The Daii or Dhay'yi are an

indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

people of the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

Name

The tribal ethnonym ''Daii'' is formed from the

demonstrative pronoun Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...

for 'this'.

Country

Norman Tindale Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. Life Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...

's estimation the Daii occupied of land, extending northwards from the shores of

Blue Mud Bay Blue Mud Bay is a large, shallow, partly enclosed bay on the eastern coast of Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia, facing Groote Eylandt on the western side of the Gulf of Carpentaria. It lies east-south-east of Darwin in the ...

as far as the

Koolatong River The Koolatong River is a river in the Northern Territory, Australia. Rising in the Mitchell Ranges the river initially flows north then turns east across the uninhabited plains eventually discharging into the Saint Nicholas Inlet and the Blue ...

. Their inland extension ran at least to Ngilipidji.

Social organization

The Daii consisted of two

clans A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...

, which formed the basis for marriage exchanges:- * ''Dalwangu'' * ''Djawark'' The Dalwangu

moiety Moiety may refer to: Chemistry * Moiety (chemistry), a part or functional group of a molecule ** Moiety conservation, conservation of a subgroup in a chemical species Anthropology * Moiety (kinship), either of two groups into which a society is ...

was ''jiritja'', the Djawark a ''dua'' moiety.

Trade

The Daii's lands accessed the rich

quartzite Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tect ...

quarry at Ngilipidji, which provided stone for prized implements that could be traded. The local industry was, according to archaeologists, probably spurred by the rise of precolonial contacts with Asia's

South Sulawesi South Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Selatan) is a province in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital is Makassar. The province is bordered by Central Sula ...

Makassar Makassar (, mak, ᨆᨀᨔᨑ, Mangkasara’, ) is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, Surabaya, Med ...

voyagers.

Alternative names

* ''Taii'' * ''Tai'' * ''Dalwango'' * ''Dalwongo'' * ''Dalwongu'' * ''Darlwongo'' * ''Dhalwangu'' * ''Djawark'' * ''Djarlwa:g''

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * {{authority control Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory