Figure - ancestor

The Dogon owe their fame to the research carried out by the participants of the Mission Dakar-Djibouti. The expedition was funded by the Museum of Man in Paris (Musee de l'Homme) and led by Marcel Griaule. The team of French scientists arrived in Sangha in 1931, a village that became their base for many years. Participating in the mission were André Schaeffner (musicologist), Jean Mouchet (linguist), Michel Leiris (ethnologist), Éric Lutten (photographer, filmmaker), Jean Moufle (linguist), Gaston-Louis Roux (painter), Abel Faivre (naturalist) and Marcel Larget (logistician). Deborah Lifchitz (linguist) and Denise Paulme (ethnologist) also collaborated with the mission.French researchers fascinated by Dogon culture returned to the villages in the Bandiagara Escarpment many times and published their findings, generating a vast amount of excellent literature on the Dogon. Among Marcel Griaule's later collaborators are: Solange de Ganay, Geneviève Calame-Griaule, Dominique Zahan and Germaine Dieterlen, who continued her research on Dogon culture virtually until the end of her life (she died in 1999). A breakthrough in M. Griaule's research was his meeting with the Ogotemmeli and learning about the Dogon knowledge, so far carefully guarded by them. The myths they passed on about the creation of the universe and the struggle between order and chaos proved to be the basis for the perception and understanding of all aspects of Dogon life. The research of M. Griaule and his colleagues has nurtured successive generations of researchers who have made original contributions to the knowledge of the Dogon and analysed the work of earlier scholars. Among the many notable names to be mentioned are Wouter van Beek, Paul Lane, Rogier Bedaux, Jean-Christophe Huet, Bernard de Grunne, Sarah Brett-Smith, Hélène Leloup and Allen Roberts.

Ewa Prądzyńska