Hermann Klaatsch was a doctor, comparative anatomist and physical anthropologist who came from an old Berlin-based family of doctors. 

Klaatsch travelled around Australia from 1904-1907 and stayed in Queensland during his entire first year.

From July until October 1904 he travelled around the Gulf of Carpentaria on board the government sailboat “Melbidir“. He returned to Cooktown in October 1904 where he spent one month followed by his time in Cairns from 26th November 1904 to 30th January 1905. While there he did 3 excursions to the Bellenden Ker Range deliberately to meet with Aboriginal people in this area and to collect ethnographic artefacts. His first trip was up Harvey’s Creek and Babinda Creek and quite close to the centre peak, Mt. Bartle Frere; the second trip was via Kuranda and Atherton to a gold digger’s camp at Boenje; and the third trip was to Mulgrave and Aloomba and a mountain he called “pyramide mountain”.

In February 1905 Klaatsch travelled to Sydney and eventually continued his journey around Australia via Melbourne, Adelaide, Albany, Perth and up the coast of Western Australia, where he interrupted his time in Australia for a 6-months stay on Java. Returning to Broome in May 1906 he continued to Wyndham, Darwin and Melville Island and back again to Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania and Adelaide where he attended the conference of the “Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science” in January 1907. In February 1907 Klaatsch left Australia and returned home to Germany via Fiji, Hawaii, Canada and the USA.

Corinna Erckenbrecht, Objects of Posession: Artefact Transactions in the Wet Tropics of North Queensland, James Cook University, https://www.jcucollections.org/?page_id=58