GENNEP, ARNOLD VAN (1873–1957), French anthropologist, was born in Ludwigsburg, Germany, his father a descendant of French emigrants. When van Gennep was six, his parents divorced, and his mother returned to France with him. Several years later she married a doctor who had a summer practice at a spa in the French province of Savoy. Van Gennep's attachment to this region, which he considered his adopted homeland, dates from these years. He was to travel through Savoy, village by village, collecting ethnographic and folkloric materials.

Van Gennep had a diversified and original university education at the École Pratique des Hautes Études and the École des Langues Orientales in Paris; his studies included general linguistics, ancient and modern Arabic, Egyptology, Islamic studies, and studies of the religions of primitive peoples. He possessed a rare gift for learning languages. For seven years he was in charge of...