History

The Archives were started by the Founder of Masitise Mission Rev. D. F. Ellenberger during his 59 years of mission work in  Lesotho. This collection was preserved and augmented by various missionaries, especially Rev. Brutsch who has increased the collection tremendously.

The Morija Archives which is particularly renowned for its documentation of the 19th Century Lesotho, developed as envoys of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society (PEMS) now called LEC, and its missionaries have played a significant role in education as well as in political affairs of Lesotho. Acting as advisors and secretaries to Moshoeshoe, the missionaries kept import documents which were and are of interest to the nation as a whole. The Archives have important and rare books as well as manuscripts which contain rare information like the letter of Moshoeshoe by Eugene Casalis, the oldest paper in Southern Africa called Leselinyana la Lesotho published in 1863. Our collection also contain novels by our first Sesotho authors, the most popular is Thomas Mofolo with his novel Chaka. Both the Archives and the Museum are housed under one roof next to the Education Secretariat for LEC schools. This present structure was generously funded by the Ford Foundation, The Goldfields Foundation and The Netherlands- Lesotho Foundation. However the 40th anniversary celebration of September 1996 marked completion of the First Phase and other phases are to follow soon.

Research and Publications

The Museum established a Book Publishing Fund (BPF) in order to reprint old classics about Lesotho and the Basotho as well as publishing new materials. A grant from Canada Fund in 1990 enabled the MMA to reprint two classics, Eugene Casalis’ The Basutos and D. F. Elenberger’s History of the Basotho: Ancient & Modern. Before this grant from Canada, two books had already been published through the efforts of David Ambrose and these were generously donated to MMA: Catalogue of Masitise Archives by D.F. Ellenberger (edited by Beatrice Lasserre & David Ambrose in 1987); and Missionary Excursion into the Blue Mountains by Thomas Arbousset (edited and translated from the French by David Ambrose and Albert Brutsch 1991). With funds raised from the sales of the above mentioned books other more recent publications were made, such as:

Maseru: An Illustrated History by David Ambrose

A short History of Lesotho by Stephen Gill

Introduction to the Music of Basotho by Robin Wells

A guide to Morija by Stepehen Gill

The Mabilles of Basutoland by Edwin Smith