Appendix 1
The only master of this kind of observation hitherto has been Marcel Griaule (d. 1956) but he left an impressive cohort of disciples. They have renewed the understanding of African studies, showing that such systems are still alive with the Dogon, whom Griaule “discovered,” in the true sense of the word.
As Germaine Dieterlen writes: “The smallest everyday object may reveal a conscious reflection of a complex cosmogony . . . Thus for instance African techniques, so poor in appearance, like those of agriculture, weaving and smithing, have a rich, hidden content of significance . . . The sacrifice of a humble chicken, when accompanied by the necessary and effective ritual gestures, recalls in the thinking of those who have experienced it an understanding that is at once original and coherent of the origins and functioning of the universe.
“The Africans,” she continues, “with whom we have worked in the region of the Upper Niger have systems of signs which run into thousands, their own systems of astronomy and calendrical measurements, methods of calculation and extensive anatomical and physiological knowledge, as well as a systematic pharmacopoeia. The principles underlying their social organization find expression in classifications which embrace many manifestations of nature. And these form a system in which, to take examples, plants, insects, textiles, games and rites are distributed in categories that can be further divided, numerically expressed and related one to another. It is on these same principles that the political and religious authority of chiefs, the family system and juridical rights, reflected notably in kinship and marriages, have been established. Indeed, all the activities of the daily lives of individuals are ultimately based on them.” [1]
It goes without saying that we need not subscribe to the author’s opinion that the Mande peoples invented “their own systems of astronomy . . .”
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- Introduction to Conversations with Ogotemmeli, Marcel Griaule (1965), p. xiv.