The Nyawigi people, also spelt Nyawaygi, Nywaigi, or Nawagi, are an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

people whose original country was around

Halifax Bay Halifax Bay is a region located around a bay in the Coral Sea, situated on the Australian coast in Far North Queensland. It is bordered by the town of Ingham to the north, city of Townsville to the south and Great Palm Island off the coast to ...

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf C ...

. They may also have inhabited

Orpheus Island Orpheus Island National Park is a national park on Orpheus Island, in North Queensland, Australia. The Aboriginal (possibly Nyawaygi) name for this island is Goolboddi Island. It is one of the Palm Islands group, northwest of Brisbane, as is ...

Language

An early record suggested that the ''Nyawa''-(Nowa) in this term denoted 'no', and comparative linguistics has observed the ''–gi'' form a

comitative suffix In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...

, but the last speakers could not confirm this speculative derivation of the ethnonym. One of the last to be interviewed was a centenarian, Long Heron.

Country

The Nywaigi are a coastal people occupying 50 miles of coastland to a depth of some 15 kilometres. To their north, bounded on the west by the Toobanna, Frances Creek and Waterview Creek, over the

Herbert River The Herbert River is a river located in Far North Queensland, Australia. The southernmost of Queensland's wet tropics river systems, it was named in 1864 by George Elphinstone Dalrymple explorer, after Robert George Wyndham Herbert, the first ...

at Halifax and Ingham, were the

Biyaygiri The Biyaygiri, also known as Bandjin, were an Aboriginal Australian people of northern Queensland. Language The language of the Biyaygiri was Biyay, a dialect of Warrgamay. The last speaker of the language was Nora Boyd, who enabled Robert Dixo ...

. To the west was Warrongo country. Their southern boundary lay at the Seaview Range. Other neighbours include the

Warrgamay The Warrgamay people, also spelt Warakamai, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland. Language Their language, Warrgamay, is now extinct. It was a variety of Dyirbalic, and appears to be composed of three distinct dialect ...

. In

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 total extent of their land was in the area to the southwest of the

, mainly on the

rainforest Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...

ed high Sea View Range, running southeast as far as Harveyside and the Reid River. The Warrgamay lay around the

sclerophyll forest Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaves, short internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is parallel or oblique to direct ...

to their east on the coast, though, according to Robert M. W. Dixon, the Nyawagyi did access part of the sea-coast in the vicinity of Ingham.

Social structure

The Nyawagyi comprised 7 tribes, with the affix ''bara'' indicating belonging, and all probably speaking a distinctive dialect. * ''Ikelbara.'' * ''Doulebara.'' * ''Mungulbara.'' * ''Mandambara.'' * ''Karabara.'' * ''Bungabara.'' * ''Yoembara.'' The Nyawagyi had four sections: (a)''wungu''; (b)''gurguɽu''; (c) ''gurgila=gurgiŋ''; (d) ''gaɽbawuɽu''. The marriage rules laid down that # A ''wungu'' male had to marry a ''gurguɽugan'' woman, their offspring becoming ''gurgila=gurgiŋ''. # A ''gurguɽu'' male married a ''wungurayŋgan'' to produce ''gaɽbawuɽu''. # A ''gurgila=gurgiŋ'' male married a ''gaɽbawuɽiyan'', producing ''wungu'' children. # A ''gaɽbawuɽu'' male married a ''gurgilayŋgan'', and their offspring would be ''gurguɽu.''

Alternative names

* ''Nyawigi'' * ''Geugagi''

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * {{Authority control Aboriginal peoples of Queensland Far North Queensland