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In the Gourmantche rural education in Burkina Faso, the use of parables in tales urges young people to seek riddles about the visible and invisible reality. The classical school rejects this type of heuristic method by instrumentalising tales and denying the existence of local knowledge. Schools using « local languages » develop a new culture which is supposed to link school knowledge with local knowledge. But this knowledge is selected according to unclarified principles « creolised ». Besides, teaching material conditions make it difficult to generalize them all over the country. The article focuses on the analyses of pedagogical supports (tales, school manuals and booklets in gourmantche) as well as teaching practices.