Maurice Delafosse

Fragment of Delafosse's (1904) linguistic map highlighting Nafaanra ('Nafana') in the borderland of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.

Maurice Delafosse (December 20, 1870 - November 13, 1926) was a French ethnographer and colonial official who also worked in the field of the languages of Africa. In a review of his daughter's biography of him he was described as "one of the most outstanding French colonial administrators and ethnologists of his time."^[1] Delafosse had disagreements with the French government over the administration of French Africa, and, as a result, was "more or less banned from the colonies" for a large part of his life.^[2]

Selected publications

• Delafosse, Maurice (1904), Vocabulaires comparatifs de plus de 60 langues ou dialectes parlés à la Côte d'Ivoire et dans les régions limitrophes, Paris: E. Leroux, http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb30312625k . Also available from the Internet Archive here.
• Delafosse, Maurice (1908), Les frontières de la Côte d'Ivoire, de la Côte d'Or, et du Soudan, Paris: Masson, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k95348v . Also available from the Open Library.
• Delafosse, Maurice (1912) (in French), Haut-Sénégal-Niger: Le Pays, les Peuples, les Langues; l'Histoire; les Civilizations. 3 Vols, Paris: Émile Larose . Gallica: Volume 1, Le Pays, les Peuples, les Langues; Volume 2, L'Histoire; Volume 3, Les Civilisations.
• Houdas, Octave; Delafosse, Maurice, eds. (1913), Tarikh el-fettach par Mahmoūd Kāti et l'un de ses petit fils (2 Vols.), Paris: Ernest Leroux, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5439466q . Volume 1 is the Arabic text, Volume 2 is a translation into French. Reprinted by Maisonneuve in 1964 and 1981. The French text is also available from Aluka but requires a subscription.
• Delafosse, Maurice (1916), "La question de Ghana et la Mission Bonnel de Mézières" (in French), Annuaire et Mémoires du Comité d'Etudes historiques et scientifique de l'AOF: 40–61 
• Delafosse, Maurice (1922) (in French), Les Noires de l'Afrique, Paris: Payot & Cie, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k104745q . Also available from the Internet Archive here.
• Delafosse, Maurice (1927) (in French), Les Nègres, Paris: Rieder, http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/delafosse_maurice/negres/negres.html .

References

Further reading

• Amselle, Jean-Loup; Sibeud, Emmanuelle, eds. (1998) (in French), Maurice Delafosse : entre orientalisme et ethnographie : l'itinéraire d'un africaniste, 1870-1926, Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose, ISBN 2-7068-1356-3 
• Cohen, William (1971), Rulers of Empire: the French Colonial Service in Africa, Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, http://www.webafriqa.net/library/rulers_empire/contents.html .
• Delafosse, Louise (1976) (in French), Maurice Delafosse: le Berrichon conquis par l'Afrique, Paris: Société Française d'Histoire d'Outre-mer, ISBN 2-85970-000-5 . A biography by his daughter.
• Hazard, Benoît (1998), "Orientalisme et ethnographie chez Maurice Delafosse" (in French), L'Homme 38 (146): 265–268, http://www.persee.fr/web/ouvrages/home/prescript/article/hom_0439-4216_1998_num_38_146_370469 .
• Michel, Marc (1975), "Un programme réformiste en 1919 : Maurice Delafosse et la " politique indigène " en AOF" (in French), Cahiers d'études africaines 15 (58): 313–327, http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/cea_0008-0055_1975_num_15_58_2600 .
• Wooten, Stephen R. (1993), "Colonial Administration and the Ethnography of the Family in the French Soudan", Cahiers d'études africaines 33 (131): 419–446, http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/cea_0008-0055_1993_num_33_131_1507 .

External links

List of publications on WebAfrique

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