The Tellem were the people who inhabited the Bandiagara Escarpment

Bandiagara Escarpment

The Bandiagara Escarpment is an escarpment in the Dogon country of Mali. The sandstone cliff rises about 500 meters above the lower sandy flats to the south. It has a length of approximately 150 kilometers. The area of the escarpment is inhabited today by the Dogon people. Before the Dogon, the...

 in Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

. The Dogon

Dogon people

The Dogon are an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of Mali, south of the Niger bend near the city of Bandiagara in the Mopti region. The population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000 The Dogon are best known for their religious traditions, their mask dances, wooden sculpture and...

people migrated to the escarpment region around the 14th century. The Tellem were pygmies or "small red people" who built dwellings around the base of the escarpment as well as directly into the cliff-face. Many of these structures are still visible in the area. Some Tellem buildings—most notably the granaries—are still in use by the Dogon, although generally Dogon villages are at the bottom or top of the escarpment, where water gathers and farming is possible.

The Tellem people have disappeared from the area either by assimilation into the Dogon culture or some other unknown reason. It is thought by some in Mali today that the Tellem possessed the power of flight.