Sydney  - A feud between rival Aboriginal families in the remote Australian town of Tennant Creek sparked a street battle among more than 100 people armed with clubs, boomerangs, axes and knives, Northern Territory police said Tuesday.

A 63-year-old woman was airlifted to Alice Springs Hospital after being clubbed.

"We will not tolerate people, under any circumstances, taking the law into their own hands," Superintendent Bruce Porter said.

The clash came the same day Justice Trevor Riley told a court in Tennant Creek that some form of prohibition was needed to curb alcohol-fuelled violence among indigenous people.

He spoke after sentencing a local man who was drunk when he kicked his wife in the head, breaking her jaw in two places.

"The courts regularly hear evidence of alcohol being consumed in Tennant Creek in quantities beyond comprehension," Riley said. "It seems that the excessive consumption of alcohol continues for so long as alcohol is available. People drink until they can drink no more and then get up the next day and start all over again."

Most Aboriginal people in Tennant Creek, 990 kilometres south of Darwin, don't work and live on government hand-outs. Aborigines make up around 500,000 of Australia's population of 21 million people.

Riley urged the Northern Territory government to intervene to curb drunkenness.

"A system must be devised to limit the amount of alcohol made available to the people whose lives are being devastated in this way," the judge said.

"For the good of the town, for the good of the victims, for the good of the offenders and for the good of the innocent children of Tennant Creek." (dpa)