Ethnographic collections
40,000 artefacts from every continent
Some of the National Museum of Finland’s oldest collections are part of the ethnographic collections. Particularly the artefacts collected from the beginning of the 19th century onwards from Arctic peoples are of significance, even on a global scale. The collection obtained by A. A. Etholén, who was employed by the Russian-American Company, and the artefacts collected by linguists and cultural researchers in Siberia are invaluable sources of information about the history of the northern peoples.
People who have travelled the world for many other purposes have also acquired items for the ethnographic collections. Sailors and whalers who travelled to China and Alaska were able to acquire souvenirs, "exotic" items and samples for teaching and research purposes. Furthermore, social anthropologists, such as Edvard Westermarck, used to collect objects as part of their field work, as was customary in the beginning of the 20th century.
The collection also includes pieces of history complete with fantastic stories. C.G. Mannerheim, who served as a Colonel in the Imperial Russian Army, was sent to the east as a military intelligence officer in 1906–1908 – on horseback across Central Asia, through Tibetan territory and onwards to Beijing. He acted as a researcher, acquiring an extensive collection of artefacts from the peoples of the region and taking over a thousand photographs documenting the lives of people dwelling in deserts and oases along the ancient Silk Road.
The collections have also expanded through missionary work conducted around the world, including the Ovamboland material collected at the end of the 19th century by Martti Rautanen. Newer, sizeable donations have complemented these collections: the objects of the former museum of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission (Felm) were added to the ethnographic collections in 2015, and those of the Evangelical Free Church of Finland, collected mainly from the Himalayan peoples in the late 1800s, in 2016.
Since the 1970s, the collections have also been contributed to by diplomats and development cooperation workers who operated in different countries. Artefacts have also been received through bequests. Otherwise, the focus of acquisition has shifted to contemporary artefacts, and the purchases are usually related to exhibition and research projects.
Ethnographic collections from around the world are of interest not only to the Finnish public, but also to the descendants of their original creators, owners and users. Nowadays, the collections are more accessible to them: for example, the Ovambo artefact collection and the Alaska collection have been studied in recent years. The possible return of objects to the descendants of their original owners, an act also known as repatriation, is also an important part of ethical collecting.
Some artefacts of the ethnographic collection are also on display in the National Museum’s Object of the Month series and the Finna service.
Additional information
kokoelmatjatutkimus@kansallismuseo.fi