Germaine Tillion is a French ethnologist, best known for her work in Algeria and for setting education programs for French prisoners. As a professor of the �cole des hautes �tudes en sciences sociales she undertook 20 scientific missions in North Africa and the Middle East. She was a member of the French resistance, she spent time in the Ravensbr�ck concentration camp. When Germaine Tillion wrote "Il �tait une fois l'ethnographie", she was in the twilight of her life; she wanted to go back over her notes and work carried out with the Berber population of the Aur�s in Algeria, between 1934 and 1940. Here she recounts her experience as a young ethnologist with humor and a unique sense of narrative.