HEROIC WOMAN

Hokitika Guardian, 1 June 1935, Page 6

HEROIC WOMAN

WORK AMONG ABORIGINES

TWENTY YEARS IN EXILE

SYDNEY, May 29

After 20 years of exile in Central Australia, Mrs Daisy Bates, who is nearly vO years old, has ani'td IU Adelaide to make her home there. ..h e has relinquished her work among the natives to write the story of Iter life and the scientific gleanings of more than 30 years. Mrs Bates, a highly-educated Irishwoman, who had been a London journalist, ..arrived in Western Australia m .1899 and became owner of station properties. She became interested in the Australian aborigines, and realised the grave problem of the preservation of the race. She travelled the whole of the west coast with the tribes, and " as accorded the freedom of the totem by the Bibbulniuu tribes of the south-west. In the early days of railway construction Mrs Bates made her way alone along the shores of the Great Australian Bight by camel buggy to Fowler’s Bay and northward to Oolden. There for more than 20 years, she has lived in a tent in the sandhills, ministering to the needs of the natives. The whole of her considerable private fortune has been devoted to their care. Mrs Bates is known to the natives far and wide ns “Ivahbarli” (“grandmother and universal friend”). Her knowledge of native customs and corroborees is unrivalled.

Mrs Bates was'awarded an 0.8. E. last year, and journeyed 600 miles to receive it. On the occasion of the visits of the Princp, of Wales and the Duke of Gloucester, she arranged corroborees in their honour. Mrs’ Bates has endimed untold privations of heat and ’hardship at Ooldea. A mission has been established in the vicinity ■ otherwise it is doubtful if she would feel free to leavs.

“I am leaving my ragged tent standing,” wrote Mrs Bates on the eve of leaving Ooldea, “and the poiy natives think 1 am coming back. I dare not tell them that I am not returning, but I have transported all my heavy belongings and manuscripts across the sandhills, and am eager to begin the real work of my life.”