Le Renard Pâle par M. Griale et G.Dieterlen, 1965, 1ère éd. unique, pour collection le plus cher

Published by Institute of Ethnology, Paris, 1965 
Paperback volume, with blue illustrated jacket
544 pages, with numerous color and black & white illustrations, b&w photographs, sketches, maps and drawings, 
including several on tinted backgrounds.

Le renard pâle (Pale Fox) is a French ethnographic work on the Dogon (West African) creation myth, published in 1965. Although Griaules ethnographic methods have come under attack (see van Beek, document no. 31), this is nevertheless an impressive work. 
The myth tightly weaves together Dogon ideas about language, anatomy, astronomy, botany, the landscape, and genealogy. Could the 
creation myth be a mnemonic device for storing and transmitting Dogon knowledge? The myth represents the accumulated knowledge 
of Dogon elders, underlying their authority, and serving as a blueprint for Dogon social life. It is also an epistemolgy, in which ideas are 
thought to emerge through a hierarchy of symbols: from traces (BUMMO) to signs (YALA) to figures (TONU).