The items in this display, collected during the second half of the 19th century, are examples of collections that were made in connection with war. Henric Ankarcrona (1831-1917) enlisted as a young officer in the French army and took part in the colonial campaigns in North Africa in 1859-60.
Some of the battles were later depicted by Ankarcrona in drawings and oil paintings, which are now at Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. It was after the fighting south of the city of Ghazaouet in Algeria that Ankarcrona took his war booty from Kabyle and Arabs in the area.
The Swedish businessmen Knut Knutson and Georg Waldau were in Cameroon from 1883 onwards where they traded and travelled around the area. Germany occupied the territory in 1884 and ran the colony in a brutal and exploitative way.
Swedes and other small-scale traders participated in, and were caught up in, the many conflicts between indigenous political entities and the German colonial administration. According to Knutson, he took his wooden sculpture during a battle with Bomboko people in February 1889.