The Musée d'Ethnographie de Genève was originally founded in 1901 through the initiative of Eugene Pittard, professor of anthropology at the University of Geneva. Housed in several locations throughout the twentieth century, the museum completed its installation in its two present locations in 1975.
The museum's collections, which are considered to be the second most important grouping of ethnographic objects in Switzerland, are combined of elements of former collections from a variety of other museums, including the Musée archéologique de Genève, Musée Ariana, Musée de la Société des Missions évangéliques, and the Musée historique genevois. The earliest origins of the collection can be traced back to the Académie de Calvin (1559), which for many years was the only cultural institution in Geneva. In 1725, the Académie amassed its historical and ethnographic objects in the form of a chambre de curiositées which would later be assimilated by a number of Geneva's nineteenth century historical museums.
Today, the museum preserves approximately 80,000 ethnographic objects. The African collection, consisting of more than 17,000 objects, includes sculptures, weapons, tools, utensils, ornaments, clothing, paintings, pottery, furniture, and more, covering the great diversity of the entire continent. The Americas are represented by a group of 12,000 objects from pre-Columbian cultures stretching from the Amazon to Greenland. The Asian collection covers a vast region, from Palestine to Borneo, and consists of more than 14,000 objects, some of which date back to 2,000 B.C. The Oceanic collection comprises some 5,000 objects, with 2,000 originating from New Guinea and 900 from Australia. Highlights include a rare seventeenth century feather coat from the Hawaiian Islands and an overmodeled human skull from New Ireland.