This list of Australian Aboriginal group names includes names and collective designations which have been applied, either currently or in the past, to groups of
Aboriginal Australians
Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands.
Humans first migrated to Australia (co ...
. The list does not include
Torres Strait Islander
Torres Strait Islanders ( ) are the Indigenous Melanesians, Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal peoples of the res ...
peoples, who are ethnically, culturally and linguistically distinct from Australian Aboriginal peoples, although also an
Indigenous Australian
Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...
people.
Typically, Aboriginal Australian mobs are differentiated by language groups. Most Aboriginal people could name a number of groups of which they are members, each group being defined in terms of different criteria and often with much overlap. Many of the names listed below are properly understood as language or dialect names; some are simply the word meaning ''man'' or ''person'' in the associated language; some are
endonym
An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
s (the name as used by the people themselves) and some
exonym
An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
s (names used by one group for another, and not by that group itself), while others are
demonym
A demonym (; ) or 'gentilic' () is a word that identifies a group of people ( inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place ( hamlet, village, town, city, region, ...
s (terms for people from specific geographical areas).
List
See also
*
Australian frontier wars
The Australian frontier wars were the violent conflicts between Indigenous Australians (including both Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) and mostly British settlers during the colonial period of Australia.
The first conflic ...
*
Indigenous peoples of Australia
Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups, w ...
*
Languages confirmed by AIATSIS
Notes
# This name is one of the names used on the widely use
''Aboriginal Australia Map'', David Horton (ed.), 1994published in ''The Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Australia'' by
AIATSIS
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), established as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1964, is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, ...
. Early versions of the map also divided Australia into 18 regions (Southwest, Northwest, Desert, Kimberley, Fitzmaurice, North, Arnhem, Gulf, West Cape, Torres Strait, East, Rainforest, Northeast, Eyre, Riverine, Southeast, Spencer and Tasmania); the region of the tribes which are depicted in this map are shown in the last column of this table.
# This name is the main name used in
Norman Tindale
Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. He is best remembered for his work mapping the various tribal groupings of Aboriginal Australians ...
's ''Catalogue of Australian Aboriginal Tribes''. Each has a separate article under the name listed there, and alternative names are also listed. In most cases (but not all) the name in the left column "Group name" is also the main name used by Tindale.
Citations
Sources
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External links
Aboriginal Culture* − List of the 716 Individual Tribal Groups identified throughout Australia... reproduced with permission,
George William (Buralnyarla) Helon's ''Aboriginal Australia: Register of Tribe, Clan, Horde, Linguistic Group, Language Names and AIATSIS Language Codes - Including Synonyms, Misnomers and Approximate Locations'' (1998)
AustLang database of Australian languagesAusanthrop.net(tribal names and sub-groups)
Norman B. Tindale's Tribal map**
ttp://www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/sj_report/index.html Social Justice Reports 1994-2009*
Native Title Reports 1994-2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Australian Aboriginal group names
Group names