Nederlands Volkenkundig Missiemuseum

History of the museum

The Stichting Nederlands Volkenkundig Missiemuseum (Netherlands Ethnographic Missionary Museum Foundation) was established in the city of Tilburg (province of Noord-Brabant) in 1932. At that time, there were several Catholic congregations active in Tilburg, each maintaining its own collection. The foundation's aim was to bring these collections together to promote the Catholic mission and to introduce the public to the religious beliefs, art, customs and traditions of the people from the mission countries. The Nederlands Volkenkundig Missie Museum opened on Paleisstraat in Tilburg in 1936 along with the Natuurhistorisch Museum Tilburg (now the Natuurmuseum Brabant). Both museums relocated several times until the closure of the ethnographic museum in 1987 due to budget cuts.

Objects loaned or donated came from various religious groups in different Catholic parts of the Netherlands, from Tilburg to Maastricht. In addition, a large number of ethnographic items were donated by private individuals.

The collection of the Ethnographic Museum comprised some 6,000 objects originating from many different areas, with a focus on South and Southeast Asia. In the 1982 Museumboek voor Noord-Brabant, Harry Verwiel describes the layout of the Ethnographic Museum at that time. Four regions were permanently represented with their own extensive collections: Latin America, Indonesia, New Guinea and Africa. The Latin America section contained many objects from pre-Hispanic tombs, such as statues of warriors, while statues of Mayan gods were also on display. The Indonesia section included leather and wooden wayang puppets, textiles, wickerwork, jewellery and statues. It also featured a large ancestral altar from the Tanimbar Islands. The New Guinea section consisted mainly of wood carvings: masks, large ancestral figures, canoes, shields and statues of gods. The Africa collection comprised masks and statues.

In order to reduce its connotations with its ecclesiastical background the museum changed its name to the Nederlands Volkenkundig Museum (Netherlands Ethnographic Museum) in 1969. After the museum closed in 1987 loans were returned, with many ending up in the Elsendael Carmelite monastery in Boxmeer. The remaining collection was transferred to the Nijmegen Ethnographic Museum, which was managed by the Catholic University of Nijmegen (now Radboud University).

The Peerke Donders Pavilion, which opened in Tilburg in 2009, uses various objects to tell the life story of Peerke Donders, who was a missionary in Suriname and the former Dutch East Indies. The Stadsmuseum Tilburg (Tilburg City Museum) also manages a collection, which includes items from the Friars of Tilburg. It mainly comprises an extensive collection of Caribbean Heritage photographs.

Provenance research

A significant portion of the archives of the Nederlands Volkenkundig Missiemuseum is available at the Regionaal Archief Tilburg (Regional Archives of Tilburg) (Tilburg Regional Archive). A description of the collection can be found in box 20. An edited version of this inventory can be found in the article Het Nederlands(ch) Volkenkundig (Missie-)Museum 1936-1986, een roomse erfenis by Cees van Raak.

Nijmegen’s Radboud University also holds a small amount of relevant archive material about the Volkenkundig Missiemuseum. This mainly consists of formal correspondence regarding the loan and repurposing of the museum collection after the closure of the Nijmeegs Volkenkundig Museum in 2005. The archive material includes two inventory lists as appendices: the 'loan collection of the Ethnographic Mission Museum Tilburg' and the 'loan collection of the Capuchin Friars of Tilburg'. The inventories only give brief descriptions of the objects (lender, name of object and place of origin). To view the archive, please contact the administrator of the Radboud University archive, Marianne Waldekker.

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