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Dogon Restudied: a Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel Griaule [And Comments and Replies] Author(S): Walter E

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Dogon Restudied: a Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel Griaule [And Comments and Replies] Author(S): Walter E Dogon Restudied: A Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel Griaule [and Comments and Replies] Author(s): Walter E. A. van Beek, R. M. A. Bedaux, Suzanne Preston Blier, Jacky Bouju, Peter Ian Crawford, Mary Douglas, Paul Lane, Claude Meillassoux Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Apr., 1991), pp. 139-167 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2743641 . Accessed: 26/03/2011 04:12 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology. http://www.jstor.org CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 32, Number 2, April I99I ? I991 byWenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rightsreserved OOII-3204/9I/3202-0002$3.00 though some are demonstrablybetter or worse." In a similarvein, Beidelman (i989:265) concludes in his re- view of Clifford's(I988) The Predicament of Culture, Dogon Restudied "Some accounts are of less value than others,either be- cause the data are unreliableor thinor because the anal- yses are inept." I will argue here that all three kinds A Field Evaluationof the Workof of fault can be identifiedin the classic studies of the Dogon. Marcel Griaule It is a restudyof the Dogon ofMali thatI presenthere, setting offmy data against one particular (and quite well-known)other view, that of Marcel Griaule. Given by WalterE. A. van Beek the constructednature of culture,the field critique of the data has to be performedin termsof recognizability and productivity:Do the texts producedby Griaule de- pict a societythat is recognizableto the researcher,offer productiveinsights into Dogon thinking,or provideuse- This restudyof the Dogon of Mali asks whetherthe texts produced fulguidance for the reproductionof Dogon culture? Are by Marcel Griaule depict a society that is recognizable to the re- searcher and to the Dogon today and answers the question more Griaule's cultural constructsrecognizable in the field, or less in the negative. The picture of Dogon religion presented in either to the anthropologistor to the Dogon? Do the Dieu d'eau and Le renard pale proved impossible to replicate in Dogon, when presentedwith (elementsof) the Griaule the field,even as the shadowy remnant of a largelyforgotten past. texts, recognize them as a meaningfulpart of their The reasons forthis, it is suggested,lie in the particularfield situa- thinkingand way of life? tion of Griaule's research,including featuresof the ethnographer's approach, the political setting,the experience and predilections of My answersto these questions will be more or less in the informants,and the values of Dogon culture. the negative,depending on what part of Griaule's work is in question. I will firstpresent a short synopsis of WALTER E. A. VAN BEEK is Associate Professorof Anthropology Griaule's ethnographyand some of the problems it at theUniversity of Utrecht (K.i222, P.O. Box 80.I40, 3508 TC poses; then I shall present some of my own findings, Utrecht,The Netherlands). Born in I943, he received his Ph.D. analyse theirdifferences from Griaule's, and finallycon- fromthat universityin I978. He has conducted research among the Dogon of Mali and among the Kapsiki/Higi of northernCamer- structa model of how the Griaulean ethnographywas oon and northeasternNigeria. His publications include The Kap- generated. siki of the Mandara Hills (ProspectHeights: Waveland Press, I987), (with S. Pern and B. Alexander) Masked Dancers of West Africa: The Dogon (New York: Time-Life, i982), (with J.van Baal) Symbols Griaule's Dogon Ethnography for Communication: Religion in Anthropological Theory, 2d edi- tion (Assen: van Gorcum, I984), and the edited volume The Quest for Purity: Dynamics of Puritan Systems (Berlin: Mouton, I988). Griaule published on the Dogon fromthe early thirties The present paper was submitted in final form 5 IX 90. (the Dakar-Djibouti expedition of I93I-33 [Griaule I9331) until his death in I956, and a major work co- authored by Germaine Dieterlen appeared posthu- mouslyin I965. Forpresent purposes, his Dogon ethnog- raphy may be divided into three major periods. From It has become a commonplace that ethnographiesare I93I till I948 he published descriptiveaccounts of Do- "doublymediated," shaped by the ideas and preconcep- gon life, concentratingon material culture. His these tions of both ethnographerand informants.They are "a d'etat, Masques dogons (Griaule I938, hereafterMD), is tale of two cultures-the fieldworker'sand the other's" the high point of this period,which Clifford(I983:I38) (vanMaanen i988:I38). Restudies,however, represent a calls Griaule's "documentaryphase." My critiqueis not more complex case. They comment explicitlyupon an directedat his works of this periodor those of his many existingaccount and probablyenrich the corpusof data. collaborators;indeed, theirvision of Dogon cultureco- A restudymay give a differentgeneral impressionof a incides to a significantdegree with mine. It is the later culture-opening a new vista, allowing fora plural and presentationof Dogon culture with which it is con- morebalanced interpretation.("Societies are so complex cerned. thatmore than one model of analysisis needed to reveal The second period is dominated by a book that all these intricacies" [Beidelman I989:2I5].) But a re- sparked tremendousinterest in many circles,not only studymay also show that an earlierstudy was flawed. among anthropologists,and made Griaule world-fa- Though this latterpossibility is more or less ruled out mous. In Dieu d'eau: Entretiensavec Ogotemmeli(Gri- by the extremes of the postmodernistapproach, I am aule I948, hereafterDE) Griaule uncovered a Dogon persuadedthat some views on a culture can indeed be world view, cosmology,and philosophical system of a more productive, insightful,or plausible, in short, completeness and sophistication unparalleled in any "truer,"than others. Roth (i989:567) has arguedfor a other ethnography.The old man Ogotemmeli,who is distinctionbetween rhetorical devices and epistemolog- the pivot of this book, initiated Griaule into a Dogon ical significance:"no one perspectiveis privileged,even world dominatedby a splendidcreation myth, showing '39 I40 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 32, Number 2, April I99I the "Nazarene"-as Griaule liked to call himselfas a excision,and the appearanceof death, all are linkedwith white man-how in Dogon culturethe storyof creation the creationmyth. Griaule, who, judgingfrom the text served as a blueprintfor all facets of society,from the alone, exertedconsiderable influence on the contentof way to cultivate a field and build a house to weaving, the talks and on the structuringof the images into a potterymaking, drumming,and smithing.In this ele- coherentsystem, speculatively linked the Ogotemmeli gantlywritten account of 32 initiatorysessions, Griaule explanationsto the signs of the zodiac. describedan intricatephilosophical network linking the Though portrayedat the time as the ultimate insight outside world with Dogon society and thought. fromthe Dogon elders,Ogotemmeli's revelationswere A short summary: In the beginningAmma took a not to be the finalword on Dogon thought.A new and lump of clay, squeezed it in his hand, and flungit from quite differentcorpus of mythand culturalexplanations him. The clay spread out over the north (the top) and was offeredto Griaule and his close collaboratorGer- then the south (the bottom)of the world.This flatearth maine Dieterlen in subsequent years. The firstmajor was a female body,with an ants' nest' as its sexual or- indicationswere publicationson Sirius,symbolism, and gan,its clitorisa termitehill. Amma triedto have inter- the harp-lute (Griaule and Dieterlen i 9 oa, b; i9 5i) and coursewith her but was thwartedby the termitehill. He an attemptat synthesis (Griaule and Dieterlen I954). excisedit, thus creatingthe fox.2Subsequent intercourse However, it is Le renard pale (Griaule and Dieterlen producedthe originalNommo3 twins fromthe firstwa- I965, hereafterRP) that provides the crucial informa- ter.They gave theirmother, the earth,fibres for cloth- tion. Here another,even more elaborate and intricate ing,thus creatingthe eightfoldspirals of the sun, a vehi- view of Dogon cultural thought,based on a different cle formoisture, wind, and tornadoes.The fox,being the creationmyth, is offered.A cosmological
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