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Marcel Griaule (16 May 1898 – 23 February 1956) was a French author andanthropologist known for his studies of theDogon people ofWest Africa,[1] and for pioneeringethnographic field studies in France. He worked together withGermaine Dieterlen andJean Rouch on African subjects. His publications number over 170 books and articles for scholarly journals.
Born inAisy-sur-Armançon, Griaule received a good education and was preparing to become an engineer and enrolled at the prestigiousLycée Louis-le-Grand when in 1917 at the end ofWorld War I he volunteered to become apilot in theFrench Air Force.
In 1920 he returned to university, where he attended the lectures ofMarcel Mauss andMarcel Cohen. Intrigued by anthropology, he gave up plans for a technical career. In 1927 he received a degree from theÉcole Nationale de Langues Orientales, where he concentrated onAmharic andGe'ez.
Between 1928 and 1933 Griaule participated in two large-scale ethnographic expeditions—one toEthiopia and the ambitiousDakar toDjibouti expedition which crossed Africa. On the latter expedition he first visited theDogon, the ethnic group with whom he would be forever associated.
In 1933 he received a diploma from theÉcole Pratique des Hautes Études in religion.
Throughout the 1930s Griaule and his studentGermaine Dieterlen undertook several group expeditions to the Dogon area inMali. During these trips Griaule pioneered the use of aerial photography, surveying, and teamwork to study other cultures. In 1938 he produced his dissertation and received a doctorate based on his Dogon research.
With the outbreak ofWorld War II Griaule was drafted again in the French Air Force and after the war he served as the inaugural professor of the first chair of anthropology at theUniversity of Paris - Sorbonne. He died in 1956 in Paris.
Griaule is remembered for his work with the blind hunterOgotemmeli and his elaborate exegeses ofDogon myth (fr )—(including theNommo) and ritual.[2] His study of Dogon masks remains one of the fundamental works on the topic. A number of anthropologists are highly critical of his work and argue that his claims aboutSirius and his elaborate accounts of cosmic eggs and mystic vibrations do not accurately reflectDogon belief.[3][4][5]
Griaule is the father of anthropologistGeneviève Calame-Griaule (Seefr: Geneviève Calame-Griaule).
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