The Guthrie daily leader. [volume] (Guthrie, Okla.) 1893-1996, 1908-05-21
LONESOME
SURVIVOR
wv % BG A N REPRESENTS
EXTINCT NATIVE 'VAS
@ANlAN RAGE

A cable dispatch from Australia a
while ago said that Doctor Berry OF
the University Of Melbourne. had dis
covered a living representative oc the
extinct native Tasmanian race, whose
home was confined to the large island
of Tasmania, south of the Australia
mainland The person he found was
"a woman about as years old who lives
lin Kanga0 90 Island. south OF the State
of South Australia, hundreds of miles
to the west OF the land of her ahori-
ginal fathers
Doctor Berry has printed his report
In the Proceedings OF the Royal Soci-
ety OF Victoria. and the picture of the
woman is taken from that journal
His discovery has received much pub
licity because the Tasmanians were. in
some respects, the most interesting OF
the native peoples of Australasia.
They could not live under predomin-
ating white influence and became eX-
tinct about generation ago. A few
quarter breeds stiil survive, but this
woman is a half breed. her mother
having been a native Tasmanian and
her father white man.
Doctor Berry says that according
to the best accounts OF the Tasman-
lans this woman preserves many Of
the physical characteristics of her alb
original ancestry. Anthropologists
have deplored the disappearance of the
Tasmanians all the more because they
died out before the present scientific
methods of studying the physical char.
acteristics of aboriginal people had
come into use.
Kangaroo Island. where the woman
was found. was discovered by the
Flanders In 1902. and was so
named by that navigator because he
found great number Of kangaroos
here
How does II happen that Mrs S., as
| Doctor Berry calls her was born and
has always lived so far away from the
nome OF her mothers people?
II appears that prior to 1886 only a
1 few white men lived on the island.
Zone of them. known as Wally. arrived
] from Tasmania, hi 1919 bringing with
4 him two aboriginal women, one OF
whom became the mother about sey.
enty-five years ago of this half-breed
Tasmanian girl. She Is today, Doctor
| Berry says, the nearest representative
'of one of the most ancient races in
the world.
The girl was educated by the wife
of the head keeper of the Cape VII
longhby lighthouse and was married Ia
the late William S. Her father died
a few years later and her mother sur
yiyed him about ten years and was
buried ON the island Mrs S. has one
son ard two daughters. who Of course
are quarter-breed Tasmanians
! Doctor Berry says that IN conversinf
with Mrs S. the two facts that i'm
pressed him most strongly were hei
remarkable Intelligence and the abso
lutte purity of her English speech
II had not actually heard her" he
says. II could not have believed that
such intelligence could have been
derived In one generation from race
often, but perhaps quite enormously
supposed to have been one OF the mos
degraded and brutal among the worlds
races"
Others who know her are of the
same opinion, aud Doctor Berry quotes
Mr. Halleck who says that Mrs. VIII
liam S. is O, i bright and happy dis
nosltio1 a most interesting converse
inalist and withal extremely apt al
repartee"
The last Tasmanian man, William
Lanney, or King Billy. as the whites
more commonly knew him. came o
the ruling family among his people
lie died in 1869 in his thirty-fourtf
year The previous year he had walk
ed proudly on the Hobart Town Regat
IA ground with Prince Alfred, Duke o.
Edinburgh. conscious that they alons
lln that assemhlage were persons o
lroyal blood
But while Lanney was the last sur
lyving man of his race he was out
lived by the woman Truganni, or lalls
Roollh who died ia May. 1876. Will
her the native Tasmanian race became
finally extinct, and Il is supposed thai