Wooden sculpture of a human male collected by Berndt, 1946–7 by Leigerang Dalawongu people, north-east Arnhem Land courtesy Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre National Museum of Australia ‘Cluttering up the department’ Ronald Berndt and the distribution of the University of Sydney ethnographic collection by Geoffrey Gray Abstract we should not revisit the issue of how the ANRC collection was made, the way it was The issue of ownership of cultural objects broken up and distributed, the circumstances collected by fieldworkers sponsored by around its distribution and the question of the Australian National Research Council ownership — does it reside with the collector, (ANRC) between 1926 and 1955, when the the institution housing the collection, or ANRC was replaced by the Academy of the funding body? This paper traces Ronald Science, is now in a sense passé, as these Berndt’s attempts to assert ownership collections have been broken up, and now over part of the collection housed at the reside in diverse centres both nationally and University of Sydney, at the two moments of internationally. This does not mean that its redistribution, 1957 and 1980. reCollections: Journal of the National Museum of Australia September 2007, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 153–79 Introduction Scattered among the ethnographic collections of several Australian and overseas museums are a large number of objects originally collected between 1927 and 1956 by anthropologists sponsored by the Australian National Research Council (ANRC). These expeditions covered many parts of northern Australia, particularly the north-west Kimberley in Western Australia, Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory and Cape York Peninsula, North Queensland. Some material was also obtained from the Territory of New Guinea. The material collected was by no means confined solely to Ronald Berndt at his desk Berndt Museum of Anthropology these areas but it is from them that the bulk of the collection was made. The collection reasons, among which were a claim of was housed in the rooms of the Department moral ownership and the need to have of Anthropology at the University of these objects available for his research and Sydney. In 1949 the ANRC transferred teaching purposes at the University of ownership of the collection to the University Western Australia. As a result of his tenacity of Sydney, where most of the objects were in asserting some control and ownership housed until they were distributed to other over the collection at the two moments of its institutions in the mid-1950s. redistribution, there is a paper record which The story of the how the collection offers an insight into the history of this was disbursed is seemingly well-known collection.1 among curators and anthropologists. Some have described the distribution as The ANRC an act of vandalism. But the evidence of impropriety is anecdotal — there is little At the end of the First World War, Australia hard evidence to back it up. This paper resumed international scientific activities addresses the charges by reconstructing with the formation in 1919 of the ANRC. the history of the collection. I focus on This was intended to be Australia’s link shifts in perceived ownership of the Sydney with the newly established International University ethnographic collection, mostly Research Council, which it officially joined barks from Arnhem Land, made by Ronald in the following year.2 Australia was one and Catherine Berndt between 1941 and of 16 countries invited to participate 1949. Ronald Berndt attempted to claim in the international body, on condition ownership of these materials when it became that it had an organisation capable of apparent that the collection housed at the representing it internationally. The ANRC University of Sydney, especially those items was an independent scientific body he and Catherine had collected, was to be with membership limited to 100 leading distributed by the incoming professor, JA scientists, making it an influential body with Barnes. Ronald Berndt advanced several government.3 154 ‘Cluttering up the department’ Anthropology as an academic discipline unenforceable nature of the contract without was not formally established in Australia the cooperation of the researcher; the other, until 1925, with the establishment of a implicit in this particular clause, is the idea Chair of Anthropology at the University of of a national collection. Sydney. AR Radcliffe-Brown, foundation It was not only material culture that was professor, arrived in Sydney in July the collected by these early anthropologists following year. Research in anthropology under the auspices of the ANRC.5 Besides was initially funded by the Rockefeller orthodox ethnographic research, which Foundation, and distributed by the ANRC consumed the bulk of the funds, researchers on the advice and recommendation of were sent to make observations on an expert committee, the Anthropology ‘Aborigines and mixed-bloods on a native Committee, headed by the University of reserve’; funds were also awarded for the Sydney’s Professor of Anthropology and ‘tabulation and statistical treatment of comprising members drawn from each state anthropometric data’ that was collected, and the Commonwealth. for example, by W Lloyd Warner in the From 1927, when the first Northern Territory; and, for a physiological anthropologists were sent out under the investigation among Aborigines and auspices of the ANRC, they agreed to ‘mixed-bloods’ in New South Wales a number of conditions, one of which and Queensland, to the Department of governed the collection of material culture. Physiology at the University of Sydney. Section 3, Clause 12 of the conditions Other projects included support for an governing grants and fellowships awarded by unnamed medical student in the Department the ANRC states: of Anatomy at the University of Sydney Any complete field research in ‘making anthropological observations and ethnology will normally include securing a large series of casts of teeth for the collection of objects of the purpose of study’, including funds for ethnographical interest. Any object apparatus for more exact study of crania.6 collected shall be the property of Professor J Shellshear from Hong Kong the ANRC. The fieldworker will University received funds to ‘visit the be expected to label and index the University of Sydney for 3 months in order collection. In general, permission to examine and report on the collection of will be granted to keep for himself, Australian aboriginal and Papuan brains in or to present to ethnological the Department of Anatomy’.7 museums, a limited number of The collection soon outgrew its duplicate specimens. He shall not, departmental premises and Radcliffe-Brown however, dispose of specimens for searched for an alternative site, raising the sale. If the recipient of the grant possibility of a national museum. This wishes to make a collection for some proposition was raised in 1923 at the Pan museum, he must obtain permission Pacific Science Congress where it was beforehand from the Committee for proposed that the federal government be Anthropological Research.4 persuaded ‘on the need for the formation All grantees and fellows gave a signed of a Federal Museum of Australia and its undertaking to observe these conditions. Territories, and the immediate necessity There are two matters of interest for the for securing specimens, historical and purposes of this paper: one is the virtually ethnological, while they are yet available’.8 Geoffrey Gray 155 By the end of July 1929, Radcliffe-Brown This was a ‘collecting’ enterprise in noted that ‘[a]t a very reasonable estimate, which material culture was but a part. these collections are worth well over £1000. There were, however, two difficulties in They have been offered to the Australian implementing Radcliffe-Brown’s grand Government in order to form the nucleus scheme: first, insufficient government of a national collection, but no decision has funding and support; and second, the yet been reached on the question of the physical difficulty of transporting the proposed museum at Canberra; meanwhile material from missionaries, patrol officers, the problem of the proper storage and care anthropologists and others concerned with of these collections is becoming increasingly ‘Native Administration’ in Papua and New difficult’.9 Guinea in particular. The failure to obtain The plan for a national museum was part sufficient funding ensured it was stillborn. of a wider agenda to establish a Bureau of The collection remained in the department. Ethnology which Radcliffe-Brown hoped Anthropologists’ collecting would alleviate many of the difficulties To a wider public, displayed artefacts he was experiencing with the ANRC.10 provide a window into Indigenous life. His intention was that the Department of How many visitors to museums have Anthropology should become a: read any of the articles and books of bureau of [ethnology] on all matters the collecting anthropologists which set relating to the native populations of out the lives of people from whom these Australia, New Guinea and Melanesia; artefacts were collected? In contrast to the the collection and collation of all public visibility of the collecting enterprise information from printed sources displayed at museums, the mechanics of to be commenced at once; the New collecting can be seen as a by-product of Guinea and Papuan administrations anthropological research and certainly not to be asked to make available copies central to the research enterprise. Collecting of all reports dealing with the natives, and collections of material culture, their received from district officers, with purpose and intended and unintended effects particulars in each case as to the name have been discussed and analysed by many of the officer, date of report, division scholars, including the anthropologist James and locality and name of tribe; the Clifford.12 He argues that ethnographic information collected in this and other collecting ‘implies a rescue of phenomena ways to be filed in a manner that will from inevitable historical decay or loss.