Marcel Griaule

Born in Aisy-sur-Armançon, Griaule received a good education and was preparing to become an engineer and enrolled at the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand when in 1917 at the end of World War I he volunteered to become a pilot in the French Air Force.

Between 1928 and 1933 Griaule participated in two large-scale ethnographic expeditions—one to Ethiopia and the ambitious Dakar to Djibouti expedition which crossed Africa.

Throughout the 1930s Griaule and his student Germaine Dieterlen undertook several group expeditions to the Dogon area in Mali.

Griaule is remembered for his work with the blind hunter Ogotemmeli and his elaborate exegeses of Dogon myth ( fr )—(including the Nommo) and ritual.

A number of anthropologists are highly critical of his work and argue that his claims about Sirius and his elaborate accounts of cosmic eggs and mystic vibrations do not accurately reflect Dogon belief.