Ujm – when a community is distant from gedolei torah and yeshivos, this will be their unfortunate fate. The same thing happened to the keifeng chinese Jews… I don’t personally see how their claim of being from the 10 shevatim makes sense. Eldad hadani testifies a lot about them and doesn’t mention anything about an Ethiopian community that was one of them.
I’ve met Pakistani people in Brooklyn who’ve told me that they’re from shevet Dan…they have certain minahgim and simanei yisroel, but have no yichus and no ability to verify who they are.
Many goyim in the time of bayis rishon and sheni believed in judaism but fell short of converting; yosifon writes about how a million goyim believe in the mesorah of klal yisroel in his time. Lulai divrei haradvaz i would think that’s what happened here and in Pakistan.