The French Tradition of African Research

African research has a long tradition in France, its origin deriving from the colonial responsibilities acquired in Africa South of the Sahara. Originally the work was done by men with no scientific training who, during long sojourns in the area, tried to collect all possible information on Negro societies and cultures. Thus it was administrators (Delafosse, Tauxier, Labouret, etc.), Army men (Desplagnes, Le Hérissé, etc.), and missionaries (R. P. Trilles, etc.) who wrote the first monographs and outlined the first systematic studies. Their scientific endeavor was at first oriented toward general research. They wanted to cover all phenomena from basic ecology and material culture to social data, cultural manifestations, and mental outlook. Such listing of social and cultural items in West and Central Africa did not entirely exclude an interest in synthesis: the essays on linguistic and ethnic classification by Delafosse, the linguistic studies of Gaden and Labouret, the research on religious systems by R. P. Trilles, etc. The Bibliographie de l'Afrique Occidentale Franćaise by E. Joucla (1937), which lists more than 9,500 titles, and the Bibliographie de l'Afrique Equatoriale Française of G. Bruel (1914), including more than 7,000 titles, indicate the very considerable results obtained through the research of non-specialists working as isolated individuals. The publications of the "Comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale Française," created in 1916, consist of numerous useful works written by this first generation of French Africanists.