Ronald Murray Berndt (14 July 1916 – 2 May 1990) was an Australian

social anthropologist Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

who, in 1963, became the inaugural professor of anthropology at the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...

. He and his wife

Catherine Berndt Catherine Helen Berndt, ''née'' Webb (8 May 1918 – 12 May 1994), born in Auckland, was an Australian anthropologist known for her research in Australia and Papua New Guinea. She was awarded in 1950 the Percy Smith Medal from the University o ...

maintained a close professional partnership for five decades, working among

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

Ooldea Ooldea is a tiny settlement in South Australia. It is on the eastern edge of the Nullarbor Plain, west of Port Augusta on the Trans-Australian Railway. Ooldea is from the bitumen Eyre Highway. Being near a permanent waterhole, Ooldea Soak, ...

(1941),

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

cattle stations (194446), Balgo (195781) and natives of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

(195153).

Early life and education

Berndt was born in 1916 in Adelaide. He attended high school at

Pulteney Grammar School Pulteney Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, co-educational, private day school. Founded in 1847 by members of the Anglican Church, it is the second oldest independent school in South Australia. Its campuses are located on South Terrace ...

. He graduated from the University of Sydney in 1951 with a Bachelor of Arts, following up with a Master of Arts in 1954. He was awarded a PhD for a thesis based on his anthropological work in New Guinea.

Aboriginal land rights

Berndt was an early advocate for legal recognition and protection of Aboriginal sacred sites, and clashed in 1980 with the Liberal premier Sir

Charles Court Sir Charles Walter Michael Court, (29 September 1911 – 22 December 2007) was a Western Australian politician, and the 21st Premier of Western Australia from 1974 to 1982. He was a member of the Liberal Party. Early life Court's family e ...

over the Noonkanbah dispute in the Kimberley region. His interest was much broader than any one specific location or event, and he was focused on the national dimensions of the land rights issue.

Publications

Some of his sole authored

monographs A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works) or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject. In library cataloging, ''monograph ...

include ''Kunapipi'' (1951), ''Djanggawul'' (1952), and ''Man, land and myth in Northern Australia'' (1970).

Joint works with Catherine Berndt

The Berndts jointly wrote a book first in 1952 as ''The First Australians'' which went into three editions—the last being published in 1974. A similar title ''The World of the First Australians'' went into five editions. Their publications were extensive. Their contribution to the 1979 Sesquicentenary of Western Australia was the book ''Aborigines of the West''.

Legacy

The collected essays in honour of the Berndts in 1990 showed the breadth of the influence of their teaching and writings, with essays by a wide spectrum of anthropologists of their time, including

Claude Levi-Strauss Claude may refer to: __NOTOC__ People and fictional characters * Claude (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Claude (surname), a list of people * Claude Lorrain (c. 1600–1682), French landscape painter, draughtsman and etcher ...

and

Raymond Firth Sir Raymond William Firth (25 March 1901 – 22 February 2002) was an ethnologist from New Zealand. As a result of Firth's ethnographic work, actual behaviour of societies (social organization) is separated from the idealized rules of behaviou ...

. The Berndts were avid collectors, and their collection was bequeathed to the

and exists as the

Berndt Museum of Anthropology The Berndt Museum of Anthropology is an anthropological museum in Perth, Western Australia, founded in by Ronald Berndt and Catherine Berndt. The Berndt Museum is currently located with the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery on the western side of th ...

References