Germaine Dieterlen

Germaine Dieterlen (15 May 1903 in Paris – 13 November 1999 in Paris) was a French anthropologist. She was a student of Marcel Mauss, worked with noted French anthropologists Marcel Griaule (1898-1956) and Jean Rouch, wrote on a large range of ethnographic topics and made pioneering contributions to the study of myths, initiations, techniques (particularly "descriptive ethnography"), graphic systems, objects, classifications, ritual and social structure. She is most noted for her work among the Dogon and the Bambara of Mali, having lived with them for over twenty years, often in collaboration with Marcel Griaule, with whom she wrote the book The Pale Fox (1965).