral traditions.
It is also an opportunity to strengthen social bonds, settle disputes and predict what will happen in the next seven years. The ceremony lasts for five days, during which young men of 20 or 21 years of age take down the old roof and put up a new one under the supervision and direction of community elders who transmit their knowledge relating to the house, its construction, history, and symbolic value.

Septennial Re-roofing Ceremony of the Kamablon, Sacred House of Kangaba was inscribed in 2009 on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in Mali.

Septennial Re-roofing Ceremony of the Kamablon, Sacred House of Kangaba

Date of Inscription

2009