• 4 years ago

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00:00:30Well, what is this fantastic tale you have about aboriginals and cannibals in Australia?
00:00:54Fantastic, I suppose it is.
00:00:56But first, I have a book here that tells an amazing story.
00:01:01And after that comes the story of this madcap expedition to the cannibal country of Australia.
00:01:09We're going to make an expedition into that region, and we're going to make a discovery,
00:01:14a startling one, and then a surprise, a bewildering surprise.
00:01:19But first this book.
00:01:21It tells about a race of people who lived and flourished on this old planet of ours
00:01:26from 25,000 to 50,000 years ago.
00:01:29You mean from 50,000 to 100,000, don't you?
00:01:32Well, what's the matter of 50,000 years between friends?
00:01:38How do we know about this strange race of cavemen?
00:01:41Well, the book tells us.
00:01:44It's called Men of the Old Stone Age, and it's written by a famous scientist,
00:01:49a member of this explorer's club, Professor Henry Fairfield Osborne,
00:01:53the head of the American Museum of Natural History.
00:01:56And it gives us a really thrilling account of how ancient skeletons have been found in caves over in Europe.
00:02:04Let's take a peek into this book, Men of the Old Stone Age.
00:02:07Here we have a picture of skeletons of the cave age of mankind.
00:02:11The skeletons were discovered in a grotto on the shores of the Mediterranean near Monte Carlo.
00:02:16The gambling palace, the pale gamblers, the jeweled women, and not far away,
00:02:21the age-old cave with the bones of these unremembered people of long ago.
00:02:27There was no Monte Carlo then, no roulette, no cards.
00:02:31They had stone hatchets and clubs, but no spades.
00:02:36A skeleton of ancient man was found in the valley of Neanderthal
00:02:41in a cave near the city of Düsseldorf in western Germany.
00:02:46And after that, all skeletons of men similar to the one that was found in the valley of Neanderthal
00:02:53were considered as belonging to one race, and these men were called Neanderthals.
00:03:00And that is where we get the term Neanderthal.
00:03:03And after that, many more skeletons were found in caves,
00:03:07and it was definitely proven by scientists that at one time,
00:03:12the so-called Neanderthal man lived and lorded it over the wildlife of Europe,
00:03:18over the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, and the saber-toothed tiger,
00:03:22or possibly the saber-toothed tiger lorded it over them.
00:03:26What kind of a fellow was Fritz Neanderthal?
00:03:29Well, I'm afraid he was a lowbrow.
00:03:32Here in the book are two typical examples of a Neanderthal skull.
00:03:37You can see that he didn't have much brain capacity,
00:03:40and nothing highbrow about the old boy,
00:03:43but he did have a huge animal-like jaw,
00:03:47and the ridges over his eyes remind us of an ape.
00:03:51Here in Dr. Osborne's famous book, we have him compared with an ape,
00:03:55and we have him compared with a modern type of human being.
00:03:58At the left is a chimpanzee, in the middle is our friend Mr. Neanderthal,
00:04:02and at the right is the skull of a modern European.
00:04:05Look at the difference in the height of the skull,
00:04:08and look at the big bony ridges above the eyes of the ape and the Neanderthal.
00:04:12And here is old boy Neanderthal in the flesh.
00:04:15That is, the scientists have put a reconstruction of flesh on the prehistoric skull.
00:04:21The experts at the American Museum of Natural History tell us
00:04:24that this is what Mrs. Neanderthal had opposite her at the breakfast table every morning.
00:04:30Yes, our ancient cousin the Neanderthal was a primitive, almost unearthly creature.
00:04:37Apparently, he was well-suited for those days of the mammoth,
00:04:40the woolly rhinoceros, and the saber-toothed tiger.
00:04:44And the purpose of our expedition, the one we are starting on right now,
00:04:48is to investigate a rumor that Neanderthal man still lives on this spinning planet of ours
00:04:53in the torrid unknown of Australia.
00:04:56That's backwash of forgotten animals and forgotten men.
00:05:00Yes, and find him alive, the man of 50,000 years ago.
00:05:06And after that, the weird surprise.
00:05:10We are running away from civilization.
00:05:13We are escaping, fleeing, hot-footing it across the map.
00:05:17We are following the path of the sun to where the South Seas begin.
00:05:21Ah, but civilization is a persistent, nagging wife.
00:05:25And she catches up with us every so often.
00:05:28Ocean liners, speed boats, hotels, we find them all here.
00:05:34For Hawaii is one of the great whoopee resorts of the world.
00:05:39Moonlight, ukuleles, and romantic retired storks wooing the voluptuous magic of the tropics.
00:05:47But we dodge all things deluxe.
00:05:49Our looks are for something primitive.
00:05:52That who wants a drink, so he makes a monkey of himself.
00:05:56I mean he wants a drink of coconut milk.
00:05:59He makes a monkey of himself and then drinks.
00:06:02While in some other parts of the world, they drink and then make monkeys of themselves.
00:06:08So they tell me.
00:06:10Out of sheer exuberance, this son of a South Sea acrobat cuts a few monkey shines.
00:06:17Maybe he feels the voluptuous magic of the tropics.
00:06:20Or maybe someone gave him 50 cents to do it.
00:06:27And of course, they dance the hula hula.
00:06:30She's half Hawaiian and half European.
00:06:40Her name is Miss Love, and the name seems to fit.
00:06:47Ah, a full-blooded Hawaiian.
00:06:50Here is the type of South Sea enchantress the novelists write about.
00:06:54And that has caused many a sailor to forget home and mother.
00:07:00When they're not dancing the hula hula, they are out surf riding.
00:07:04This is an ancient traditional art of these island Polynesians, children of the sea and the sun.
00:07:10Nowadays, it's a favorite sight for the tourists to watch.
00:07:13Yes, and these tropical athletes have become the gigolos of the South Sea.
00:07:19Against these shores of coral and volcano break the unceasing waves of the Pacific,
00:07:24the most glorious surf in all the world.
00:07:31Look how that darting line shoots across the degrees of longitude.
00:07:35Let's follow it in our flight from civilization.
00:07:39Let's follow it to a garden of Eden where the serpent of modern progress has scarcely been seen.
00:07:44An isle where the mystery of the Orient blends with the world of the Southern Cross.
00:07:49The island of Bali, the latest fad for the sophisticated traveler.
00:07:54The latest tropical paradise to be celebrated with rapturous hosannas of Bali who?
00:07:59Of Bali Bali who?
00:08:01Or as our English cousins would say, of Bali Bali Bali who?
00:08:05What?
00:08:07But as yet, few travelers have found their way to these remote shores.
00:08:12The ways of life in Bali are those of centuries ago.
00:08:15In place of motor trucks and freight trains, the Balinese have simpler ideas.
00:08:21The men use their heads.
00:08:23That is, they make the women use their heads.
00:08:28The textile industry is much the same here as it was when it was imported from India
00:08:33In the days of Chandragupta, when Alexander the Great campaigned in the land of Hindustan,
00:08:38and when all the silks and gorgeous fabrics of the earth were woven by hand like this.
00:08:45Bali lies below the equator south of Borneo and west of Java amid the spice islands of the fabulous Indies.
00:08:53The civilization is Hindu.
00:08:55The people are Malay.
00:08:58And these girls have the same delicate grace and charm as the court dancers of Java.
00:09:04The Balinese maidens are famous in the east for their beauty of face and figure,
00:09:09with special emphasis on figure.
00:09:12When the wandering seafarer lands on these shores and sees the Balinese maiden,
00:09:17he touches his forehead to the earth three times and says,
00:09:20How long, oh how long has this been going on?
00:09:26Why has my education been so sadly neglected?
00:09:30Oh, never more do I wish to see the Union Depot in St. Louis or the main stem in Ashtabula.
00:09:36And here among the maidens of Bali, the wandering seafarer gives three Bronx cheers for the Bronx.
00:09:44They're simple, childlike creatures, maidens of the sun.
00:09:48It is they who provide the charm and make Western civilization seem highly unnecessary.
00:09:54As for you, Miss Bali, well, as we leave, we give a scientific sigh.
00:10:00Now we return to the realm of Uncle Sam, but don't be alarmed.
00:10:04We're not going to land at San Francisco or Hoboken.
00:10:08This is Pango Pango, where you don't care a hango hango whether you ever go home or not.
00:10:14It's the American part of the Samoan Islands,
00:10:17and the stars and stripes don't float over any lovelier, lazier land than this.
00:10:22We are in the realm of the beachcomber, the trader, the missionary, and also the realm of rain.
00:10:28Yes, this is the rainmaker, this mountain.
00:10:31When the heavy clouds drift across Samoa and bump into its summit, down it comes in sheets, rain drenching rain.
00:10:38In fact, here is the home of the girl of rain.
00:10:40Here lived Sadie Thompson, the woman around whose picturesque life the play Rain was written.
00:10:46All through Polynesia, there's music, singing, and dancing.
00:10:49The natives are of the same race as the Hawaiians,
00:10:52and the girls here dance the Samoan version of the hula hula.
00:10:55What's the difference?
00:10:57Well, in the Hawaiian hula hula, they shimmy and then they shiver.
00:11:00In the Samoan hula hula, they shiver and then they shimmy.
00:11:06It's an old South Sea custom, and long may she wait.
00:11:11In our quest for Neanderthal man, we seem to be running into a few non-Neanderthal women.
00:11:16Between the maidens of Bali and the Polynesian hula hula,
00:11:19we are in serious danger of forgetting all our science, paleontology, anthropology, and other middleologies.
00:11:24And it might be a good idea.
00:11:26But just the same, anthropological duty calls us.
00:11:29So goodbye girls, we're on our scientific way.
00:11:32With a deep sigh, we watch that darting line cross more meridians.
00:11:37But just the same, we haven't hit any civilization.
00:11:40We are in Fiji now.
00:11:42The Fiji Islands, famous in song and story as the cannibal isles of old.
00:11:48Giant black women and men with towering fuzzy hair,
00:11:52pound on the earth with strange barbaric musical instruments.
00:11:56They chant weird songs that send the shivers along our spines
00:12:00and remind us of the old ferocious cannibal days.
00:12:05The people here are of another race.
00:12:08They are black Melanesians.
00:12:10We find the girls are not quite up to the high standard
00:12:14to which us scientists have become accustomed.
00:12:23No, we don't care so much for this concert and ballet dancing.
00:12:27No, we don't care so much for this concert and ballet dancing.
00:12:33We wish we were back in Bali where the ballet is better.
00:12:37But this is fidgety Fiji.
00:12:42But here's something to admire.
00:12:44Watch that boy.
00:12:46There are no springboards out here.
00:12:49But these youngsters get along nobly without them.
00:12:52They're the flying fish of Fiji.
00:12:55Boys are much the same the world over.
00:12:58The good old equatorial swimming hole.
00:13:01They'd hang their clothes on a hickory limb,
00:13:03only there isn't any hickory and they don't wear clothes.
00:13:06Well, we're too near the great islands of New Zealand
00:13:08to miss paying a visit to those strange people, the Maoris.
00:13:12So we drop in at Rotorua, a village of that magnificent race.
00:13:16The Maoris have rapidly become civilized,
00:13:19but they still cling to much of their old aboriginal mode of life.
00:13:23Their beautifully carved houses
00:13:25and their fantastic symbolical dances and pantomimes.
00:14:24The Maori mother carries her young hopeful like a papoose
00:14:28and then she sings it a Rotorua Maori lullaby.
00:15:23Na hīnā
00:15:32Hīnā
00:15:37Na hīnā
00:15:48Well, the Maoris are of that same great South Sea race
00:15:51which seems so close to the white race
00:15:53they might almost pass for Europeans or Americans.
00:15:56They're one of the tallest, most powerful of all peoples
00:15:59and one of the finest.
00:16:21Na hīnā
00:16:49And now, goodbye to the Maori and New Zealand.
00:16:53We are on our way to Australia,
00:16:55the great island continent where we hope to find Neanderthal land.
00:17:04The wanderings are over.
00:17:06Around this frowning cliff, hidden by walls of living rock,
00:17:09is one of the great harbours of the world.
00:17:12This is Australia, the land down under.
00:17:16And when we enter this harbour,
00:17:18we are back again in a throbbing centre of civilisation,
00:17:21the metropolis of Sydney.
00:17:24Ferryboats and giant liners pass under a bridge
00:17:27that is one of man's new marvels of engineering.
00:17:30There's nothing primitive here.
00:17:31Instead of kangaroos, there are warfrats.
00:17:33Instead of dingoes, wombats and wallabies,
00:17:35there are financial bulls, commercial sharks, crawling crabs.
00:17:39A magnificent modern city of a million people,
00:17:41some of whom are doubtless cavemen,
00:17:44but not the Neanderthal we think.
00:17:47We scientists, after our deep anthropological studies
00:17:50among the hula-hula girls and the maidens of Bali,
00:17:52go wandering through the streets of the big town
00:17:54and we feel like Reuben come to town.
00:17:57No, we're not going to take this kind of conveyance
00:18:00for the haunt of the Neanderthals.
00:18:03Well, what time is it, boys?
00:18:05Maybe I should say what time is it flowers,
00:18:07because this is a floral clock.
00:18:09It's a kind of sundial made of flowers.
00:18:12But anyway, by any clock, it's time for us to be on our way
00:18:15to the land of deserts and rivers that run no way.
00:18:19But first we see the black swans,
00:18:21and don't tell any Australian girl that she has a swan-like throat
00:18:24or she'll stop and wash her neck.
00:18:26She'll not be as proud as a peacock
00:18:28if you tell her she has a throat like a swan.
00:18:32As for the south end of a peacock going north,
00:18:35well, there's something to behold.
00:18:39And among the Sydney peacocks we find a few platinum blondes,
00:18:43handsome birds too.
00:18:46This is a blonde captive all right,
00:18:48but not the one we are destined to find
00:18:50before this mad jaunt is over.
00:18:53We are leaving now for the wilderness.
00:18:56And here we are on the trail of something primitive.
00:19:00These Australian teddy bears remind us
00:19:02that we are in a land that is a throwback
00:19:04into the vast ages of geological time.
00:19:07These teddy bears are not bears at all.
00:19:10They merely look like fuzzy little bear cubs.
00:19:13They are koalas.
00:19:15Like all the native animals of Australia,
00:19:17these jolly little fellows are marsupials,
00:19:20more primitive than the true mammals.
00:19:23They carry their young in a pouch like the kangaroo,
00:19:26like Mrs. Old Possum of Alabama.
00:19:30They're charming little creatures with soft, wistful eyes.
00:19:33Their sole diet is the leaf of a certain kind
00:19:35of tall, towering eucalyptus tree,
00:19:37the tree that sheds its bark instead of its leaves.
00:19:40The koala never drinks water.
00:19:43If you drop a sip of water in his mouth,
00:19:45he'll try to chew it.
00:19:47He loves candy and he loves cake,
00:19:49but his stomach isn't made for such things.
00:19:52If he eats one, he dies.
00:19:55They formerly were numerous in Australia,
00:19:58but the white man with his guns and dogs
00:20:00has nearly exterminated them.
00:20:03Their fur was magical.
00:20:06Now they are protected.
00:20:08The white man is trying hard to repopulate the trees
00:20:11with droves of these funny little Australian teddy bears.
00:20:15When the fond mother goes to dinner
00:20:17at the top of the eucalyptus tree,
00:20:19she gives young eggnogs a ride on her back.
00:20:21I suppose you'd call this piggyback,
00:20:23but these are not pigs,
00:20:25so I guess we'll have to let it go as bareback.
00:20:28And after the banquet, she has a snooze in a treetop.
00:20:31I might try this one sometime.
00:20:34Of course, we know that Australia is famous for its sheep.
00:20:37It has also been known to have a few black sheep.
00:20:40Black sheep? Remember the bush rangers?
00:20:43Most of our wool comes from Australian sheep,
00:20:45though not the black variety.
00:20:47They're all white nowadays, we're told.
00:20:50Australia also has vast herds of camels and immense ranching.
00:20:55What? Camels?
00:20:58Are we in Arabia or the Sahara
00:21:00or in bone-dry Kansas where the sacred animal is the camel?
00:21:05Yes, to be sure, Australia is a land of deserts,
00:21:08so the modern Australian has imported the ships of the desert.
00:21:15We land in East Australia and we are headed for North Australia,
00:21:19but there is no straight route as the crow flies for us
00:21:22in this lonely continent of the southern hemisphere.
00:21:25We must head south before we can go north.
00:21:29We take the train to Melbourne, then to Adelaide,
00:21:32then by the Transcontinental Railroad to Old Deer.
00:21:36And here we find something.
00:21:38Here we find the men that scientists have long thought
00:21:41the most primitive on earth.
00:21:44If man is climbing any evolutionary tree,
00:21:46these boys are right at the bottom.
00:21:48They are Australia's real native sons.
00:21:51How pitifully grotesque he looks in tattered reach-me-down-London talks.
00:21:56If he could sing, you made me what I am today,
00:21:59he would be cursing the white man in a language you have never heard,
00:22:02cursing the white man's ways and the white man's clothes.
00:22:06He has been driven from his better lands to the desert,
00:22:09but it is beyond the desert, beyond the never-never land
00:22:12to which we go by airplane.
00:22:14We are going to find a man of still more primitive type,
00:22:18the living Neanderthal.
00:22:21From Old Deer we fly for four days through Australian skies,
00:22:24Australia is a land of emptiness.
00:22:26Although larger than the whole United States,
00:22:28it has a total population only about equal to that of New York City.
00:22:32The Australians have an expressive way of describing
00:22:34this enormous uninhabited empire of nothingness.
00:22:37They call it miles and miles of damn all.
00:22:42After 24 hours of flying, we land at Broome,
00:22:44a seaport on the northwest coast,
00:22:46the center of the world's pearl fishing industry,
00:22:48but by no means a jewel of a place.
00:22:53No, not pearls, beer, barrels and barrels of beer.
00:22:57The veranda of the Governor Broome Hotel
00:22:59is joyfully decorated with barrels of beer
00:23:01and Miss Australia is sitting pretty.
00:23:05On the outskirts of Broome we find the priceless chapel,
00:23:09and in this chapel we see an altar made of mother of pearl,
00:23:14clustered with pearls.
00:23:16The aboriginal pearl fishermen presented these treasures
00:23:19to the padres who first brought the cross
00:23:21to this godforsaken coast.
00:23:24The walls of this chapel of pearls are made of mud
00:23:28and the roof is made of tin cans
00:23:30saved up by the navies and flattened out.
00:23:34Until the missionaries came,
00:23:35it is doubtful whether the Australian aborigine
00:23:37even worshipped a supreme being,
00:23:40but now he even builds Christian altars of mother of pearl.
00:23:46We're off into the black aboriginal spaces
00:23:48of the Never Never Land.
00:23:50No, it isn't quite as good as the Lincoln Highway,
00:23:53but the desert is fairly flat
00:23:55and we can zip along in our two-ton sport coupe
00:23:58at about 40 miles an hour.
00:24:00That is part of the time we can.
00:24:04Well, well, jumping kangaroos.
00:24:08Neither Mark Twain's jumping frog
00:24:10nor the Mexican jumping bean
00:24:12can shake a leaping leg with these bounders.
00:24:16The national sport in Australia
00:24:17is chasing kangaroos on horseback
00:24:21and the true Australian sportsman
00:24:23doesn't shoot his kangaroo.
00:24:25He rides alongside it.
00:24:27Then he takes his foot out of the stirrup
00:24:29and then he cracks Mr. Kangaroo
00:24:30over the head with the stirrup.
00:24:33Step up, ladies and gentlemen,
00:24:35and meet Dr. Paul Withington,
00:24:36the rollicking scientist.
00:24:38The doctor has explained to us
00:24:40that we're here to seek Neanderthal man
00:24:43because Australia is a backwash
00:24:44of primitive animals and primitive men.
00:24:47He's proving the animal part of it now
00:24:49by yanking down a weird lizard
00:24:51left over from the age of reptiles,
00:24:53almost a diminutive dinosaur.
00:24:56This funny-looking chap is a modern relative
00:24:59of those giant reptilian monsters
00:25:01that once strutted the earth.
00:25:04Yes, and he's a warlike fellow.
00:25:06Look at that fan-shaped headdress.
00:25:09He's always on the guard like this.
00:25:11And what he wouldn't do to us
00:25:13if he was big enough.
00:25:15And here we find more of the primitives.
00:25:17Here's the oldest mammal known to science,
00:25:19the duck-billed platypus with a bill
00:25:21and webbed feet like a duck
00:25:22and fur like a beaver.
00:25:24It lays eggs but suckles its young.
00:25:26It lives in the water yet builds its nest
00:25:28in the bank of a stream.
00:25:31Our trip from Broome by motor
00:25:33finally brings us to a place
00:25:35which is indeed a place of death
00:25:37for the Aborigines.
00:25:39It is called Moolaboola.
00:25:42It's a reservation, a governmental sanctuary
00:25:44for tribal remnants that are ravaged by disease.
00:25:48When the white settler came to Australia in 1788,
00:25:51the native Australians numbered about 150,000,
00:25:55not many.
00:25:56That means that all of the Aboriginal inhabitants
00:25:58of Australia would have made
00:25:59only one medium-sized modern city.
00:26:02Now, less than half that many remain,
00:26:04hardly 60,000 Aborigines on that vast continent.
00:26:09Moolaboola may be a funny name,
00:26:11but it's not a funny place.
00:26:13They're getting their ration of tobacco.
00:26:16No, the white man is not passing out
00:26:17any clear Havana panatelas
00:26:19with Sumatra wrappers at this banquet.
00:26:22But the old boys enjoy their El Ropo
00:26:24snickerdoros just the same.
00:26:27The men get theirs first
00:26:28and the women get what's left.
00:26:31So the dreary procession passes,
00:26:33a monument to the ways of the white man
00:26:35and the advance of civilization
00:26:37in a place where civilization doesn't work.
00:26:40The Aborigines had many harsh customs.
00:26:43If a woman was too curious,
00:26:44if she was caught gazing
00:26:45on the tribal love rights of the men,
00:26:47her eyes were burned with firebrand.
00:26:50And this is what happened to this helpless creature
00:26:52who was being led by her little daughter.
00:27:00On and on we go through barren, desolate country,
00:27:02and now and then we encounter more of the Aborigines.
00:27:05And whenever we see one, man, woman, or child,
00:27:07we stare into their faces,
00:27:08looking for something of those peculiar,
00:27:10abysmally primitive characteristics
00:27:12that science has ascribed to the Neanderthal man.
00:27:16This is the queen of the village of sticks and bark.
00:27:19She's not yet 40 and presumably beautiful.
00:27:22To her boyfriend, she may be Miss Australia
00:27:24or Miss Universe,
00:27:25but more likely she is just Miss Fortune.
00:27:28And a new baby was born
00:27:29just four hours prior to our arrival.
00:27:32These people may be the most primitive race
00:27:34known to science,
00:27:35but this looks like a newborn baby, that's all.
00:27:38Nothing particularly Neanderthal here.
00:27:41Already its mother is up and singing.
00:27:43By baby bunting, daddy's gone a-hunting
00:27:45to get a kangaroo skin to wrap his baby bunting in.
00:27:51Along the Pearl Coast, the women do the work.
00:27:54These tribal beauties are carrying a supply of water for us.
00:27:58They're carrying 200 gallons of it in gasoline tins.
00:28:03Instead of paying them off in gold or pearls,
00:28:07they take their pay in flour and a few plugs of tobacco.
00:28:11Yes, the girls all chew tobacco out here,
00:28:14and how they love it.
00:28:17We have chartered a deep-sea going boat.
00:28:20No luxurious ocean liner, this.
00:28:22Just a pearling schooner.
00:28:24But that's about all you'll find in these waters.
00:28:27And after all, what could be more romantic
00:28:29than a pearling schooner in Timor Sea?
00:28:33From here, we sail across a lonely sea.
00:28:36No, we have not yet found our Neanderthal man.
00:28:40We have journeyed far among the aborigines of the wasteland,
00:28:44but we found no sign of the man of 50,000 years ago.
00:28:48All we got was a rumor from the broken remnants of the tribes.
00:28:52So we must go further.
00:28:54We must go by sea, far along an unvisited coast
00:28:57where the white man is almost unknown.
00:29:01From there, we expect to find far more primitive tribes
00:29:04and types of unknown men,
00:29:06and if we are ever to find Neanderthal man,
00:29:09we'll probably find him somewhere on the edge of Timor Sea.
00:29:14Our voyage is to take us along 900 miles
00:29:16of the most inhospitable coast in the world,
00:29:19and the weather in these waters
00:29:21is of the blow-em-up, calm-em-down variety.
00:29:24Our little pearling schooner is a veteran
00:29:26of the vagaries of the South Sea storms.
00:29:28It doesn't care what happens.
00:29:31She isn't as roomy as an Atlantic liner,
00:29:33and it's hot as the hinges of Hades.
00:29:37If there's a hotter place on earth than this,
00:29:39you've got to show us.
00:29:41But we have plenty of beer.
00:29:43The folks in Broome insisted that we include
00:29:45several barrels in our cargo.
00:29:49For a while, we take a swim every day
00:29:51because our abo sailor informs us
00:29:55that sharks never infest these waters.
00:29:58Then one day we inquire why, and he replies,
00:30:02too much crocodile.
00:30:08The currents are so swift and tricky
00:30:10that they make swirling, foaming rapids
00:30:12right in the open sea.
00:30:15One morning we sight this little isle,
00:30:17uncharted on our maps.
00:30:20Our abo sailor says that he sees turtle tracks
00:30:22on a distant beach.
00:30:24The heat has spoiled a lot of our food,
00:30:26and we are looking forward to a turtle egg omelette
00:30:28and some tarrapin soup.
00:30:30The entire island seems to have turned turtle.
00:30:33We rolled these babies over on their backs
00:30:35on our trip ashore last night,
00:30:37and now we're turning them over again
00:30:39so they can ramble into the ocean.
00:30:41And they make pretty good time, too,
00:30:43considering the heavy load of armor plates
00:30:45that they carry on their backs.
00:30:47They come ashore at night to lay their eggs in the sand.
00:30:51And so a French traveler by the name of Louis de Rougemont
00:30:54came to this strange coast.
00:30:57And when he returned to Paris and London
00:30:59with his tales of these turtles
00:31:01and of how they were so big that he could ride on them,
00:31:04why, the gentlemen of the learned scientific societies
00:31:07laughed at him.
00:31:09They gave him the raspberry.
00:31:11De Rougemont died a pauper,
00:31:13a discredited and a broken man.
00:31:16But de Rougemont was right.
00:31:18Yes, and wouldn't old Louis chuckle with delight
00:31:22if he could see these pictures
00:31:24that prove that he was correct.
00:31:28We find one old boy, one big turtle,
00:31:30that's a foot wider than your family touring car.
00:31:33He tips the beam at 500 pounds.
00:31:35He's about 200 years old,
00:31:37and he doesn't feel a day over 150.
00:31:42But it's the female of the species, again,
00:31:44that does the heavy work.
00:31:46She'll go to it with her front flippers.
00:31:48Huh, wonder what she's up to.
00:31:51Maybe it's buried treasure.
00:31:53Maybe the pearl poachers have been hiding their gems here.
00:31:56This coast is notorious for its poachers
00:31:59and for its smugglers.
00:32:03Then we swing around and take a look
00:32:04at the other end of Mrs. Turtle.
00:32:08And lo and behold,
00:32:10she's digging with her hind flippers, too.
00:32:13She's not a bit camera shy.
00:32:15She doesn't mind us.
00:32:17She goes right on with her work.
00:32:19And she's ambidextrous, too.
00:32:21First she uses one flipper,
00:32:23then she uses the other,
00:32:25just like a machine in rhythm.
00:32:30Well, at the end of two hours,
00:32:32the Duchess of Terrapin has excavated a hole.
00:32:35Her hole is two feet deep.
00:32:38And above the opening, she assumes a casual pose.
00:32:42And then, before our startled eyes,
00:32:44she begins laying eggs.
00:32:46Eighty-eight eggs, two at a time.
00:32:50Each egg is about the size of a regulation billiard ball
00:32:53with a soft rubbery shell.
00:32:56Oh, what an omelet.
00:32:58A turtle egg omelet tastes more like fish than fowl.
00:33:02And one of our abo sailors ate 25 of them
00:33:05raw in one sitting without batting an eye.
00:33:08What a man.
00:33:11Once Mother Turtle has covered her eggs,
00:33:14they are almost as difficult to find as a Neanderthal man.
00:33:18But old boy Abo, he follows the fin tracks.
00:33:22Then he jams a stick into the sand.
00:33:24And then he sniffs.
00:33:26And then he digs them up.
00:33:28And the older they are, the better.
00:33:30He prefers his turtle fruit ripe.
00:33:33He prefers it so ripe that we all run the other way.
00:33:37Well, there are countless giant turtles out here.
00:33:40And nearly all of them are big enough for a man to ride on.
00:33:43And it's lucky for the aborigines that the turtles are here.
00:33:47Because in some sections of this coast,
00:33:50there is almost nothing else for the tribesmen to eat.
00:33:55In this one nest, our Abo finds exactly 106 eggs.
00:34:02Many a farmer wishes that his hens had a batting average
00:34:05like that.
00:34:07Well, at any rate, we won't starve along this coast.
00:34:11But it may be rather hard on the members of the expedition
00:34:14who don't care for eggs.
00:34:17Nearby in this same sandy incubator,
00:34:19we discover a nest of young turtles
00:34:21who have just emerged from their shells.
00:34:24Dr. Whittington tells us that scientists have never been able
00:34:27to determine how long it takes a turtle brood to hatch.
00:34:30Just another one of the mysteries of nature.
00:34:33Well, we pile a lot of the little fellows
00:34:35on the back of a big chap.
00:34:37That old man turtle takes his family for a ride.
00:34:40But his hard-shelled offspring slide off
00:34:43in all directions into the sand.
00:34:45They spill all over the place.
00:34:47And the old boy pushes right on toward the ocean.
00:34:50He doesn't care a hoot what happens to the family.
00:34:53The youngsters are better looking than the old folks.
00:34:56Yes, this is where your fine tortoiseshell combs come from.
00:34:59Now the villain appears.
00:35:03The arch-villain of the world of turtles.
00:35:06His name is Goanna.
00:35:08But he is also known as the monitor lizard.
00:35:11He has a large blue tongue that darts in and out.
00:35:14He's the scavenger of the Pearl Coast.
00:35:17When we stumbled on this scallywag,
00:35:19he was robbing a turtle's nest.
00:35:21This monitor lizard of the shores of Timor Sea is four feet long.
00:35:24His stomach is still distended with the eggs he has stolen.
00:35:27His bite is not generally fatal.
00:35:29But the wound seldom heals.
00:35:31Back on our pearling schooner,
00:35:33Dr. Withington dissects a turtle.
00:35:35He places the turtle's heart on the deck.
00:35:38And there, without the lifeblood coursing through it,
00:35:41the heart continues to beat rhythmically.
00:35:44Having performed continuously for 200 years,
00:35:48it is reluctant to abandon its labors.
00:35:51It continues to beat in this remarkable manner
00:35:54for more than 12 hours.
00:35:56Our stay on that desert island
00:35:58gave us a spicy taste of the joy of wild places.
00:36:01We learned something about giant turtles
00:36:03and about monitor lizards.
00:36:05But what did we learn about Neanderthal man?
00:36:08Not a thing.
00:36:10We have still 400 miles to go.
00:36:13Out on the jib boom,
00:36:15our abo sailor keeps a weather eye
00:36:18on the submerged reefs and the shoals
00:36:20as the days slide by.
00:36:22Back at Broome,
00:36:23we were told to steer for Sunday Island.
00:36:26And here it is.
00:36:28Why Sunday Island?
00:36:30Well, probably because it was discovered on Tuesday.
00:36:33At any rate, when you're in this part of the world,
00:36:36you don't know whether it's Sunday, Monday, Thursday,
00:36:40or what it is.
00:36:41And you don't care a hoot.
00:36:43You lose all track of time.
00:36:45And after a few weeks,
00:36:48Through treacherous waters,
00:36:49through whirlpools,
00:36:50and in and out of reefs,
00:36:51we make for shore like a boatload of Robinson Crusoe's.
00:36:55The currents swirl wildly around us.
00:36:58But we're lucky.
00:37:00We managed to dodge through.
00:37:02And here at Sunday Island,
00:37:04we again approach what to us is an unknown land.
00:37:08A land that has never been seen.
00:37:11A land that has never been seen.
00:37:14At Sunday Island,
00:37:15we again approach what to us is an unknown region.
00:37:18What will we find here?
00:37:20We wonder.
00:37:21We were told that some particularly wild
00:37:23and primitive people live in this locality.
00:37:26Dropping over a small ridge,
00:37:27we come upon the capital city of Sunday Island.
00:37:30Only it isn't much of a city.
00:37:31The huts are about the size of dog kennels
00:37:33built of leaves and twigs.
00:37:35But where are the people?
00:37:37Advancing a little farther,
00:37:38we see another group of huts.
00:37:39Yes, there are the tribesmen.
00:37:41They're doing a little broadcasting,
00:37:42a little fire signaling,
00:37:43just as Neanderthal man did thousands of years ago.
00:37:47This is the Sunday Island radio,
00:37:49and these boys are the local announcers.
00:37:51They're giving a special news broadcast of our arrival.
00:37:54Let's hope their news dispatch
00:37:56doesn't read something like this.
00:37:58Fellow citizens and cannibals,
00:38:00get your pots ready.
00:38:01Here come the missionaries.
00:38:04How did those men of 50,000 years ago kindle a blaze?
00:38:08How did Neanderthal man light his fire?
00:38:10Well, just like this.
00:38:12This boy is watching his father intently.
00:38:15In a few days, he is to pass officially
00:38:17from youth to manhood.
00:38:19Then he must be an expert at many things.
00:38:22And of course, it is fundamental
00:38:24that he should know how to make fire
00:38:26after the manner of his forefathers.
00:38:29And now for one occupation that is unique to Australia,
00:38:33or almost unique.
00:38:35You will find it nowhere else in the world,
00:38:37with the possible exception of some of the more primitive
00:38:39peoples of southern India.
00:38:42Meet the boomerang maker of Sunday Island.
00:38:46Every Australian has a boomerang,
00:38:48and it's a unique one.
00:38:50It's a unique one.
00:38:52It's a unique one.
00:38:54It's a unique one.
00:38:57Every Australian aborigine is a boomerang maker
00:39:00and a boomerang thrower.
00:39:02Each man turns out his own curious weapon
00:39:05with the delicate precision of a modern rifle maker.
00:39:09Some of the best boomerangs are made of yarry wood.
00:39:13To shape them properly,
00:39:15and at the same time to give them an iron-like temper,
00:39:18the wood is exposed to fire.
00:39:21This process so minimizes brittleness
00:39:23and the weapon can strike a tremendous blow without breaking.
00:39:28Isn't it curious how the Australian aborigine
00:39:30learned to make this,
00:39:32the oddest of all man's weapons?
00:39:36And after he makes it,
00:39:38he tests it against a light breeze.
00:39:42And it is not perfect unless it returns
00:39:44right to the feet of the thrower.
00:39:53These aborigines are more primitive than any we've seen so far.
00:39:57Their weapons are the weapons of the Stone Age.
00:40:00Metals are unknown to them.
00:40:02This, for instance, is the local crop foundry.
00:40:06Instead of chromium steel,
00:40:08he uses a kangaroo's shinbone and a piece of rock.
00:40:11He makes a spearhead from a fragment of quartz.
00:40:14And this makes us wonder.
00:40:17We wonder whether both he and the American Indian
00:40:20could have been taught this by a common ancestor
00:40:22in some dim bygone age.
00:40:25Yes, surely we must be on the trail of Neanderthal man at last.
00:40:30At any rate, this is the way the caveman of 50,000 years ago
00:40:34made his spearhead.
00:40:37Yes, it's curious how time has stood still out here.
00:40:43Instead of the oxyacetylene torch for welding,
00:40:46this man uses mud and ant gum,
00:40:49a sticky clay together with a kind of glue
00:40:52that he gets from giant ant hills.
00:40:55And so the spearhead is united to the shaft.
00:40:58And that's just as important to him as forging a 16-inch gun is
00:41:02to the civilized and warlike white man.
00:41:07He uses his primitive spear for war when aborigine meets aborigine,
00:41:11and also for hunting kangaroos and wallabies
00:41:14and the other strange creatures of his tropic realm.
00:41:19But how does he throw it far enough and straight enough
00:41:22to hit anything that isn't deaf, dumb, and blind?
00:41:25When we ask him this, he sends a boy for a notch throwing stick.
00:41:29They call that throwing stick a womera.
00:41:33The womera is to the spear what the gun barrel is to the bullet.
00:41:37And we hope he doesn't forget himself
00:41:40and swing that womera in our direction.
00:41:43That looks like mysterious business to us.
00:41:46We ask him to demonstrate a bit.
00:41:49He says, okay, and starts off with the spear between his toes.
00:41:55And then he heaves it.
00:41:58He heaves it at his pal Rumba Tumba out there,
00:42:02who fortunately knows when to duck.
00:42:09Now he's aiming at a tree.
00:42:12He's a womera sharpshooter, all right.
00:42:14We're convinced.
00:42:17Then comes a sound that makes our blood run cold.
00:42:20Three men approach.
00:42:22Each man twirls a curious gadget called a bullroarer.
00:42:25You can hear the unearthly hum for miles.
00:42:32At any rate, it's easy to see how the bullroarer gets its name.
00:42:36It's a warning to all women and children,
00:42:38a warning to remain away from the sacred rite.
00:42:41The bullroarers are unique.
00:42:43Their eyes are burned out with flaming brand.
00:42:46The women and children are driven away
00:42:48because they are not allowed to see the forbidden boomerang dance
00:42:51sacred to the dingo.
00:42:52Who's the dingo?
00:42:53Why, the dingo is the ferocious Australian wild dog.
00:42:56Every aborigine has a dingo.
00:42:59The dingo dance sometimes lasts for three weeks.
00:43:02So no wonder they take it easy part of the time
00:43:04and do some of the dingo dance on their knees
00:43:06instead of on their dingoes.
00:43:07I mean their dogs or their feet, I should say.
00:43:10These are the gigolos of the tribe.
00:43:12They come to do the Timor Sea Tongo.
00:43:15Although the women have fled into the bush,
00:43:17this aborigine shuffle is supposed to have a magical effect on them.
00:43:21The idea is long-distance sex appeal
00:43:24transmitted by short-wave movements.
00:43:27Notice the short-wave movements.
00:43:31The five-piece orchestra is made up of men so old
00:43:34that they can't even keep time with their own music.
00:43:39In our search for Neanderthal man,
00:43:41one of our most important studies is the study of faces.
00:43:44This is the aborigine equivalent of a plug hat.
00:43:47It's made out of boomerang shavings of yarry wood.
00:43:51And this old bird is wearing a flock of cockatoo feathers.
00:43:54And his friend Waragamba is adorned with a mother of pearl
00:43:58for a fig leaf
00:44:01and crow feathers for a top knot.
00:44:08Mr. Whittington passes out a few presents for us.
00:44:11We have been well treated by these people.
00:44:13They have been gentlemen toward us,
00:44:15and they expect us to be gentlemen in return.
00:44:18The men come first out here.
00:44:20Then women and children last.
00:44:23Well, our camera is so bashful that we have to doll the boys and girls up a bit
00:44:26before they come within range of the lens.
00:44:29When they haven't any collars,
00:44:30they just trot around in their birthday clothes.
00:44:33What's the old boy on the right?
00:44:35The one with the long top knot.
00:44:37His wife is a trifle slow,
00:44:39so he heaves a rock at her.
00:44:41But slow foot and elbow hasn't any patent.
00:44:50Among the aborigines, the female of the species is called gin.
00:44:54Just gin.
00:44:56The boys out here not only like their gin,
00:44:58but they marry their gin.
00:45:00This is their dance of submission.
00:45:03These are the season's debutantes.
00:45:05The men are not kept away from the women's dance of submission.
00:45:09It's an old, zig-zelder, tall custom.
00:45:12It may be their dance of submission,
00:45:14but this is one type of gin that doesn't appeal to the visiting white man.
00:45:19So far as we are concerned,
00:45:21these Abo beauties are at least 50,000 years
00:45:24behind their European and American sisters.
00:45:28Yes, indeed.
00:45:30But as we watch them,
00:45:32we can't help wondering what they would say
00:45:35if they could see our Western shimmy shakes.
00:45:42We also study the faces of the women,
00:45:44hoping to find Miss Neanderthal.
00:45:46But we are not anxious to study them at close range.
00:45:49Uh-uh, nothing does.
00:45:51Whether we find Miss Neanderthal or not,
00:45:54what we do find is a spiffy mud marcelle.
00:46:00She's a young widow, the merry widow of the tribe.
00:46:03She cannot remarry until her hair grows to normal length
00:46:06and the mud falls off.
00:46:09These women are all under 30,
00:46:11and most of them are still in their early 20s.
00:46:14Yes, they seem to lose their fatal beauty rather early out here.
00:46:18This is the dance that brings howls of delight
00:46:21to the tired black businessman of Sunday Island.
00:46:24And I wonder what kind of howls it would bring
00:46:26from the boys in the bald-headed row
00:46:28if this chorus were put on the stage in London or New York.
00:46:32I am afraid they'd get the raspberry.
00:46:35But our aboriginal debutantes have never even heard of New York or London.
00:46:42These boys might not be able to navigate a fleet of dreadnoughts
00:46:45through the Panama Canal,
00:46:48but just give them a few sticks for a raft
00:46:51and they'll make the first lord of the admiralty look like a land lover.
00:46:55Water seems to be their native element.
00:46:58They shoot these boiling rapids as casually as we would take a ride
00:47:02in a taxi cab down Pennsylvania Avenue or along Piccadilly.
00:47:06Then when they reach a quieter stretch,
00:47:09they pull in for shore.
00:47:12They haven't any alpenstalks or spike boots.
00:47:15Just watch them gallop up the cliffs.
00:47:17They climb like monkeys,
00:47:19probably just as our Neanderthal man did 50,000 years ago.
00:47:24The way they scramble over the rocks makes us feel
00:47:27that we may be on the right track after all.
00:47:33At night, we are awakened by a weird chant,
00:47:37the rattle of boomerangs.
00:47:40We learn that a boy is to be initiated into manhood
00:47:43in accordance with ancient tribal rites.
00:47:46Tomorrow his initiation will bestow upon him the rank of a warrior
00:47:50The lad must face the harsh ordeal without a tremor.
00:47:54The final test will come at sunrise after this dance.
00:47:59Meanwhile, all through the night,
00:48:01dancing warriors wave magic branches and boomerangs.
00:48:05They do this in order to drive off the evil spirit.
00:48:09They believe that if even one evil spirit remains,
00:48:12it will weaken the lad so that he will be unable to endure the initiation.
00:48:17The symbolic gates signifying the coming of friendly spirits
00:48:20are waved back and forth by the fated warriors.
00:48:23The friendly spirits are the ancestors of the boy
00:48:25who is to become a man at dawn.
00:48:28There is no ceremony here in wild Australia more important than this
00:48:32of ushering a boy into the estate of manhood.
00:48:35After tomorrow, he will be a full-fledged boomerang thrower
00:48:39and kangaroo hunter.
00:48:41Or he'll be an outcast.
00:48:44The time of the ordeal approaches.
00:48:46If the boy wavers or winces,
00:48:48his chance of achieving manhood vanishes
00:48:51and he becomes an outcast for life.
00:48:54The lad takes his seat before the chieftain
00:48:56who is about to lacerate his gums with a pearl shell knife.
00:49:01The father holds his hand
00:49:03and then the chief knocks out two middle upper teeth.
00:49:08The lad dare not groan or display any sign of pain,
00:49:13but he never falters.
00:49:16And thus, by this baptism of blood,
00:49:19the boy is elevated to the status of a man in wild Australia.
00:49:32This is his mark of maturity.
00:49:35Though barely ten years of age, he may now seek a wife.
00:49:39There is no doubt he will be fully as proud of his tribal markings
00:49:42as his father is proud of his.
00:49:45And if he becomes a chieftain,
00:49:47he will wear the pearl shell knife like this
00:49:49to be used to pierce the gums of other lads.
00:49:56Goodbye, Sunday Island, and a fond farewell to you,
00:49:59you fine old boomerang thrower.
00:50:01Here's a hat, a clay pipe, and a plug of tobacco.
00:50:04What man could ask for more?
00:50:06If you don't like the brand,
00:50:08you can trade the plug of tobacco for another wife.
00:50:10What a life.
00:50:12The clues he and his people gave us send us farther,
00:50:15ever farther along this torrid coast.
00:50:18For almost a month, we weave in and out of shoals and islets,
00:50:22and we're getting short of kangaroo meat.
00:50:24So our native sailors decide to catch a dugong.
00:50:28A dugong is an aquatic mammal,
00:50:30variously termed a sea cow or a sea hawk.
00:50:34In fact, the dugong is a sort of submarine farm, I guess.
00:50:38It is found nowhere else in the world
00:50:40except along this northerly coast of Australia
00:50:42and off the shores of wild New Guinea
00:50:44and the other savage islands in these parts.
00:50:48In a short time, our four abos sight a dugong.
00:50:51He's floating along below the surface of the water.
00:50:53They maneuver to get a shot with our steel harpoon.
00:50:56The lad in the bow tries a new one.
00:50:58He throws himself overboard,
00:50:59drives the harpoon deep into the dugong.
00:51:02The harpooner clambers back into the canoe.
00:51:05The line pays out with a rush
00:51:07and the dugong vanishes into the depths.
00:51:10But the dugong tires quickly,
00:51:13and in a little while we have the old fellow alongside.
00:51:20Mr. Dugong, when we get a look at him,
00:51:22turns out to have a bright yellow hide.
00:51:25His body looks something like a porpoise.
00:51:28Yes, and look what that doggone dugong
00:51:32did to our best three-quarter inch steel harpoon.
00:51:36Why, he almost made a fish hook out of it.
00:51:39Think of the strength required to twist steel like this.
00:51:45The outer skin of this strange creature of Timor Sea
00:51:49is about an eighth of an inch thick.
00:51:52Dr. Whittington explores Mr. Dugong.
00:51:55Underneath he finds an inch and a half of fat
00:51:58that looks like pork.
00:52:00Then the doctor tries to cut it with his knife.
00:52:03We all cloud around to watch him
00:52:05because this is the first dugong we've ever seen.
00:52:08In fact, some of us had never even heard
00:52:11of such a curious creature of the deep
00:52:13until we came out here.
00:52:16When cooked, dugong meat tastes like overripe fish,
00:52:22and I'm afraid it smells like a platter of last year's clams.
00:52:27So we don't find it any too appetizing,
00:52:30but the ambos love it.
00:52:41This is an ear,
00:52:44and this tiny aperture is an eye.
00:52:49And up on top of the skull,
00:52:52we discover a curious valve-like opening.
00:52:56This is the nostril.
00:52:59Well, the looks of the dugong justify his name,
00:53:02the Sea Hog.
00:53:04And then, too, the dugong grazes on deep sea grass,
00:53:08and for that reason he is often called the Sea Cow.
00:53:11But his snout is unlike anything else on Earth
00:53:15or in the sea, for that matter.
00:53:18And this, too, makes us feel as though we're on another planet.
00:53:22For ten weeks we have been sailing the torrid Timor Sea.
00:53:25We have beaten our way across many leagues of unfrequented waters
00:53:28that lie to the north of Australia,
00:53:30and now at last we are approaching our goal,
00:53:32or we hope we are.
00:53:34On the 73rd day after our departure from Broome,
00:53:37we see clouds of smoke on the continental coast,
00:53:39signals, perhaps.
00:53:41Visitors seldom come here,
00:53:43and they probably have sighted our boat from afar off.
00:53:46We make out three figures on the rocky shore,
00:53:49and we wonder if they'll be hostile.
00:53:51They are watching us intently,
00:53:53but they display not the slightest sign of fear,
00:53:56nor do they seem to have the least desire to run away.
00:54:00Surely they must be primeval men
00:54:03who have not yet learned to fear other men.
00:54:06We have at last reached the part of Australia's remote northwest
00:54:10where we think we have a chance.
00:54:12At any rate, we approach this coast with the hope
00:54:15that somewhere here we will find the living remnant
00:54:18of that race of 50,000 years ago.
00:54:23Three of the strangers into our little boat.
00:54:26We invite them to come out to the schooner and look us over,
00:54:29and they come as nonchalantly as though it were an everyday occurrence
00:54:33instead of their first experience.
00:54:35Make yourselves at home, boys.
00:54:38This little party has been arranged especially in your honor.
00:54:41A thousand years ago, they ran out of fly swatters along Timor Sea.
00:54:46The flies of northern Australia are the most pestiferous horde of insects
00:54:50this site of purgatory.
00:54:52Though their bites are poisonous to the white man,
00:54:55the blacks of Timor Sea are immune.
00:54:58Our object is to make friends with these strange fellows
00:55:01so that they will be our allies and supporters
00:55:03through the adventure that is at hand.
00:55:05We can tell by their faces that they would not be pleasant enemies.
00:55:09They haven't lost their cannibal instincts yet.
00:55:14We go ashore knowing that the season of the monsoons is at hand,
00:55:18and unless we get away from here in a week or two,
00:55:21we may be trapped on this desolate coast.
00:55:25Other members of the flyback tribe receive us,
00:55:28but they receive us with such ominous tranquility
00:55:31that we are afraid they are liable to present us with a boomerang to the city.
00:55:37But our three friends who came out to the scooter do noble service.
00:55:41They call out to the others that we are just a party of visiting firemen
00:55:45out for a holiday and not to be alarmed.
00:55:49These men are the finest physical specimens we have seen so far.
00:55:54They are true sons of the earth.
00:55:56They sleep where night overtakes them.
00:55:59Nude, free, and untrammeled,
00:56:01they have roamed this bleak, barren territory
00:56:03like so many apes for untold centuries.
00:56:06For them, time has indeed stood still.
00:56:10They neither build bridges nor play bridge.
00:56:13They fly no airplanes, why, they never even flew a kite.
00:56:17Yes, here is human life in its lowest form.
00:56:21We have turned back the pages of history.
00:56:24We are looking at our own ancestors of 50,000 years ago.
00:56:28We are shaking hands with the boys at the bottom of our own family tree
00:56:32at any rate so it seems.
00:56:35Because we intend to pass a week or more with this tribe,
00:56:39we take care to win the goodwill of the women.
00:56:42They are extremely suspicious and superstitious,
00:56:45and if they suddenly got the notion that we are in league with the evil spirits,
00:56:49our whole expedition might come to a sad, sad end.
00:56:54The debutante or dowager of Park Avenue has her pet Pekingese.
00:56:59The debutante or dowager of Timor Sea has her pet bingo,
00:57:03the wild dog of Australia.
00:57:06These ladies would hardly take any prizes at the Atlantic City Beauty Show,
00:57:10but at that, they're a lot better looking than the men.
00:57:15The women in every climb like presents.
00:57:18Broadway has its gimme girls, and so has Timor Sea.
00:57:22So we give them pandanus nuts, a rare, bitter-tasting delicacy.
00:57:27And do the girls like the nuts? I'll say they do.
00:57:31They are so busy devouring them that they don't even know that a camera is pointed their way.
00:57:36Whether these girls are related to Neanderthal man or not,
00:57:40their nutcrackers certainly belong to the Stone Age.
00:57:44If there is one thing they like better than fricasseed kangaroo, it's pandanus nuts.
00:57:51The scars on the shoulders of some of the women,
00:57:53or some of the djinns, I should say, denote widowhood.
00:57:57The closely cropped hair of a few signifies that already they have snared a second husband.
00:58:03And according to custom, the second husband will wear the missing tresses as a belt.
00:58:10We see two girls wearing their own hair around the waist in this fashion.
00:58:15They're ready to turn the hair belts over to their next husbands if they're lucky enough to get them.
00:58:20In a moment of rash generosity, we supply the girls with our only cake of soap, and they seem to need it.
00:58:25But instead of using it to wash, they eat it.
00:58:28Cleanest at the bath in Australia.
00:58:32As night approaches, the usual preparations for a fire are begun.
00:58:37Though our thermometer registers 116 degrees in mid-afternoon,
00:58:42within a few hours it will have dropped to 50 or even lower.
00:58:47A cold night is fashionable out here, for it is then that the natives literally put on the dog.
00:58:52Exceptionally cold nights are known as three-dog nights, when the Aborigines used three bed warmers.
00:58:59One dog at the feet, another around the neck, and a third at the small of the back.
00:59:04A one-dog night, therefore, is comparatively mild.
00:59:08Imagine the conversation the next morning when Morumbaji says in passing,
00:59:12Why, George, it was cold in Argonia last night. I had to use three dogs.
00:59:17And Waragamba replies, You're a cuckoo. I used only two.
00:59:21And before morning threw one of them over to the wife.
00:59:25Some of the boys are going through their setting-up exercises.
00:59:29While their wives are fixing some kangaroo hash and scrambling a few turtle's eggs for breakfast,
00:59:35the men are limbering up their spears and warambas.
00:59:40Now it's our business to make a methodical study of these people.
00:59:44Man after man, we must observe the members of this tribe until we find a trait of the Neanderthal.
00:59:51That is, if it is here.
00:59:54For these are perhaps the most primitive of all the primitive peoples of the Australian bush.
01:00:00What a strange old world this is.
01:00:04What strange people some of our fellow mortals are.
01:00:07Why, these old boys have never heard of England. They've never heard of America.
01:00:11They've never even heard of the great city of Milwaukee.
01:00:14This warrior belongs to another tribe.
01:00:16He has been sheltered here ever since his relatives mysteriously disappeared when he was on a hunting trip.
01:00:21The body lacerations, which are his most precious adornment, were inflicted with spearheads when he was a mere boy.
01:00:26The wounds were filled with clay so that when the flesh healed, the scars came to resemble great wealth.
01:00:33There is an amazing variety in these faces.
01:00:37They are all the same color, a deep brown, but they don't belong to the black race.
01:00:42And aside from color, each man seems to be unrelated to his brother tribesman.
01:00:48One may resemble a Malay. Another may resemble a Hindu.
01:00:53And still another may look like a Jew.
01:00:56Where under the sun did these people come from originally?
01:01:01This is one thing that the scientists don't know.
01:01:05Here we find a medley, a mixture, an amalgam of many types of humanity.
01:01:11Here indeed is a backwash where many different broken remnants of contrasting peoples and tribes have drifted.
01:01:18They have come here in unknown ways and in unknown times through the blank spaces of an unknown past.
01:01:26Look how weirdly different these faces are.
01:01:37Remember that face we saw at the American Museum in New York?
01:01:40This reconstruction of the Neanderthal man, the man of long ago who hunted and fished in the primeval forests of Europe thousands of years before the dawn of civilization, before the dawn of history?
01:01:50Well, note the resemblance between the famous museum bust and our modern specimen of the cave dweller.
01:01:56Yes, here surely is our Neanderthal man, and what a face.
01:02:01Yes, here he is.
01:02:03Here is what we have come 10,000 miles to find.
01:02:07Let's look at him closely for a moment.
01:02:10Look at that massive skull, those beaconing brows, the expression of heavy ferocity, that ponderous ape-like jaw.
01:02:16And when we found this man, we felt that our expedition had not been in vain.
01:02:20Yes, here is a living specimen of the cave man.
01:02:24Well, the amazing thing about this quest of ours is that we not only found what we came for, but we also found something even more startling, and we didn't have to wait many minutes now.
01:02:34And just before the surprise comes, we stand watching little Bimbo, the boy bushman, as he does the Timor Sea Cake Walk.
01:02:41He's the son of a chief, and he goes through this dance with all the confidence and assurance of a veteran.
01:02:47The tribesmen are dancing a dance of friendship and farewell, queer steps, weird music, unutterably primitive, repulsively barbaric, dark savagery.
01:02:58The tribesmen have decorated their bodies with a mixture of white clay.
01:03:02Their dance doesn't seem to be a joyous affair.
01:03:04They're in deadly earnest. They're a serious people.
01:03:07They even take their festival seriously and solemnly.
01:03:19The lad has already chosen his bride, or rather, she has been picked for him.
01:03:23Romantic love, as we know it, is unknown to these people.
01:03:28The little girl, now coming in on the left, with the close-cropped hair, wearing the white loincloth, is to be his wife.
01:03:36So they dance together in celebration.
01:03:38Of course, of course, they're both too young to know what it's all about.
01:03:41To them, well, it's just another dance.
01:03:44The lad dances like a veteran.
01:03:46He seems as nonchalant as the older men.
01:03:48Probably he's been practicing these steps ever since he learned to walk.
01:03:53Then he changes to a new movement, a more complicated one that resembles shadow boxing put to music.
01:03:58They do it all with a solemnity that makes us feel as though we are witnessing a secret religious ceremony.
01:04:04Great Jupiter, and what's this?
01:04:07See that fair-haired boy there on the right?
01:04:10A blonde child among these aborigines.
01:04:13Great Scott, how can this be?
01:04:16Can he be an albino, a freak, or is he really a white child?
01:04:21Have we stumbled on something here?
01:04:23Well, dimly re-remember having heard back at Sydney and at the pearl fisheries at Broome,
01:04:28tales of white people lost among the abysmal savages of the Australian wilds of the never-never land.
01:04:38I think mystery comes over us.
01:04:40Yes, and that question mark in our minds now becomes two question marks.
01:04:43Look, look at the man at the end of the line.
01:04:45Look what he's wearing, a woman's underclothing.
01:04:47Step in, step in to assurance you're born.
01:04:50First a blonde child, then a woman's undergarments.
01:04:52What's the explanation?
01:04:54Here he is again, there in the middle of the line.
01:04:57Great Caesar's ghost.
01:04:59We ask who he is, and we're told that he's a blonde boy's father.
01:05:02What?
01:05:03This aborigine, the father of that white boy?
01:05:05Well, there must be some fantastic explanation.
01:05:08Yes, we must get to the bottom of it.
01:05:10What crazy business can it be anyhow?
01:05:13Incredible.
01:05:14What a curious, foolish sort of dance.
01:05:17Primitive.
01:05:18Well, childish, but apparently not for them.
01:05:21They're in dead earnest.
01:05:23They seem to be imitating kangaroos,
01:05:25but they tell us that it's called the crow dance.
01:05:28Evidently it's a serious matter to them.
01:05:31Here in the land of the boomerang and the Neanderthal man,
01:05:33the big event of the year is the tribal corroboree,
01:05:36jamboree we'd call it.
01:05:38And it ends with the symbolic dance, the dance of the crow.
01:05:42But our eyes are irresistibly drawn back to that boy,
01:05:46that fair-haired lad.
01:05:48What is the story behind all this?
01:05:51To say that we are puzzled would be putting it mildly.
01:05:55And we make up our minds not to sail back across Timor Sea
01:05:59until we get to the bottom of it.
01:06:02Well, they tell us this ceremony occurs only once a year.
01:06:05We try in vain to figure out the strange,
01:06:07And at the end of the dance, the performers give their version
01:06:10of how the crows bear away their prey,
01:06:12and they carry off the man and the woman step in.
01:06:15And when they finally drop the father of the blond boy,
01:06:18and when the cloud scatters and he starts to wave,
01:06:20after the aborigine corroboree is over,
01:06:22we decide to follow him.
01:06:24We are told that he lives apart from the rest of the tribe
01:06:27for some reason, and that adds to our curiosity.
01:06:30We learn also that he only wears the flimsy garment
01:06:33on this one side of his body,
01:06:35and that he only wears the flimsy garment
01:06:37on this one ceremonial occasion.
01:06:39Well, it's got us guessing.
01:06:41And if at all possible, we're going to find out
01:06:44how this grotesque thing came about and what it means.
01:06:48He makes a curious, fantastic, almost comic picture,
01:06:52this Australian bushman in the white woman's underclothes.
01:06:55He knows we're following him.
01:06:57Well, at least we think he does.
01:06:59He can hardly help seeing us,
01:07:01although we do stay a short distance off,
01:07:04Even though we're pointing our camera his way,
01:07:06it doesn't seem to bother him much,
01:07:08except that he acts rather puzzled.
01:07:10He isn't half as puzzled as we are.
01:07:12The presence we have given to him and to his people
01:07:15probably make him feel that we mean no harm,
01:07:17and then we hardly look very dangerous.
01:07:20We purposely left all our weapons back on the lugger
01:07:23in order to win their confidence.
01:07:25He and his brother tribesmen outnumber us 50 to 1.
01:07:29We couldn't do much with rocks and clubs
01:07:31against those odds, even if we had to fight.
01:07:34Nevertheless, he stalks warily along Boomerang in hand,
01:07:37ready for an emergency,
01:07:39and we hope he doesn't buzz the old Boomerang our way.
01:07:42On and on he goes, over the steep trail.
01:07:44Where is he leading us?
01:07:47A few more miles of boulders, and we come upon his home.
01:07:50It's a cave.
01:07:52Seated before it is a woman,
01:07:54a woman with a shock of grey hair.
01:07:56There doesn't seem to be anything of the aborigine about her.
01:07:59Maybe here's our answer.
01:08:01Yes, here must be the solution to our mystery.
01:08:04She's a white woman.
01:08:05Why, she's just as white as you or I.
01:08:07What under the sun can her story be?
01:08:10Well, hoping that her caveman won't resent our intrusion
01:08:13and hoping that he'll not use his Boomerang on us,
01:08:16we step forward.
01:08:17Hello, hello.
01:08:19We call out to him in tones just as friendly as we can make them,
01:08:23and as we do so, the woman slips into the cave.
01:08:26Our bushman stands there puzzled.
01:08:29He's still wondering, no doubt,
01:08:31just why we are so interested and why we have trailed him.
01:08:34He utters something in his harsh guttural tongue,
01:08:37something that seems to mean,
01:08:39well, all right, come on, come on, what's up?
01:08:42A plug of tobacco which he immediately eats
01:08:45puts him in an easier frame of mind.
01:08:47He still looks at us wondering,
01:08:49but he doesn't seem at all warlike.
01:08:51So we squeeze his arm,
01:08:53the traditional friendly gesture of the bush,
01:08:55and then we ask about his costume,
01:08:57that curious flimsy garment,
01:08:59and he indicates that they belong to her.
01:09:01We inquire about her.
01:09:03He steps to the entrance and calls her.
01:09:05He speaks softly, reassuringly,
01:09:08and a moment later, to greet us,
01:09:10emerges the white woman.
01:09:15Our lady of mystery has blue eyes and fair skin.
01:09:18She seems to be somewhere between 30 and 35.
01:09:22There's nothing neanderthal about her.
01:09:24Why, she might walk the streets of Liverpool or Topeka,
01:09:27but not in this costume.
01:09:30At any rate, she surely is a white woman.
01:09:34Ray, Scott, how did she get here?
01:09:38Impassively, without a word,
01:09:39she goes about her housewife's duties,
01:09:41roasting a baby kangaroo for her man.
01:09:43Then, the animal cooked, she passes it to him,
01:09:46and he, in turn, politely offers us a portion.
01:09:50Her lips are moving.
01:09:51We hear mumbled sounds,
01:09:53familiar syllables, English.
01:09:56White man, she says.
01:09:58I'm a white woman.
01:10:01The sounds are clumsy,
01:10:02halting as though she had not spoken a word of English
01:10:05in a long time.
01:10:07Yes, our suspicions are confirmed.
01:10:09She is a white woman,
01:10:10but how did she get stranded on this godforsaken coast?
01:10:15How under the sun did this white woman come here?
01:10:19How did this daughter of the lordly Caucasian
01:10:21come to be the wife of cave-dwelling man?
01:10:26Whatever brought you here, we ask her.
01:10:28How do you happen to be living with this tribe?
01:10:32And so it was that the story of this aboriginal wife
01:10:34was told to us as we sat there that afternoon
01:10:37in tropical Australia,
01:10:38a thousand miles from nowhere.
01:10:40She was the widow, she said,
01:10:41of a pearling captain of Thursday Island.
01:10:44She was a bit vague about it.
01:10:45Long years here among the wild people
01:10:48had left her somewhat uncertain.
01:10:50But we gathered that her husband's pearling schooner
01:10:52had been dashed on the reef years before.
01:10:56She alone survived.
01:10:58When the pearling schooner was pounded to pieces,
01:11:00the waves threw her on the beach
01:11:01and she was rescued by the aborigines.
01:11:03Apparently, they believed her a ghost.
01:11:05That was because she was so white.
01:11:07Several wires claimed her as the spirit of their dead wives,
01:11:10and there were bitter boomerang jewels.
01:11:12One man was a better boomerang thrower than the others,
01:11:15and he won the ghost prize.
01:11:18He of the steppings,
01:11:19the man we had followed to this cave.
01:11:22And this cleft in the rock had become her home
01:11:24just as Neanderthal man of 50,000 years ago
01:11:26did with his woman.
01:11:28Here she had learned the household duties of a cave wife,
01:11:31how to roast kangaroos,
01:11:33how to keep comfortable on those three dog nights,
01:11:35and how to polish the hunter's boomerang.
01:11:38She didn't seem at all excited overseeing us,
01:11:40and as for a motion picture camera,
01:11:42well, she had never even heard of such a thing.
01:11:45In fact, she seemed almost as primitive and simple-minded
01:11:48as the aborigines.
01:11:50A female Robinson Crusoe.
01:11:52She came from Thursday Island,
01:11:54and she lives here in a cave with her man, Brian.
01:11:57Yes, the little blonde boy was hers.
01:12:00He was born, and she reared him as devotedly
01:12:02as if his father had been a British Jew.
01:12:05She had almost forgotten Thursday Island
01:12:07and the white man's land beyond.
01:12:09It seemed like a dream.
01:12:11We thought it might be a noble thing to bring her back.
01:12:13You want to come with us, we asked.
01:12:15We'd gladly bring you,
01:12:16but the aboriginal wife shook her head.
01:12:19These were the black depths of savagery to us on this coast,
01:12:22but not to her.
01:12:24Here she had her man and her boy,
01:12:25and she was content.
01:12:26Here in a rude primitive life,
01:12:27against the bosom of the earth,
01:12:28she had found a measure of happiness.
01:12:31That other world,
01:12:32the distant world toward which we were heading,
01:12:34that strange world,
01:12:35she almost forgot that.
01:12:37She shook her head and repeated,
01:12:38no, no.
01:12:40So we returned to our scooter,
01:12:41ready to outrace the approaching monsoon.
01:12:44As we sailed back across Timor Sea,
01:12:46she waved to us from a lofty rock.
01:12:49Faint and abandoned her
01:12:50at one of the most remote spots in all the world.
01:12:54A storm had thrown her among the people of Akande,
01:12:56but she had made the most of it.
01:12:58She had her man, she had her child.
01:13:00The wind bellowed out our sails,
01:13:02and homeward bound our thoughts
01:13:03were not so much concerned with Neanderthal man
01:13:06as they were with that lonely woman,
01:13:08that aboriginal wife of Timor Sea,
01:13:10the shipwrecked wife of the white-furling captain
01:13:13who had been left by fate
01:13:14among the people of the Stone Age
01:13:16and who had pluckily decided
01:13:18to resign herself to this life,
01:13:21to the end.