Photo: detail of a woman's necklace also worn as a charm by elephant hunters. The beaded discs of hide represent elephant eyes.

Being careful not to disturb the natives, Alan Morrison bravely made his way to see the l

Move past the satirical Tanzanian wood figures of pith-helmeted colonial officials and the Zulu calf-hide shields.

Pause for a moment by the sinister, crow-black raffia costume of the Sande and its imposing, oddly-proportioned wooden mask. Now come into the Missionary Collectors exhibition, on show in the James Green Gallery of World Art at Brighton Museum.

James Green explored the unmapped regions of Burma during the 1920s where he was commissioned to recruit local Kachin men for the British Army.

He accumulated a vast knowledge of the people and their language, earning a Cambridge diploma in Anthropology, and brought back vast quantities of memorabilia.

In 1992 the James Green Trust chose Brighton Museum to house the collection, which became the permanent James Green Gallery of World Art.

Photo: woman's necklace also worn as a charm by elephant hunters.

For a limited time, the gallery is exhibiting the extraordinary collections of other Victorian missionaries, which beg to be explored.

Penny Marlowe, Assistant Curator at the gallery explained how the idea for the exhibition came through contact with a descendant of one of the missionaries, Reverend William Willoughby who was also a former Brighton minister.

"Some of the things the missionaries brought back were everyday ephemera and the cultures from which those things came possibly don’t have examples of them today," says Penny.

"Things like crisp wrappers are so ephemeral there‘s no record of them in the future. Sometimes that window in time is captured accidentally."

James Green’s photographs are currently being used in a project to record Kachin peoples’ recollections of their culture in that period.

These are striking snapshots of an intriguing society captured in sepia. The straw huts of the Lisus people cling to crinkled hillsides like oblong limpets; Kachin children in striped ponchos squint at the camera under the glare of a sharp sun.

Photo: lotus shoes for bound feet brought back by Archdeacon Gray.

A picture of a temple is beautifully evoked by a quote accompanying it: "some pagodas stood alone in the paddy fields. A circular brick vault tapering up to a painted dome crowned by a lotus bud. A life size recumbent figure of alabaster…covered with one leaf. A spiral of writing in Shin characters…".

There’s even a photo of Green himself, the typical white hunter with safari hat, surrounded by turbaned Kachins.

Amongst Green’s exhibits are the elaborate costumes of a Jinghpaw woman, and a Rawang warrior, complete with boar tusk hat and a sword with a tiger’s jawbone for a handle.

Willoughby contributes calabashes (drinking vessels) and grooved walking sticks. John Gray, one time Archdeacon of Hong Kong offers embroidered silk slippers, clumpy mandarin boots, opium pipes, intricate carvings in gnarled wood and ancestor tablets with gold inscriptions.

There’s also a uterus-shaped sculpture dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, and most curious of all, a model of a Chinese fire engine.

Photo: girl's beaded necklace with triangular pendants fastened with a shirt button.

The exhibition is subdivided into Makers, Believers and Collectors, which perfectly emphasize the theme of animism (the belief spirits inhabit natural objects and phenomena).

Curator Helen Mears explains: "Makers: the skills and artistry of these people. Believers: how objects change in meaning according to beliefs invested in them. Collectors: why were these things collected?"

The exhibition also asks how the missionaries themselves perceived these objects. Some of their choices in souvenirs were macabre, such as pith paper paintings of blue demons exacting various tortures on mortals.

"These were probably brought back as tourist items," says Penny. "The Victorian visitors to China had an interest in punishment and torture".

Photo: detail of embroidered Chinese textile hanging.

The arrangement of the exhibition also shows objects out of context. "Often things are grouped ethnographically," continues Penny, "this is a way of breaking free of that".

It’s certainly true the curiosities speak for themselves: animal-shaped snuff containers of hide scrapings and blood; walrus ivory figurines (Alaska); necklaces made from the teeth of jackals (South Africa), sperm whales (Fiji) and even humans (Tibet). The list goes on.

Seeing the objects and our Victorian ancestors in a new way are the fresh perspectives offered by this highly impressive exhibition.

Penny adds: "looking again at the concept of missionaries, in the modern day there are mixed views about them", but at least, she notes, "there’s potential to readdress the balance through this chance collecting".

All images are courtesy of the Royal Pavilion, Libraries and Museums, Brighton.