ABSTRACT
A French pioneer in ethnographic field research in Africa, Marcel Griaule, a disciple of Marcel Mauss, undertook his first African sojourn to Ethiopia in 1928. He gave a literary account of this experience in Les Flambeurs d’hommes (The Burners of Men). He then organized the famous Dakar-Djibouti mission (1931-1933) that traversed Africa from east to west, from Senegal on the Atlantic Ocean to Ethiopia and the Red Sea. The team he led conducted field research in fifteen countries, bringing back a great quantity of information as well as one of the most important collections of objects currently housed at the Musée de l’homme in Paris. During this expedition, Griaule discovered Dogon country in Mali (previously, the French Sudan), which would remain his favorite research area until his untimely death.
