Rhoda Bubendey Métraux to Yvonne Oddon

Collection contains letters to Yvonne Oddon from Alfred Métraux, with one folder of letters to Oddon from Rhoda Bubendey Métraux. The letters from Alfred Métraux describe his work as founder and director of the Institute of Ethnology at the University of Tucumán in Argentina, and as a Fellow of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and his teaching appointments at the University of California, Berkeley and at Yale. Also discussed are his expeditions throughout South America, Africa, and Easter Island, his trip to Europe immediately after the end of World War II, and his involvement with Unesco and their projects in the Amazon River region and Haiti. The letters also describe the writing and publishing of many of his works.

Many of the letters are personal in nature, and discuss his relationship with Oddon, his first wife, Eva Métraux, and his second wife, Rhoda Bubendey Métraux. They also describe his often difficult relationship with his work and his collegues, including Peter Henry Buck, Elizabeth Dijour, Henri Alfred Lavachery, Michel Leiris, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Robert Harry Lowie, Paul Rivet, Georges Henri Rivière, André Schaeffner, Jacques Soustelle, and others. The letters from Rhoda Métraux discuss their family life, her concern for Oddon after the war, Alfred's work, and her own work and studies.