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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The father's bowl: analysis of a Dogon version of AT 480
Author:Calame-Griaule, G.ISNI
Year:1984
Periodical:Research in African Literatures
Volume:15
Issue:2
Pages:168-184
Language:English
Geographic term:Mali
Subjects:Dogon
girls' initiation
folk tales
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/4618102
Abstract:The tale of the kind and unkind girls (AT 480) is one of the most widely distributed in the world. It seems deeply rooted in the majority of African cultures. The author discusses the significance of this tale by treating an African example collected in 1969 among the Dogon (Mali). During initiation a child undergoes essential corporal transformations (circumcision, excision. etc.) that make him or her a sexually differentiated being - an adult capable of procreation. Initiation, in effect, is a conquest not only of knowledge and social virtues, but also (and perhaps above all) of fecundity. This initiatory scheme can be found, transposed into symbolic form, in the Dogon version of the kind and unkind girls. App., notes.
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