Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land

This collection presents the personal writings of Donald Thomson, an Australian who became embroiled in a bitter legal battle that erupted in 1932 when a group of Japanese pearl fishermen raped a number of Aboriginal women. Arnhem Land Aboriginals retaliated by killing five of the Japanese and were subsequently sentenced to death. Thomson accepted a federal commission to investigate the case, and, by communicating with the Aboriginals, managed to defuse the situation and secure their liberation. The account of Thomson's first meeting with the Aboriginal leader Wongo tells of the electric exchange and eventual friendship that Thomson developed with Wongo, a partnership that enabled him to study local customs and language. Thomson's writing is unique in that it offers a full picture of Aboriginal peoples, presenting them as individuals and active agents in local history.

Donald Thomson was a professor of anthropology at the University of Melbourne. He led expeditions to Cape York in 1928, 1929, and 1932, and to Arnhem Land in 1935. He won the Wellcome Gold Medal, the Peek Grant RGS, and the Patron’s Medal RGS and was the only anthropologist ever to be awarded the Royal Medal. Nicholas Peterson is a professor of anthropology at the Australian National University. He has been involved in land claim research and has contributed to Aboriginal Land Rights: A Handbook and Aborigines, Land and Land Rights.