Alfred Metraux, described by American anthropologist Sidney Mintz as “an ethnographer’s ethnographer,” was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. He spent part of his childhood in Mendoza,Argentina, where his father worked as a medical doctor. As an anthropology student in Europe, he was trained by two notable pioneers of his discipline, Erland Nordenskiold in Goteborg, Sweden and Marcel Mauss in Paris.
From the late 1920s through the 1950s, Metraux conducted research among several Indian populations in South America, in places as varied as the Gran Chaco of Argentina and Paraguay; the Bolivian altiplano; the sierras in Peru; the rain forest of the Guyanas and Brazil, Easter Island in Chile, and Haiti in the Caribbean. He made several research trips to Benin in West Africa. In the late 1930s, Metraux taught briefly at Berkeley and at Yale Universities.
From 1940-1945 Metraux worked at the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of
American Ethnology. He was the main author of the Smithsonian’s Handbook of South American Indians, a 7-volume set considered a landmark in the field, and one of the greatest contributions by the Smithsonian Institution to Latin American studies and South American ethnology. In 1945 Metraux aided the war effort by becoming an ethnographer in the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Morale Division, which operated in Germany. After World War II, Metraux was named the first director of the Department of Social Sciences at UNESCO, where he presided over a series of nterdisciplinary studies which - within the spirit of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which he helped to compose – resulted in several publications demonstrating the absence of scientific foundation to theories of racial superiority. The 1951 UNESCO Statement on the Nature of Race and Race Differences enshrined these findings.
Metraux authored many scholarly monographs including Easter Island (1940 and 1957), Voodoo in Haiti (1958) and The Incas (1962). He was also Professor of Ethnology at the Sorbonne in Paris.
He died on Good Friday, 1963.
Alfred METRAUX

Nato a Losanna nel 1902, trascorse la sua infanzia in Mendoza, Argentina, dove suo padre era medico. Allievo di Marcel Mauss, si laurea in lettere a Parigi nel 1926 (con la tesi Religion des Tupinamba), viene naturalizzato americano nel 1941. Alfred Metraux, un nome di massimo rilievo nell'etnologia del XX° secolo, divenne membro del Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali dell'Unesco. Tra gli ultimi anni 20 e gli anni 50, conduce diverse ricerche sul campo presso tribù amerindie nel Sud America, l'isola di Pasqua (Luglio 1934), Haiti (Caraibi), nel Benin (Africa Occ.). Scrisse l' Ile de Paques del 1941, libro divulgativo che si rifà all'ampio Ethnology of Easter Island (1940), che resta la sua opera più suggestiva e, ancora oggi, punto di riferimento nella trattatistica su Rapa Nui, per la lucidità di ricerca ed esposizione scientifica; ha pubblicato nel 1958 Vaudou haitien, nel 1962 Incas. Ha insegnato etnologia alla Sorbonas di Parigi. E' morto suicida l'11 aprile 1963.

 

FAMILY. Alfred Metraux was married three times. Each of his wives was in a different way a scientific collaborator. His first wife, Eva Spiro Metraux, translated anthropological materials from English to French. His second wife, Rhoda Bubendey Metraux did research with him in Mexico, Argentina, and Haiti.Rhoda Bubendey Metraux (1914-2003), was a prominent anthropologist in the areaof cross-cultural studies, specializing in Haitian voodoo and the Iatmul of New Guinea. She collaborated with Alfred Metraux, on mutual studies of Voodoo in Haiti. Their son is Daniel Metraux, known professor and scholar of Asian Studies.

More recently, he married Fernande Schulmann who accompanied him to Chile, Peru, and Brazil and who planned to work with him in Paraguay.