THE METRAUX-BARTHEL CORRESPONDENCE (1956-61) AND THE METRAUX FIELD-NOTES OF EASTER ISLAND (Part One)

How did the thirty-five year-old German scholar, who in 1958 had not yet secured a university position, come to acquire priceless field-notes from one of the twentieth century's epochal voyages to Easter Island - the Franco-Belgian Expedition of 1934-35, led by Swiss ethnologist Alfred Metraux? The answer is both fascinating and informative, involving five years of increasing amity and mutual respect, as well as of an ever greater appreciation of the challenge and frustration that is Easter Island.