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. 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".