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Germaine Dieterlen (15 May 1903 inValleraugue – 13 November 1999 in Paris) was a Frenchanthropologist. She was a student ofMarcel Mauss, worked with noted French anthropologistsMarcel Griaule (1898-1956) andJean Rouch, wrote on a large range ofethnographic topics and made pioneering contributions to the study ofmyths,initiations, techniques (particularly "descriptive ethnography"), graphic systems, objects, classifications,ritual andsocial structure.
She is most noted for her work among theDogon and theBambara ofMali, having lived with them for over twenty years, often in collaboration withMarcel Griaule, with whom she wrote the book The Pale Fox (1965).[2][3]
Some of the main themes in her work concentrate on the notions ofsacred kingship, the position of thefirst born, relationships between maternal uncles and nephews,division of labor,marriage, and the status of therainmaker in Dogon society. Because each episode of the rite is enacted only once every sixty years, Dieterlen's documentation of theSigui cycle[4] was thought to allow the Dogon themselves to see and interpret the entire sequence of rites which they had heretofore only observed in part.
Dieterlen began her ethnographic research inBandiagara,Mali, in 1941. Perhaps most controversially, Dieterlen was criticized by her peers for her publications with Griaule on Dogonastronomy, which professed an ancient knowledge of the existence of a dwarfwhite star,Sirius B also called the Dog Star, invisible to the naked eye. This ancientindigenous knowledge (theNommo) and the supposition that extraterrestrials might have been in contact with the Dogon was popularized by Robert K. G. Temple in his bookThe Sirius Mystery (1976) andTom RobbinsHalf Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1995).
Skeptic and space journalistJames Oberg in his investigation of the Dogon mystery in 1982 could neither support nor disprove Griaules questionable stories about Dogon astronomy.[5] Dutch anthropologistW.E.A. van Beek, who spent seven years with the Dogon, could not reproduce Griaule's and Dieterlen's findings in the field. He seriously critiqued the research methods of Griaule and Dieterlen and explained their results (Dogon Restudied 1991).[6]
Daughter and colleague of Marcel GriauleGeneviève Calame-Griaule[7] defended her father, dismissing van Beek's criticism.[8][9]
Dieterlen also served as a Director of Studies atEcole Pratique des Hautes Etudes at theSorbonne inParis, was a founding member of theCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and a President of the Committee on Ethnographic Film (founded byJean Rouch, with whom she worked and made importantethnographic films). An "hommage" collection published in 1978 (Systèmes de signes: Textes réunis en hommage à Germaine Dieterlen) included essays byMeyer Fortes andClaude Lévi-Strauss. Dieterlen also worked with other notedethnographic filmmakers likeMarcel Griaule.Mary Douglas reviewed the contributions made by Dieterlen to French anthropology inDogon Culture – Profane and Arcane (1968) andIf the Dogon ... (1975). The Dogon gave Germaine Dieterlene the name ofMadame l'Éternelle (The Eternal Lady) in memory of the work she did together withMarcel Griaule.[10]
