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The Kimberley Collections

The Region

The Kimberley region of north-west Western Australia is a land of marked contrasts. The marine perspectives of the western coastal people diverged dramatically from those of the sometimes rugged inland areas. These differences are reflected in the material manifestations of the Aboriginal societies of the Kimberley, in the present as in the past.

The Berndt Museum contains more than 1,400 objects from the Kimberley region. These include paintings, weapons, tools, and ritual items. There are also several important photographic collections relating to this region.

A map of the Kimberley Region will be available here shortly.

Highlights

Some highlights of the Kimberley collections can be seen in the Virtual Tour.

Held

Many items are multi-purpose, being used for fighting, hunting and music.
Collections of stone materials are usually given a single registration number.

Object Type	Number
Ceremony	89
Dress/ornament	4
Habit (e.g. smoking)	2
Household	63
Hunting	11
Raw materials (e.g. ochre, spinifex resin)	20
Music	24
Ritual	127
Tools	301
Toys/children’s paintings	29
Trade and status (e.g. pearl shell)	7
Weapons	169
Medical	14
Souvenir art	80
Fine art (e.g. acrylic paintings)	250
Bark/crayon drawings	89
TOTAL	1,391

Photographic Collections

The Museum has an extensive photographic collection. It contains photographs, negatives and colour slides, and consists of many small collections donated to the Museum.

The following collections contain significant Kimberley material.

Collector	Date	Location
Akerman	1974	Kimberley
Lucich	1963	Mowanjum and Kalumburu
Neville *	1915-1953	Western Australia
Petri	1954	Anna Plains
Petri	1960	La Grange
Shaw	1972	Kununurra

* A.O. Neville was the Chief Protector of Aborigines between 1915 and 1953. Station owners, missionaries and welfare workers from all over Western Australia sent him their photographs to use in his public talks.