Articles
Obituary
Kim Akerman
5 November 1947 - 19 September 2024.
I first met Kim in the late 1950s at the Perth Wildlife Show, held by the WA Naturalists Club in the Perth Town Hall. I was a volunteer and later represented the WA Speleological Group.
Kim, then a high school student, had a display of spectacular native dancing masks from New Guinea and I was a little concerned that the dirty fingered public might be detrimental to them. Kim’s father, Dr. John Akerman had been a medico in PNG, where these items were collected. His mother, Eve, was a journalist. While I only met Dr Akerman that once at the WLS, I kept up a social contact with Eve, then living in Thomas Street, Subiaco. My wife and I called in occasionally to hear the latest of Kim’s wanderings in the Wilds. His elder brother, an oil man, introduced me to Asian antiquities by showing me an exquisite marble head of a Chinese girl, found in Malacca.
Later I remember Kim at the Uni. He was, I think, staying at one of the colleges and his fascination with the material culture of the Aboriginals was paralleled with my interest in mineralogy. I was mucking about with part time mature age studies, a total disaster, but an interesting introduction to the ‘system’. I developed my own system and bypassed the degree beast. Kim developed a combination, but followed his own maps.
Outside Kingswood College at the bus stop Kim was practicing spear throwing skills. “Stand behind that tree and I will aim at it” His aim at that stage was inexpert, and it ricocheted off another tree and nearly speared me.
I ran into Kim on and off over the years. He, Mike Archer, and myself, with our wives had some great dinners. Later all three of us, for greatly varying reasons, divested ourselves of, or were divested by, our partners.
Kim worked in the Kimberley, learning from the old men their secrets, and being initiated into their philosophies. ‘Kakerman,’ as he was known to some, was already becoming a legend.
Years later, and multiple changes in life and self-made careers, I joined again with Kim in publishing his original anthropological works and translations from the Swedish and German masters.
All these are listed on the Hesperian Press website, with the exception of the last. That was being edited and typeset by my daughter Celene when the news came of his passing came from Kim’s wife, Val.
Kim’s health had been precarious for some years, and it was only his will power and determination to finish his self-set tasks, and the care by Val, that kept him going.
We had discussed his unique records and their disposal. He was very disturbed by the closing of anthropological records by many wokey institutions. I believe he countered this with digitisation of his photographs and distribution of hard drives among multiple institutions. He freely gave advice on the importance and value of ethnographic collections, countering the insanity of the communist state of Victoria, in their arbitrary and criminal cases of confiscation.
His carefully curated collections of ethnographica, developed in his field work, and his keen eye for the displaced items in auction houses and online, made his collections a joy to behold by those looking at the old days and old ways.
His most recent book, Scales of the Serpent, on the Aboriginal use of pearl shell, will become a great classic and the contents will resonate among tribals and collectors for generations to come.
A year ago Kimberley men visited him to be taught how to make traditional spear and flaked stone points. They took along a cameraman to record the lost art so as to train a new generation in the making of such beautiful objects.
Kim was also an artist, hand carving countless objects and figures since he was a teenager. Animals, fantastic scenes and motifs were created from mammoth ivory, whale teeth or bone and inlaid with shell, horn or amber, as well as scrimshaw on bone and whale teeth. He made his own carving and engraving tools, including the intricately carved handles.
So passes the last of the great ethnographers of Aboriginal culture. His like will not be seen again.
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Peter J. Bridge
22 September 2024