Scotch College

A far-sighted and courageous anthropologist

A retrospective on Donald Thomson’s support of Aboriginal rights and his work to improve relationships between Aborigines and the Commonwealth Government.

Words: David Ashton

A famous photograph taken by Old Scotch boy and anthropology professor Donald Thomson (’20) was the inspiration for the award-winning movie. Ten Canoes, made in 2005, which won in two categories at the 2006 Australian Film Industry awards.

Donald Thomson took the photo, which shows Arnhem Land Aboriginal men in canoes hunting for magpie goose eggs.

Thomson was indeed a remarkable Old Scotch Collegian. After leaving Scotch, he obtained a doctorate in science at the University of Melbourne, and gaining a research grant, he set off for Cape York in 1928, covering great distances on horseback, taking photographs and collecting specimens.

Returning to Melbourne in 1929 after a period in Queensland, Thomson first worked at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and then at Melbourne University, where he was initially a research fellow, then a senior research fellow and finally Professor of Anthropology from 1964 to 1968.

Thomson strongly supported Aboriginal rights. He spent a considerable time in Arnhem Land, where he did much to improve relationships between Aboriginal people and the Commonwealth Government. He urged the exclusion of non-Aboriginal people from the Arnhem Land reserve, going against the prevailing enthusiasm for assimilation.

During World War II, Thomson joined the RAAF and was seconded to the army to establish a reconnaissance unit. He and his men (mostly Aboriginal people) patrolled the Arnhem Land coast during 1942-43.

In 1949 he published a major work, Economic Structure and the Ceremonial; Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land. From 1957 to 1965 he took three research expeditions to the Gibson and Great Sandy deserts to look at the Aborigines’ hunting and gathering techniques.

He retired from the University of Melbourne in 1968 and died in 1970.

Thomson was a man of great intellect and sensitivity to the needs, practices, customs and languages of in particular the Arnhem Land people. He was ahead of his time in championing land rights and urging a greater understanding of and justice for Aboriginal people. Donald Thomson well deserves to be called a great Old Scotch Collegian.

Much of the material for this article was researched from the Australian Dictionary of Biography’s entry for Donald Thomson.