Endangered ethnohistories: preserving and digitising the DF Ellenberger ethnohistorical archive (EAP845)

History of the Basuto, Ancient and Modern, compiled by the French missionary David-Frédéric Ellenberger during the second half of the nineteenth century, remains the seminal ethnohistory of the people who today constitute the population of Lesotho. Ellenberger’s work, drawing upon thousands of interviews, details nineteenth-century (pre-industrial) Basotho religious beliefs, marriage and labour practices, land tenure, genealogies (some stretching back to the 1500s), population migrations and clan histories. It remains essential for anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, and even government administrators working in modern-day Lesotho. History covers some 400 years of ethnohistory pertaining to Bantu-speakers. Ellenberger began collecting the materials in his archive in 1866 and gathered oral histories and genealogies until 1905.

Thanks to bequests from Ellenberger and his descendants, Morija Museum and Archives (MMA, Lesotho) possesses the complete archive of History, reflecting the total process of assembling, editing and publishing this work. This includes:

• Manuscripts of Volumes One and Two of History (published between 1912-7);
• Manuscripts of the unpublished Volume Three;
• Correspondence between Ellenberger and colleagues;
• Ellenberger’s notes from interviews with informants;
• Ellenberger’s notes on other contemporary works of ethnohistory;
• Notebooks outlining the narratives within History;
• Sketch maps of significant locations within History;
• Ellenberger’s diaries; and
• Clippings from 19th century newspapers with Ellenberger’s annotations.

This archive offers a rare window onto nineteenth-century Lesotho and colonial knowledge networks. The testimonies that Ellenberger recorded, detail nineteenth-century Basotho traditions and sensibilities, and how these were changing throughout the colonial period: major concerns include the increasing role of the church in state politics and daily life, migration in Basotho history and contemporary labour schemes, and the powers of chiefs under British imperial administration.

This project will digitise the entire archive of 12,000 pages, most of which is housed in trunks in MMA. The Museum lacks the money and facilities to curate, inventory and catalogue all of its contents. Without proper conditions for storing and viewing paper materials, an estimated 30% of the Ellenberger archive has sustained damage. Documents are stacked in piles with no measures taken to preserve the paper or ink and the trunks in which they are housed are highly vulnerable to insects and mould. Knowledge of the archive’s contents currently rests with MMA’s curator – in his absence this knowledge would diminish significantly or disappear.

The fate of the Ellenberger archive remains uncertain and this project represents the best way to ensure its safety and accessibility. As well as being hosted on the British Library website, the digital archive will also be stored on a dedicated computer at MMA.