Where photographs were captioned at the time they were taken, some of the language used would not be considered acceptable by today's standards. Phrases such as “original manuscript caption” have been used throughout to make clear where this is the case.

A very small minority of the images, footage and audio clips in this collection are of a sensitive nature, and may cause distress. These include images of nudity, violence, deceased persons, people engaged in ritual or ceremonial activity and images taken for anthropological investigation which would not now be considered appropriate.

The majority of the documents, images and footage in the collection were produced or collected by white British people, and these may therefore reflect a colonial view of the world.