André Raponda Walker (1871–1968) was a Gabonese author, ethnographer,

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

priest, and missionary. Walker wrote extensively about Gabonese language and culture.LFM: Social Sciences and Missions
, Page 12, December 2006, accessed 11 August 2008

Biography

Raponda-Walker was born to a Mpongwe mother, Princesse Agnorogoulè Ikoutou, niece of King Anguilè Louis Dowé,Biography of Raponds Walker
accessed 11 August 2008 and Robert Bruce Napoleon Walker, a British merchant in Gabon, and member of the Anthropological Society. The young boy spent a year in England around his fourth birthday but returned to Gabon in 1876 and started at the school of Sainte-Marie in 1877. He was ordained on 23 July 1899Historical Dictionary of Gabon
, Gardiner and Yates, 2006, accessed 11 August 2008 and his first assignment was at Notre-Dame-des-Trois-Épis in Ngounié in southern Gabon. He was the first person from Gabon to be ordained as a Catholic priest. He served at several locations in Gabon where he learnt a number of local languages and created dictionaries and lexicographies. These works are still used today. From about 1930, Monsignor Walker was one of the few missionaries still studying and documenting Gabonese anthropology, as many foreign researchers had returned to their countries of origin. Walker used interviews to gather the oral traditions of his country using his knowledge of about twelve Gabonese languages. He gathered histories of the Gabonese estuary, the N'Gounie River valley and coastal areas. Raponda-Walker retired in 1947 at

Libreville Libreville (; ) is the capital and largest city of Gabon, located on the Gabon Estuary. Libreville occupies of the northwestern province of Estuaire Province, Estuaire. Libreville is also a port on the Gabon Estuary, near the Gulf of Guinea. A ...

. He had been stationed at a number of locations in Gabon and

Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. It has an area of . Formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea, its post-independence name refers to its location both near the Equ ...

, including Sindara, Libreville, Boutika (Guinée Equatoriale), Donguila, Lambaréné, Saint-Martin (near Mouila) et au Fernan Vaz. Andre lived to see his country independent. Most of Raponda-Walker's work was published in the last few years of his life, after editing by Marcel Soret, a French ethnologist. The work contributed to a systematic project to record Gabonese culture led by

Hubert Deschamps Hubert Deschamps (13 September 1923 – 29 December 1998) was a French actor. He was the son of the museum curator Paul Deschamps (1888–1974) and uncle of the French stage director Jérôme Deschamps. Selected filmography * ''The Strolle ...

Legacy

Walker is well regarded in his country. His image appeared on one of the nation's postage stamps in 1981 and the Collège et Lycée Raponda Walker was named in his honour.

Works

* Dictionnaire mpongwè-français, suivi d'éléments de grammaire, Metz, 1934. * Essai de grammaire tsogo, Brazzaville, 1937. * Notes d'Histoire du Gabon, 1960. * Dictionnaire français-mpongwè, 1961. * Les Plantes utiles du Gabon (with Roger Sillans), Paris, Le Chevalier, 1961, 614 p. (Coll. Encyclopédie biologique, 56). * Rites et croyances des peuples du Gabon (with Roger Sillans), 1962. * Contes gabonais, 1967.

References

Bibliography

* Jeremy Rich, "Maurice Briault, André Raponda Walker and the Value of Missionary Anthropology in Colonial Gabon", Social Sciences and Missions (Leiden Brill), N°19/December 2006, pp. 65–89 * Jeremy Rich, “André Raponda Walker,” ''Dictionary of African Biography''. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. & Emmanuel Akyeampong. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming {{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Andre Raponda 1871 births 1968 deaths Gabonese writers Gabonese male writers Gabonese clergy Gabonese Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Gabon Roman Catholic missionaries in Equatorial Guinea Lexicographers 20th-century Belgian Roman Catholic priests Missionary linguists