After a career as a banker in Geneva, Georges Barbey (1884-1963) devoted himself to his passion, travelling. At the time he was a friend of the Ethnography Museum’s director Eugène Pittard and became the president of the Ethnography museum’s Friends Society. He donated some 1 129 objects brought back from his travels to the museum. Among these were the totem poles which “standing at the entrance to the museum are the very symbol of Georges Barbey’s generosity and love of the Ethnography Museum” according to Marguerite Lobsiger-Dellenbach. L. Monot/MEG