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from New Zealand, and she too had developed an early interest in anthropology that had brought her to Sydney
University, to pursue a Master’s degree.
Catherine and Ron were married in 1941, and were to spend the next 50 years in a wonderfully successful
collaboration in anthropology, involving fieldwork in the remotest parts of Australia and the publication of an
astonishing volume of writing. A year at Ooldea, which enabled them to work with Aboriginal people of the
western desert, was later followed by a survey conducted for the Australian Research Council of the relations
between Aborigines and Europeans in South Australia and Western New South Wales.
It was during the period at Sydney University that Ron and Catherine Berndt completed the fieldwork in the
Northern Territory that was so central to much of their published work.
As university researchers they were both invited, in the years from 1944 to 1946, to work as anthropologists
with a Northern Territory pastoral firm. Their task was to enquire into problems of native labour and welfare, and
to submit recommendations. This was a very difficult assignment, since the perspective of the pastoral companies
at that time and that of the anthropologists was very different. The full history of this period of research is recorded
in End of an Era, published 40 years afterwards. As Ron Berndt put it in that book, ‘The circumstances were quite
difficult. The handicaps imposed on us by one large pastoral firm (essentially an aggregation of pastoral firms)
in the guise of self-interested concern for its own future prospects and the poor living conditions of Aborigines in
that area—these are almost unbelievable today.’
The fieldwork undertaken by the Berndts in completing this assignment took in a wide area of the Northern
Territory, including Wave Hill, Limbunya and the Katherine–Manbulloo area.
Ron and Catherine found that, to survive in the conditions under which they worked, the Aborigines held on
firmly to their traditional beliefs and customs, and these became the Berndts’ great interest and the subject of
detailed and thorough study over many years.
The second and third parts of this early fieldwork in the Northern Territory involved anthropological work on
Northern Territory Army Native settlements: at Larrimah, Mataranka, Manbulloo, Adelaide River, and Koolpinyah
as well as on the Daly River and initial visits to Melville and Bathurst Islands, followed by a further period in
Darwin at the Bagot compound.
Two other major anthropological field research trips were made in this period to Arnhem Land. The first, in
1946 and 1947, was to Yirrkala, to Oenpelli and South Goulburn Island, and then to Bathurst and Melville Islands.
The last visit in this period was in 1949 to 1950, again to Oenpelli, but also to Milingimbi.
In the Northern Territory, the Berndts put into practice their beliefs about how an anthropologist should work.
Knowledge of Aboriginal language was, they believed, essential, especially if research was to cover such areas as
religion, social customs and sexual habits, and they saw the anthropologist’s role as one of recording data and then
presenting that data in accessible form. Ron was very conscious of the close relationship that an anthropologist has
with the people amongst whom he or she works. He felt quite strongly that the anthropologist could not simply
live amongst the people. A degree of rapport must be built up for there to be a true transfer of knowledge and ideas,
and with that rapport came a feeling of personal debt. Again in End of an Era Ron and Catherine note how the
Aborigines ‘...expected us to speak for them, and hoped it was in our power to achieve better conditions.’ In the
Berndts’ view, the production of their work in book form, and in books accessible to a general reader, might assist
by giving those in authority—administrators, politicians—a better understanding of the people for whom they
were developing policy, and thus policies more suited to the welfare of the people of Arnhem Land.
Both Ron and Catherine Berndt felt that their academic study must continue beyond the Masters’ degrees
obtained at Sydney University and they travelled to London in 1952, where each worked towards a doctorate at
the London School of Economics, completing their degrees in 1955. Just prior to their departure for London they
completed a period of fieldwork in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, a remote and at times dangerous,
though fascinating place.
Time available to the Berndts for fieldwork reduced after they gained their doctorates and returned to Australia.
Ron took a position as Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Western Australia, embarking on an
academic career to which he committed his energy and enthusiasm, even beyond his retirement in 1981. He became
the foundation Professor of Anthropology at the University of Western Australia in 1963, and dedicated himself
to creating a Department of Anthropology of international importance. Amongst his major achievements at the
university was the creation of the Aboriginal Museum, now named for him and Catherine Berndt, with its collection
of priceless importance.
From the mid 1950s Professor Berndt’s academic duties worked against long periods in the field, but, as
frequently as possible, the fieldwork was taken up, in Arnhem Land again in 1958, in 1962, and in the 1970s as
well as in new areas, many of them in the Kimberleys, and other parts of central and northern Western Australia.
Ronald Murray Berndt was one of the greatest anthropologists Australia has known. His work in the Northern
Territory and his interest in the Aborigines of the area continued throughout his life. His concern for the Aborigines’
bond with the land of Australia grew as the impact of white development made changes in the Aboriginal way of
life inevitable. In his books he made strong pleas for protection of sacred sites, and for the establishment of areas
in which traditional Aboriginal life could be carried on.
He combined his outstanding work in the field with a remarkable ability to write, and to write in a meticulous
and accurate way, but also in a style that ensured his books and articles are read by the general as well as by the
specialist reader. His output, in many cases in collaboration with his wife, was prodigious.
Ron Berndt was awarded the title of Emeritus Professor on his retirement from the University of Western
Australia in 1981; he became an Honorary Fellow and continued working and writing until his death in May 1990
in Perth, survived by his wife. He was a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and a Fellow of the Academy