Alfred Métraux
Alfred Métraux (born November 5, 1902 in Lausanne , † April 12, 1963 in Chevreuse ) was an ethnologist of Swiss origin. He was educated in Paris and acquired American citizenship. The work of the specialist on the peoples of Latin America as well as for Haiti and Easter Island touches on various areas such as history , archeology and ethnography .
biography
As a child, he accompanied his parents to Argentina , to the province of Mendoza , where his father worked as a doctor, and then returned to Lausanne, where he attended school. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at the École nationale des chartes in Paris , where he met Georges Bataille and Michel Leiris . He had a lifelong friendship with Bataille. He also studied at the École des langues orientales and at the École pratique des hautes études in the Department of Religious Studies . At the Sorbonne , where he studied with Professors Marcel Mauss and Paul Rivet , he defended his dissertation on the Tupinambás in 1928 .
His travels took him back to Argentina, where in 1928 he founded the Institute of Ethnology at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán in San Miguel de Tucumán , which he headed until 1934.
He toured the Chaco Province and the Bolivian plateaus and devoted himself to studying various ethnic groups such as the Calchaquís , the Guaranís , the Chiriguano, the Toba and the Wichí , then the Uro-Chipaya. Together with American anthropologists, he wrote articles on religion and mythology for the Handbook of South American Indians .
In 1933 the Musée de l'Homme in Paris decided to send an expedition to Easter Island . The project was supported by the French and Belgian governments. The French archaeologist Louis Charles Watelin was in charge of the project ; other scientific participants were the Belgian archaeologist Henri Lavachery and Alfred Métraux. With the French Aviso Rigault de Genouilly , the participants first traveled to Chile, where Watelin fell ill and died of pneumonia. On July 27, 1934, the expedition reached Easter Island and stayed until January 2, 1935. Then the participants traveled with the Belgian training ship Mercator to Pitcairn , Tahiti , the Tuamotu Archipelago , the Marquesas and Hawaii . Métraux summarized the extensive ethnological findings in his book "Ethnologie de l'île de Pâques" published in 1935.
In 1938 he was hired as a researcher at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu and then traveled to the mainland to teach at the University of Berkeley and Yale University . At the beginning of the Second World War , he got involved with his French colleagues, such as Claude Lévi-Strauss , who were threatened by Nazi Germany , so that they could go into exile in the USA. He married the anthropologist Rhoda Budendey in 1941 , this marriage lasted until 1959. In 1941 he took American citizenship and in 1945 took part in an investigation into the Allied bombing raids in Germany . The following year he became head of research in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the UN Secretariat in New York . As a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution and as a permanent member of the Department of Social Sciences of UNESCO , he led a study in Haiti from 1948 to 1950 , in which Michel Leiris also took part. It is the basis of the book Le Vaudou Haitien .
From 1959 until his death he worked at the VI. Section of the École pratique des hautes études in Paris and chaired the seminar “ethnologie et sociologie des populations indigènes d'Amérique du Sud”. He committed suicide on April 12, 1963.
plant
Alfred Métraux specialized in the study of Latin American peoples and the peoples of Polynesia , in particular the study of the farmers of Haiti and the Afro-American cults. His work on Haitian voodoo and shamanism are still considered standard works in religious anthropology.
His extensive knowledge of the autochthonous populations of South America formed the basis for his strong participation in the monumental Handbook of South American Indians (7 vols., 1946-1959), which Julian Steward published.
During his time at UNESCO he initiated numerous programs for applied anthropology , especially in the Amazon , the Andes and Haiti. He also actively fought against racism by coordinating the interdisciplinary project on which the publication of the journal Le Racisme devant la Science was based.
Anthropologists remember Alfred Métraux as an outstanding scientist, and his commitment to human rights .
Fonts (selection)
Alfred Métraux has published over 200 texts. The most important are:
- La civilization matérielle des tribus Tupi-Guarani , Paris, Paul Geuthner, 1928.
- Ethnologie de l'île de Pâques , 1935, revised new edition: L 'Ile de Pâques , Paris 1965, paperback edition, Paris: Gallimard, 1980 (Collection TEL), ISBN 9782070287512 , German last: Die Osterinsel , Frankfurt / Main: Edition Qumran at Campus-Verlag, 1989.
- Mythes et contes des Indiens Matako , 1939.
- Le Vaudou haïtien , Paris, Gallimard, 1958, German Voodoo in Haiti , Gifkendorf: Merlin, 1994
- Les Incas , Paris, Le Seuil, 1962.
- Religions et magies indiennes d'Amérique du sud , Paris, Gallimard, 1967, German cult and magic of the Indians of South America: Magi and Missionaries on the Amazon , Gifkendorf: Merlin-Verl., 2001
- Les Indiens de l'Amérique du Sud , Métaillé, 1991.
- (with Pierre Verger), Le Pied à l'étrier - Correspondance 1946-1963 , Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 1997
Secondary literature
- C. Wagley, Alfred Métraux , American Anthropologist , 66 (3), 1964, pp. 603-613.
- Claude Levi-Strauss et al. a., In memoriam Alfred Métraux , L'homme , 4 (2), 1964, pp. 5-62.
- Nostalgia du neolithique: de Lausanne à Las Lomitas; documents sur Alfred Métraux, ethnologue , published by Alain Monnier, Genève: Société d'Études Alfred Métraux [u. a.], 2003
- Yves Chemla, "Il avait les yeux comme noyés de peine ...", in Conjonction , June 2002
- "Du Pays de Vaud au pays du Vaudou", ethnologies d'Alfred Métraux , exposition au Musée d'ethnographie de Genève (December 1996 - February 1997)
- Sur la trace des Indiens disparus. Les indiens d'Alfred Métraux , documentary by Pierre-André Thiébaud, PCT Production, 2002
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Stuart Kandall: Georges Bataille. London 2007, p. 38.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Métraux, Alfred |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss-American ethnologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 5, 1902 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lausanne |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 12, 1963 |
| Place of death | Chevreuse |