The Wakaya 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 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 ...
.
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 estimate of the Wakaya's territory assigns them some .
Language
The
Wakaya language is now extinct.
Social economy
The Wakaya were one of the Australian peoples, the others being the
Watjarri
The Wajarri people, also spelt Wadjari, Wadjarri, Watjarri, and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose traditional lands are in the Mid West region of Western Australia.
Boolardy Station, along with the tiny settlement of ...
,
Wanman,
Pitjantjatjara
The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are vari ...
,
Ngadadjara and
Alyawarre, who are known to have harvested
purslane seeds, and threshed them within stone circles for the oily nutrients they provided.
Land
In 1980 the Wakaya people lodged a
land claim
A land claim is defined as "the pursuit of recognized territorial ownership by a group or individual". The phrase is usually only used with respect to disputed or unresolved land claims. Some types of land claims include aboriginal land claims, A ...
along with the
Alyawarre people for land somewhere near the remote
outstation of Purrukwarra. As a result, they were handed back on 22 October 1992, while the Alyawarre were given , both of which were only small parts of the original claim.
Alternative names
* ''Wagaja, Waggaia.''
* ''Wagai, Waagai.''
* ''Wagaiau, Waagi.''
* ''Warkya.''
* ''Wogaia, Worgaia, Worgai, Workaia, Warkaia.''
* ''Workia, Workii, Woorkia.''
* ''Lee-wakya.''
* ''Akaja.'' (
Kaytetye exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
)
* ''Ukkia, Arkiya.''
Notes
Citations
Sources
*
{{authority control
Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory