LOST TRIBE IN AUSTRALIA

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27679, 8 June 1955, Page 16

LOST TRIBE IN AUSTRALIA

Discovery In Hidden Fertile Valley

(NJSJP^A. —Reuter—Copyright) DARWIN, June 7. A ‘lost tribe” of 200 aborigines, still living In the Stone Age, has been discovered in Central Australia. The tribe ,which has seen only one white man, lives in a fertile hidden Valley, surrounded by vast, trackless desert. Native Affairs Department officers will set out next year in four-wheel-drive trucks to find the valley. . The existence of the tribe has been suspected for many years, but it was not confirmed until last month.

Last month two natives from the tribe arrived at the Yuendumu Native Affairs settlement, north-west of Alice Springs. They were robust and extremely well-built. Until then, only one white man had seen members of the tribe. He is Mr William Braitling, owner of Mouht Doreen Station, who found the valley while looking for gold in 1938. Mr Braitling said he had great difficulty in getting the natives to guide him to the spot. There were no landmarks, and he could not place it on a map.

He said that the valley was a “fantastic sight” on coming out of the worthless spinifex desert. It is well grassed, and streams must run all the year around, otherwise the tribe would have been wiped out or forced into civilisation. Mr Braitling said, “The first native I saw in the valley was up a tree looking down at me. We stood there looking at each other for a while and he came down. The tribe was quite friendly and seemed timid.” The valley is timbered with desert oak, which was used more than 70 years ago to build many station homesteads which are still standing. Animal life seemed to be plentiful, said Mr Braitling. Mission natives and other tribes living on the edge of the spinifex desert are afraid to break the taboo by entering the lost tribe’s territory. Native law sets down boundaries, and if other tribes enter there is a tribal fight Natives say that the few who have broken the taboo have been killed. Next year’s expedition will take the two “lost tribe” natives, now at Yupndumu. If the party went without natives they would see only burnt-out campfires, and smoke signals in the distance.

The party will “sit down” for about a month, and send their two native guides to locate the tribe or to allow the tribe's auriosity to bring them to the camp.

Just before the war, a Native Affairs Department patrol officer, Mr Edward Strealow, led a party on camels into the desert in a vain attempt to find the tribe.