[i6]

DOGON CULTURE-PROFANE AND ARCANE

MARY DOUGLAS

SOME years ago Madame Dieterlen astonished the anthropology students in

London University with the wealth of detail about Dogon culture which was at
her command. They were not less impressed when she explained that the first twenty
years of field research among the Dogon had been the most arduous and that sub-
sequent work was more and more rewarding. Now the already considerable ethno-
graphy of the Dogon is enriched by two major documentations, Le Renardpdle by
Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, and Ethnologie et langage by Genevieve
Calame-Griaule.'
Madame Dieterlen describes how willingly the Dogon associated themselves with
the research: answering questions put by successive ethnological expeditions since
I93 they had come to see that unless they themselves took a much more active role
the programme would never be realized. In 1947 the main priests of a particular
region took the initiative to co-operate more fully by allocating a highly competent
instructor to the late Marcel Griaule. After daily lessons and daily confidential
reports to the priestly council, the book Dieu d'eauwas recorded. The gesture was all
the more generous since the Dogon in making it knew that they thus exposed them-
selves to years and years more of deep research into their culture. These books bear
the mark both of Dogon enthusiasm and initiative, first in the impressive depth of
detail in which their culture is recorded and second in that it is still presented as seen
by the Dogon themselves.
The pale fox is the enigmatic principle of disorder in Dogon cosmology. He is
anti-society, anti-law, the disobedient son of the creator who committed incest with
his mother, the Earth, and was three times punished, first by being turned into an
animal, second by being circumcised, and third by being deprived of human speech.
But he remained a source of knowledge and of power, used by humans in divination.
Le Renardpdleis a transcription of the full myth sequence of Dogon esoteric know-
ledge. Volume one deals with the creation of the world. The second volume will deal
with the history of the first sixty-six years of human life on earth. Dogon initiates
receive this knowledge at the last stage of instruction. The book contains spon-
taneously offered Dogon illustrations of the symbols used in their sacred drawings
and a Dogon exegesis of the myth and of accompanying rites. It is offered as a source
book for comparative religion on the themes of sacrifice, totemism, African astronomy,
and many other matters. The authors do not intervene in the role of critics, or even
as interpreters. They are mere editors of work in which the Dogon themselves
express their own thought. This means to some extent that the future researcher is
expected to do his own field-work in the two volumes to produce and test his own
hypotheses. One drawback of this method is that two volumes are short for present-
ing all the data about the religious doctrines of a culture. Some selection has evidently
1 Le Renardpdle,par Marcel Griaule et Germaine logicet langage:la parole chezles Dogon,par Genevieve
Dieterlen, Paris; Institut d'Ethnologie, 1965; Ethno- Calame-Griaule, Paris: Gallimard, I966.
 DOGON CULTURE-PROFANEAND ARCANE 17
been made. But it is difficultto know where the cuts come and to distinguish the
voice of the theologian from that of the sacristan.The other drawbackis one to
which I shallreturn:any wish to know more thanthe Dogon themselvesknow about
the relationof cultureto society is naturallyfrustrated.
Ethnologieet langage,by contrast, carries the stamp of the author's mind and
training.Lucid, methodical,and penetrating,this is a model for ethnolinguists,but
it is not a book about a languagefrom the linguistic point of view. Ratherit is an
account of Dogon reflectionsupon language in general and on their language in
particular.M. Leenhardhas done something of the kind in Melanesiamuch earlier
(1947) and D. Zahanfor the Bambara(I963). This volume is a remarkableaddition
to the range, not only because of the elegance of presentationbut because of the
profound insights of the authoras well as of the Dogon themselves.
The late Professor Griaulewas fond of insisting that the wisdom of the Dogon
matchedthat of any of the great classicalcultureswhich have formed the European
tradition.The solid basis for his enthusiasmis now madevery clearby his daughter's
accountof what might be calledthe Dogon theoryof knowledgeand sociolinguistics.
Subtletyfor subtlety and insight for insight a close comparisonbetween Logosand
Dogon So: would be fascinating,though of course the insights are not the same in
the two cultures. Equally interestingwould be a comparisonof sexual symbolism,
the idea of dualityin Plato,say,andin Dogon. Here,insteadof underliningsimilarities,
I wish to fastenattentionupon certaincrude differences,for it is starklyclearthatthe
Dogon attitudeof mind, for all its wisdom, could never have become the progenitor
of modern civilization. We have here the opportunity of recognizing what is
essentiallycharacteristicof the primitive culture.
The Dogon have created out of their reflectionson speech a symbolic structure
uniformlyembracingtheirentireuniverse.The grainof millet in its husk-the human
foetus in its placenta-the world in its atmosphericenvelope are each analogs of the
others. The constituentmaterialsand morphology of speech are seen to correspond
to those of cereals,of man, of woven cloth, of the whole cosmos. The same intricate
harmony of images is drawn down and across from one level of experienceto the
next. Reading it is like gazing through a microscope at a flourishingform of life,
confusingly alien and familiar.An aperturemay be the mouth of a monster, of a
dwelling, or of a man; plantsand animalsexchangetheir characteristicsand fish have
drollyhuman faces; women are less like humansthan cosmic powers, while men are
less like men than solemn ritual figures on processionalbanners, with sudden un-
expected lapses into human vanity. The lens through which the Dogon see them-
selves in this way is their theory of speech.
Manyprimitiveculturesuse one relativelynarrowrangeof experiencefor develop-
ing a symbolic code. Nilotic peoples do this to some extent with cattle symbolism.
Lienhardthas shown how such primaryexperiencesas those of colour are mediated
for Dinka childrenby prior referenceto cattle colours; a man's image of himself is
mediatedby his identificationwith an ox, his experienceof society is summedup in
a seriesof animalsacrificeswhich give materialfor profoundreflectionson the nature
of life and truth (Lienhardt, I96I); Ndembu develop something comparableby
reflecting on the common qualities of juicy elements in men and trees: different
coloured saps are classifiedwith blood and milk and bile and from their likenesses
c
 i8 DOGON CULTURE-PROFANE AND ARCANE
a cosmic harmony is derived (Turner, 1966). The Bushmen, reflecting on the mor-
phology of human and animal bodies, have developed what Levi-Strauss has called
anatomical totemism. And so on. But the originality of the Dogon in this list is that
they confer an intellectual unity on experience by reflecting thus on the nature,
power, and effects of language.
On first view this would presuppose a degree of self-consciousness about the pro-
cesses of thought which would lift their culture clear out of the class of primitives.
If they are capable of self-reflection, if they can put speech itself on a slide and inspect
and analyse it, they should be brought forward at once to take their place in the
twentieth century where such self-analysis is the favourite occupation of philosophers
and artists. The prospect is an exciting one. It is not fantastic to hope that the fully
recorded epistemology of an ancient West African culture should produce a kind of
breakthrough for us. It could at least produce a new perspective such as that pro-
duced in European art at the turn of the century by the impact of African sculpture.
Sociolinguists may well find in this book that points of view which they are struggling
now to assert, such as the total relevance of social context to the study of language,
have long been accepted by Dogon colleagues. However, without being a linguist
myself, I hazard the guess that the Dogon approach is not likely to provoke startling
new sets of hypotheses. For experience which is mediated by an elaborate cosmic
symbolism based on speech itself is scarcely more universal or less hidebound within
the circle of its metaphors than experience which is mediated by cattle, tree, or food
symbolism. Perhaps more restricted. Thought needs to be free and agile for per-
forming the acrobatics of introspection, but Dogon thought is weighed down by
the embellishments of its speech symbolism.
It starts off with an encouragingly empirical set of discriminations. The Dogon
divide the world into two categories, those with and those without speech. Babies
and animals are in the latter class, for speech is essentially the faculty of speaking an
articulated and meaningful language. All living beings have voice and so do musical
instruments, but the latter have a form of speech of their own. To some extent every
social interaction presupposes an exchange of words and every individual action is
a form of expression: speech, therefore, is synonymous with action. Action is the final
outcome of speech and speech is the instrument of thought. At one end of the scale
thought counts as a form of speech, for one uses words for thinking without giving
them voice. At the other end, social intercourse is speech at its most vital and effective.
The biological processes by which speech and thought are related are quaintly
mechanistic. The different elements of speech are diffused in the form of water
throughout the body. When a man speaks the words issue as steam, the water of
speech having been heated by the heart. If a thought is not expressed in speech, then
it is cooled by the pancreas and retains its watery state, but it can always be re-heated.
So thought is a latent form of speech: a thought which does not seek expression in
words is not a thought at all.
Dogon reflections on speech are inevitably interwoven with their conception of the
nature of man, of his place and destiny in the universe. Speech is the means of expres-
sing social rules, tradition, etiquette, and learning. The universe is the work of a
creator whose act of creating is speech itself. His world is entirely composed of
signs, nothing in it is without significance for men.
 DOGON CULTURE-PROFANEAND ARCANE 19
The author'suse of the word ' humanism' to describethis man-centredreligious
world-view is very Durkheimian.It runscounterto the usage of Renaissancescholars
who use humanismfor the shatteringof the primitive,anthropomorphicworld-view
of medievalChristianity.Here again,as much as with Platonicmetaphysics,a parallel
could well be drawnbetween the Dogon idea of the body as an image of the cosmos
and the Christiandoctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, the marriageof Christ
with the Church, the physical world of signs and messages from God to man,
and so on.
How the Dogon discern the constituent parts of speech depends on the Dogon
view of personality.This involves their complex numericalsymbolism, which has
often been discussed in other publications.Here the Dogon part company frankly
with empiricalobservation.The human body has 22 parts: 22 is the key numberof
the universe and the basis of all taxonomy. They arrive at 22 in a highly arbitrary
fashion. The first 9 parts of the body are feet, shins, thighs, lumbarregion, stomach,
chest, arms, neck, and head. So, puzzlingly, the 2 feet only count as I, the z thighs
as i more. To this basic 9, which henceforthtakes on the symbolicrepresentationof
the human body, is added io for the io fingers-thus making 19. Nineteen again
takes on significanceas a base numberfor representinga human person. To this is
added 3, the numberof the male sex, which gives 22. Thus we startwith a numerical
symbolismwhose units are arrivedat, not by simple counting, but by a process of
evaluation and summation.Blood, which includes all bodily liquids, irrigates and
gives life to the body as rivers to the earth: it includesa substance,blood-oil, which
gives strength and health and procreativepower and plays an essential part in the
production of speech. When it comes to the eight invisible grains of cereal which
are thought to lie in the clavicles, we are far from observed realityand fully in the
realmof metaphysics.Their irrigation,drying,and germinationdeterminethe course
of an individual'slife and speech. Finallythere is nyamaor vital force, a fluid carried
by the blood, geneticallydifferentiatedfor each individual.Nyamareactspowerfully
to speech. The composition of the personalityis analysed in much more minute
detail with significantvariationsfor male and female such that each sex carriescom-
ponents of the other sex in complementarypositions and qualitiesand is differently
linked to the terrestrialwaters of marshand stream.In the last analysisthe human
being appearswith a materialframe,the body, distinct from the externalworld but
in close osmosis with it thanksto the circulationof common elementsthrough both.
The humanperson is not closed but open to its environmentand bathing in it. But
persons are separatefrom other persons and speech is like a canal, affordingcom-
municationbetween them. As Dogon considerspeechas an emanationof the human
being, they also see it as duplicatingall the essentialcharacteristicsof bodily existence.
The body of speechis sound formed,like the humanbody and like the earth,of water,
air, earth, and fire. Wateris necessaryto speech as it is to all living things: without
saliva speech becomes dry; air is the basis of the sound vibrationsand it carriesthe
steam chargedwith sound; earth gives speech its weight or meaning; the structure
of the discourse correspondsto the skeleton of the body, this distinguishesspeech
from noise; fire is the warmth of speech, it can be burning or cold accordingto the
mood of the speaker.Speechalso containsoil which makesit unctuousand pleasing.
Speechis articulatedand sexed,like the body. High pitchis feminine,low is masculine.
20 DOGON CULTURE-PROFANE AND ARCANE
It too contains grains of cereal; empty, vain words are without interest or result.
The nyama or vital force of speech derives from that of the speaker, and it carries
power and conviction. Like the nyama of a person, it is borne along in the blood-
stream of the body and finally depends on the water in the body. The decision to
speak is taken in the head, where the brain communicates with the clavicles via the
larynx. The clavicles are likened to a granary, guardian of the spiritual principles
and of speech, source of vital energy; the grains contained therein bathe in water
and are perpetually in a state of germination, producing the energy which circulates
in the body with blood. When the words chosen by the brain begin to stir up the
liver, the pressure produced by the filling of the lungs sends the steam up to the
clavicles which have a final part in authorizing the speech to come out of the mouth.
There is no need here to follow the detailed analysis of speech production which
derives from this crude physiology and simple psychology of cold and hot emotions.
Nor is it necessary to summarize the detailed classification of forty-eight types of
speech, except to say that each is assigned to a type of work, an animal species, a part
of the anatomy, certain plants and insects, and to one or other sex.
So far from producing a modern linguistic philosophy in a primitive setting, the
Dogon have merely used their linguistic sophistication to create another highly
structured type of symbolic patterning-a totemism of linguistics, as it were. To take
one example, the first of the forty-eight types of speech may be translated as trivial
speech whose motif idea is aimless scattering. Its corresponding word is the broad-
cast scattering of seed by the farmer; the animal is the red monkey who raids the
fields and disperses the efforts of the farmer; they also compare the Fulani pastoralists
to the red monkey since he waits till the farmer has finished for pasturing his live-
stock: the bodily organ is the stomach, since the red monkey does not digest the
millet which he has gobbled up greedily, and is subject to diarrhoea-another
kind of scattering; the corresponding plants are cereals of too poor a quality to
keep for seed, but suitable for beer; grasshoppers are associated with this kind of
speech since they defecate as fast as they eat, suggesting profitless activity; the sex is
feminine.
The forty-eight kinds of speech are divided into two groups, one under the sign
of Nommo, the other under the sign of Yourougou. This division relates to the
myth of creating of the universe. Amma, the creator god, first made two androgynous
twins; one of these revolted against paternal authority and committed incest with
the Earth, its mother. The other saved the world by his self-sacrifice. The first was
turned into a pale fox for his crime, the second, Nommo, brought its human, animal,
and plant populations to the earth and took over from the creator the mastery of
speech. Nommo and the Fox, his brother, are in continual conflict. According to the
author, the Fox represents fallen humanity, subject to its own destructive instincts;
Nommo represents humanity idealized and triumphant. The speech of Nommo is
human speech; the speech of the Fox is mute, a language of signs made by his paws
and only able to be interpreted by an initiated diviner.
But the forty-eight recognized kinds of speech are not all human speech, nor are
they divided equally between human speech under the sign of Nommo and divinatory
signs under the Fox. The twenty-four classes of Nommo are balanced against those
of the Fox as follows.
 DOGON CULTURE-PROFANE AND ARCANE 21

Nommo Fox
i. trivial speech I. false promises
2. commercialspeech 2. contradiction
3. angry speech 3. stuttering
4. gay speech 4. truth (unexpressed)
5. confidentialspeech 5. apology
6. divinatory speech 6. dream speech
7. riddles 7. insults and breachesof taboo
8. judgements (of old men) 8. truth (expressed)
9. judgements (of head priest) 9. congratulationson a marriage
io. scolding Io. disputes and ritual songs of masks
I . names i. courtship
12. threats 12. children's ritual games of theft
I3. internal speech 13. seeking the truth
I4. last words 14. learning to speak
15. numbers 5. concerning impurity of circumcision
I6. traditions I6. formulas of healing and sorcery
17. circumcision and excision 17. bad fortune and mourning
i 8. purificationrites 18. love-making of spouses
I9. thanks 19. menstruating women
20. beer drinking 20. burial and death
z2. prayers 2I. taking up an old matter
22. commands 22. boasting

23. discussions about inheritance 23. irrelevant speech

24. forbidden subjects 24. nasalizedspeech
There is a complex interplay in these ideas with the symbolism of sex and of life
and death. The world of the Fox inverts the associations and values of the world of
Nommo by means of a very complex parallelism of opposites. It is too simple to say
that the Fox has the world of night and death and obscurity, Nommo of day and life
and clarity. One can only admire the cool dexterity with which Madame Calame-
Griaule draws out the contrasts in her bold but subtle hypotheses.
The third part of the book is concerned with speech in social life. The growth of
a child to maturity is treated as a progressive acquisition of the adult speech appro-
priate to its sex and accompanied by rituals averting the dangers of bad forms of
speech and encouraging the growth of good forms. Each recognized social situation
is defined by its type of speech and speaking roles, though not as unequivocally as
Nuer define kinship by cattle transfers. For example, the relative inferiority and
unreliability and irrationality of the female sex is continually symbolized by these
means.
Inarticulate forms of speech lie in the area of communication which most interests
me and to which I myself would be disposed to come to the Dogon for enlighten-
ment if I were more optimistic about the wider application of their ideas. The object
of all behavioural sciences is somehow to go behind the external forms of behaviour
and to discover other information than that which is overtly expressed. Since the
latter is often puzzling and contradictory, some of it often makes better sense when
its hidden aspects are revealed. Silence, hesitation, contradiction, and confused speech,
are as interesting as clear speech. But Dogon comments on these show no special
22 DOGON CULTURE-PROFANE AND ARCANE
profundity. As presented here they recall the researcher who is content to classify his
matter rather than to recognize and solve a problem. The speech of the drunkard has
neither oil nor grain, it has more beer than water, it is gusty and goes in big zigzags.
False promises are equivalent to theft. At this level of interpretation the Dogon seem
not to know the experience of having one sort of speech rise up in the mind while
another sort involuntarily issues from the mouth. At the level of linguistic analysis
they seem to be so impressed by speech as a thing in itself that they never con-
template words as representing experiences which might have assumed alternative
expression. They can hardly entertain a Whorfian hypothesis about the interaction
between language and thought, since they allow for no difference between the two.
Though they know that a man can utter lies they do not here admit that he can be
deceived himself by the power of his own words.
To compare their theory of speech with that of our linguists reminds me of the
riddle about training the mind and minding the train. Both are structuralists but the
Dogon structure their analysis while the linguists analyse structures. For example,
when Professor Halliday declares that all behavioural activity can be analysed on the
double axis of chain and choice, he proceeds to draw an analogy between the struc-
ture of selections which can be made in eating and in speaking. The distinction
between range of possible breakfast foods and range of possible meals in the day
equally applies to a distinction between grammatical selections (I961). The Dogon
also draw parallels between language and food, as they do between language and
everything else. Halliday may not derive from his analogies an argument in favour
of a particular breakfast cereal or for the subjection of women. But when the Dogon
are drawing their complex pattern of analogies they are directly sustaining a political
concept. They are not rejoicing in a spirit of inquiry, but celebrating a particular
social order. This is why I am dubious about the late Professor Griaule's comparison
of Dogon with the most significant aspects of Greek philosophy. There is no scope
in such an atmosphere of thought for a Hippocrates to demand empirical evidence
for the grains of cereal in the clavicle. Madame Calame-Griaule herself notes this
rigidity when she asks what place is allowed to freedom in Dogon esteem.
... on peut craindreque trop de codifications n'aboutissenta un formalisme sterile, qui
rameneraitla societe au peril d'immobilismequ'elle voulait justementeviter. Nous pouvons
nous demanderquelle place la societe Dogon fait a la liberte.
And here she answers the question posed above concerning Dogon sophistication
about the relation between words and the reality they signify, the relation between
form and content, language and thought, and the rest.
Divination, by consulting the obscure sign language of the Fox, precisely aims at
freedom from the formal conditions of knowledge. Divination gives access to a
reality which is free of the restrictive frame of time. Undoubtedly the Dogon have
recognized that behind the world of spoken interactions there are other important
relations to be known. At the levels at which they themselves are so articulate they
seem to have completely separated the understanding of overt human behaviour
from the understanding of hidden motivations. But I have no doubt that at the less
articulate but practical level the two theories fuse together, each complementing the
other.
 DOGON CULTURE-PROFANEAND ARCANE 23
Most unfortunatelythis practicallevel of interactionis not recorded.Griauleand
Paulme have published accounts of how the system of interpretationwould work,
with hypotheticalcases. But thereis no study of an actualdivinatorysession, still less
of any relatedseries of divinations.M. Griaule'sNotes surla Divination par le Chacal
do not tell what social acumen or what externalsources of informationthe diviner
uses to guide his interpretationor what social situationsare changed by divination.
Denise Paulmelikewise (I937) examinesthe techniqueof divinationbut not its social
context. If only the high metaphysicalsubtletyof the Frenchcould be alliedwith the
low sociological cunning of the Anglo-Saxon. Then we could hope for the Dogon
to come alive off their processionalbannersand enact for us just how individualsuse
these oraculartechniquesfor manipulatingreal situations. Sorcerersare mentioned
ten times by MadameCalame-Griauleas associatedwith impurity, with night, dis-
covered by divination,and so on. But who gets accusedof sorceryand for what sort
of offence? An insight such as Steiner'sanalysisof truth( 954) or Lienhardt'srelation
of truth to social reality in Dinka sacrifice(op. cit.) or Mrs. Elizabeth Marshall
Thomas'sgraphicdescription(1965)of Dodoth divinationfor predictingcattle raids,
would marvellouslyilluminatethese records.
This dividing line which the Dogon drawbetweentwo kinds of languageand truth
also divides anthropologyinto two parts: in the partof Nommo, systematicanalyses
of formal symbolic structures;in the part of the Fox, systematicattemptsto pierce
the veil of recorded utterancesand reach hidden knowledge about those obscure
areasof experiencein which symbolicforms are generatedand have effect.I have said
that the two works underreview are basedon the Dogon officialview of themselves.
But they do not seek to relate informants'statementsto practice.Thus they fail to
observe any contradictionbetween ideal and actual. The authors accept the system
as the Dogon themselvesdescribeit, and are content with very summarystatements
of the social structure.Quick though they are to see movementand dynamismin the
realm of ideas, they still present Dogon society as a static, conflict-free system.
Griaule-Dieterlensay that Dogon marriageis stable(p. 28) and Calame-Griaulesays
it is very unstable (p. 324). The analysisof social institutions is so simple that the
contradiction does not matter. They are content with bluntly asserting that the
symbolic structureaccords with the social structure,but social structureis under-
stood in a very broad sense as relationsbased on age, sex, and authority.
Or, chezles Dogon, commeailleurs,l'organisation
sociale,politiqueet l'economiesont
en interdependanceavec le systemedes croyances,ceci en fonctiond'une apprehension
globale,dansla vie sociale,du mondesurnaturel,du mondedes vivantset de celui des
ancetres. (Griaule-Dieterlen,p. 24.)
But what a pity to leave this interdependenceat such a level of generality-' comme
ailleurs'.
Many dual systemsof cosmology have been recorded,and dual social systemstoo.
Duality in itself is now too gross a concept for classification.At this time it would be
marvellousto know whether particularvarieties of dualismare associatedwith any
particularvarietiesof social structure.It is possible to imagineseveralways in which
the four tribal groupings of the Dogon interactto produce a social duality which
might relate dynamicallyto their world view. But who would be content to leave it
24 DOGON CULTURE-PROFANE AND ARCANE
to the imagination? The relations of the lineages and four tribes could be sustained
by straight structural opposition of the Nuer-Tiv type, or it could be based on a
Tallensi model of complementary interaction, as David Tait once worked out (I 95).
It need not be based on structural opposition at all, but if it is we would like to know
at what level and in what contexts the oppositions are overcome. Whereas at the
level of sacred symbolism, a follower of the Greek Orthodox rite might have much
in common with a member of the American Episcopalian church, at the level of
ideas about conscience, death, and judgement they might disagree profoundly. The
English social anthropologist has a traditional bias to curiosity about the latter
kinds of disagreement. What do the Dogon think about sin ? It is not enough to dig
in their mythology for the answer. Without going back to Robertson-Smith, we
know that Calvinists and Catholics with access to the same sacred myths have different
ideas of evil. The presentation of their myths and cosmological ideas rouses a longing
to reach the hidden areas of Dogon social experience, the arcane knowledge which
only the esoteric techniques of the sociologist can reveal. But we cannot have
recourse to the Fox to reveal the secret sphere which lies behind and across the formal
Dogon view of themselves.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CALAME-GRIAULE, G. I965. Ethnologieet langage. Paris.

GRIAULE, M. 1948. Dieu d'eau,EntretiensavecOgotommeli.Paris.
I937. ' Notes sur la Divination par le Chacal', Bulletindu Comiti d'lltudes Historiqueset Scientifiquesde
l'Afrique occidentalefran.aise, xx. 1-2, pp. 113-41.
GRIAULE, M. and DIETERLEN, G., I965. Le Renardpdle. Paris.
HALLIDAY, MICHAEL. 196I. 'a Ctegories of the Theory of Grammar ', Word,xvii. 241-92.
LIENHARDT, R. G. 1961. Divinity and Experience:the Religionof the Dinka. London.
MARSHALL THOMAS, ELIZABETH.I965. WarriorHerdsmen. New York and London.
PAULME, DENISE. 1937. 'La Divination par les Chacals chez les Dogons de Sanga ', Journalde la Socidtedes
Africanistes,vii. I-I5.
STEINER, FRANZ. I954. 'Chagga Truth ', Africa, xxiv. 4, pp. 364-9.
TAIT, DAVID. I950. ' An Analytical Commentary on the Social Structure of the Dogon ', Africa, xx. 3,
pp. I75-89.
TURNER,V. W. I966. ' Colour Classification in Ndembu Ritual ', AnthropologicalApproachesto the Studyof
ASA, 3, edit. Banton,M. London.
Religion,

Resume
CULTURE DOGON- QUESTIONS PROFANES ET ARCANES
DEUX nouveaux ouvrages concernantles rites et le langage chez les Dogon, permettentde
mettre en relation leurs conceptions mdtaphysiqueset la tradition europeenne et de com-
parer les points de vue des anthropologues frangais et anglais. Le regrette Professeur
Griauleinsistaitsur les similitudesque l'on trouve dansles cosmologies Grecqueet Dogon,
mais les differencesne sont pas moins instructives. Nombre de cultures africainesutilisent
un champ d'expdriencelimite pour developper le code de leurs symboles cosmiques. Les
Nilo-Hamitiques font preuve d'un symbolisme reposant sur le betail, les Ndembu d'un
symbolisme base sur les secretions corporelles, les Bushmen utilisent une morphologie
animale, les Dogon expriment leur savoir au moyen d'un symbolisme linguistique et
numerique que l'on peut considerer comme une sorte de totemisme linguistique. Le
 DOGON CULTURE-PROFANE AND ARCANE 25
systemeest des plus arbitraires,pas du tout empiriqueet rigide. Ii est evident que la structure
sociale a laquelle appartient cette cosmologie, n'est pas pour encourager les querelles
philosophiques. C'est la une grande diffdrenceavec la Grece d'Hippocrate.Les diffdrences
entre les centresd'interetde l'anthropologiechez les Anglais et chez les Fran~ais,se signalent
par le manque d'information, chez ces derniers, concernant l'interaction de la structure
sociale et de la cosmologie, la preeminenceetant donnee a cette derniere.Ces etudes ethno-
graphiquesfournissent le point de vue officiel que les Dogons ont d'eux-memes;elles ne se
contentent pas d'exposer les declarationsd'informateurs,et ainsi il n'y a aucune divergence
entre les idees et la realite. On a deja etudie de nombreuxsystemesdualistesen cosmologie
ainsi que des organisationssocialesdualistes.Il est possible que l'importancede la gemelleite,
dans la culture Dogon, corresponde a un fait social d'opposition entre deux lignages. De
toutes faSons, tous les rapports pouvant exister entre leur cosmologie et leur structure
sociale valent la peine d'etre pris en consideration.

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS NUMBER

R. G. WILLIS. Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh;
did fieldwork among the Fipaof South-WestTanzaniabetweenDecemberI962 and June 1964;authorof
TheFipa andRelatedPeoplesof South-West TanzaniaandNorth-EastZambia(EthnographicSurveyof Africa,
East CentralAfrica,PartXV), I966, and variouspapers.
MARY DOUGLAS. Readerin Anthropology,UniversityCollege London; authorof The Lele of the Kasai
(I963), PurityandDanger(I966) and numerouspapers.
W. D. HAMMOND-TOOKE. Professorof SocialAnthropologyandHeadof Departmentof AfricanStudies,
Rhodes University;author of BhacaSociety(I962) and numerousstudiesand paperson the CapeNguni.
D. J. SIDDLE.Lecturerin Geography,Universityof Zambia,Lusaka;did fieldwork in SierraLeonewhile
Lecturerin Geographyat FourahBay College; now working on a study of spatialfeaturesof social and
economicchangein Africa.
GERALD MOORE.Now teachingliterature in the Schoolof AfricanandAsianStudies,Universityof Sussex;
between I953 and I966 taught successivelyat the Universitiesof Ibadan,Hong Kong, and East Africa;
authorof SevenAfricanWriters( 962), Modern fromAfrica(I963) and numerousarticles.
Poetry
MARGARETPEIL. Lecturerin Sociology,Universityof Ghana;has done field work in Ghanaon a project
concerningsocialmobilityand aspirations,and is the authorof variouspapers.