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The MEG has over 700 items – everyday tools, weapons, jewellery and prestigious diplomatic gifts – testifying to the strong links between the southern African kingdoms and the Protestant missionaries who invested that immense territory in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the wake of David Livingstone, these explorers and cartographers, but more importantly men of God, founded numerous mission stations.
During his expedition in South Africa in 1895, the Genevan traveller Alfred Bertrand, accompanied by English officers, crossed "the threshold of central Africa" beyond the Zambezi River and discovered the kingdom of the Barotse. He was welcomed by the local chiefs with numerous presents and in turn gave them the trade goods he had brought with him. These "prestige objects" were regarded as "diplomatic" gifts by the chiefs of societies that had recently come under missionary influence and were soon to come under colonial control. Bertrand showed his collections and hunting trophies at the national exhibition in Geneva in 1896.
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