The UNESCO-inscribed Donald Thomson Ethnohistory Collection, which offers rare insights into the rich cultural and economic lives of Indigenous peoples in Australia, has been gifted to the University of Melbourne by his family. The gift has been made in the memory of its collector Professor Donald Thomson OBE (1901-1970), who dedicated his life to championing equality for Indigenous Australians, and of his wife, Dorita Thomson who died in 2022.

Considered one of the most detailed and finest collections of its kind, the donation unifies the two parts of Donald Thomson’s extensive field work under the University’s care after the Donald Thomson Ethnographic Collection was donated by his widow in 1973. The Ethnographic Collection is a highly significant collection of 7,500 Indigenous Australian objects and artworks, including some of the earliest and finest bark paintings in existence.

The Ethnohistory Collection, on the other hand, represents materials from over 90 communities including 11,000 photographs, such as those that were the inspiration for the award winning film Ten Canoes, which had historical sequences set in what is recalled as ‘Thomson Time’. Also, there are 25,000ft of colour film, including some of the earliest of Pintupi people in Central Australia, and 2,500 pages of field notes. The items cover anthropology, linguistics, botany, zoology, ornithology and ecology, documenting landscapes, Indigenous occupation, genealogy, kinship, language, as well as maps detailing traditional Aboriginal land tenure across Arnhemland, Central Australia and Cape York.

Professor Thomson was an anthropologist, herpetologist, zoologist, journalist and skilled photographer, an outspoken human rights advocate and, eventually, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Melbourne. He undertook expeditions to remote regions of Australia between 1928 and 1965, working and living with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, meticulously recording everything he observed to create his unprecedented collections.

A Federal diplomat between 1935-1937, Thomson is known for brokering peace in NE Arnhemland between the Government and the Yolngu people. Three Yolngu men were accused of killing five Japanese fishermen and three Europeans following a cultural infraction. When this was understood, Thomson negotiated their release. His deep regard for Aboriginal people and his unique holistic approach to anthropology then encouraged the Yolngu leaders to create artworks to explain their complex culture to the wider world. Later, his empathy with the people meant that, in 1941, he could set-up and lead the Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit, including tribal elder, now friend Wonggu and his sons, to warn of and help repel Japanese raids on the northern coastline of Australia.

In a shared statement Thomson’s daughters Elaine and Louise said: “He advocated strongly for Indigenous people to be allowed to continue their way of life away and free from white Australia’s interference, when many in his field believed in assimilation. A man far ahead of his time, his efforts to document Indigenous culture for which he had the utmost respect, and his vocal outcry about atrocities perpetrated by churches and governments, meant he was not popular in Australia during his lifetime. The Queensland Government even banned him from the state after he exposed the ruthless treatment of Aboriginal people that took place at Aurukun Mission – images and field notes of these incidents are included in the collection.

“Throughout his life he received far more recognition from his overseas peers than in Australia. While he died feeling that he had failed, our father would be so pleased to know that his legacy has helped return land and sea to Ancestral Owners who have relied on his work to prove connection to country in Arnhemland, Central Australia and far north Queensland, including more than 362,000 hectares of land on Cape York. We can’t change history, but it’s nice to see our father’s work finally being given the recognition it deserves”.

“Our intention is that generations of Indigenous Australians can continue to use it for land and sea claims, to learn more about their own culture, to help revive practices such as bushcraft and native languages, and in turn for all Australians to gain a greater appreciation of our nation’s more than 65,000 year history.”

Professor Marcia Langton AO, Associate Provost and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, hailed the significance of the Donald Thomson Collection. “The Collection is an expression of the continuum of Aboriginal life, culture and traditions. It is of immense significance to the Aboriginal peoples whose ancestors made the cultural material and informed Thomson of its meaning”, she said. “And its value to researchers in Australia and internationally concerned with understanding human diversity, cannot be underestimated”.

Acclaimed painter, sculptor and ceremonial leader of the Yolngu people, Dr Djambawa Marawili AM added: “Donald Thomson was a great man. When he came and found the people living at Caledon Bay and Trial Bay he showed them that he really wanted to learn about art and culture of the Yolngu. They did not really know how to explain it to him except through their art. Before then the art was sacred and secret and only for that clan. He brought it into the open so that the second and third generation post-contact people exercised and shared their art too. So when our generation saw this we got into it and took it even further. So he was the one who brought the artists together at that time”.

The University intends to build a Place for Indigenous Art and Culture on the Parkville campus to enable the collection to be appropriately cared for and to enable community access. Several artworks from the Collection will be displayed in the exhibition 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art which opens at the University’s Potter Museum of Art on 30 May 2025. The exhibition is co-curated by Marcia Langton, Judith Ryan AM and Shanysa McConville in consultation with all relevant Indigenous people. And its catalogue is already available.

For those wanting to learn more about Donald Thomson’s life and his work, Robert Macklin’s biography The Donald Thomson Story: Fighting for Justice is now available.