The Ajabakan were 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 of the
Cape York Peninsula
The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...
of
Queensland
Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
.
Country
The Ajabakan's lands extended over around the
Upper Edward River.
Ursula McConnel
Ursula Hope McConnel (1888–1957) was a Queensland anthropologist and ethnographer best remembered for her work with, and the records she made of, the Wik Mungkan people of Cape York Peninsula.
First trained at University College London, the ...
in the late twenties identified members of the Ajabakan, together with the
Wikianji living westwards of the Aiyaboto who were living south of
Coen.
Language
The Ajabakan spoke
Bakanha/Ayabakan(u), classified by
Robert M. W. Dixon as one of the languages of the
Wik subgroup of the Northern Cape York Peninsula A list of words has been compiled by Philip Hamilton as part of a comparative
Uw Oykangand and
Uw Olkola online dictionary project.
Social organization
Ajabakan culture was sufficiently similar to that of the
Munkan to lead McConnel to suspect that they had only detached themselves from the latter in recent times in order to form a distinct tribal grouping, and one which then formed close associations with the Ayapathu.
Their social groups were divided into two
moieties ''kuyen'' (''u'') and ''katpen'' (''u''), virtually interchangeable with those of the
Wikianji. According to
Lauriston Sharp
Lauriston Sharp (March 24, 1907 – December 31, 1993) was a Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at Cornell University. He was the first person appointed in anthropology at the university, and he created its Southeast As ...
, the Ajabakan
ic system belonged to what he called the Group V
Yir Yoront typology, with clans having a single totem, exclusively under its control in terms of choice of ceremonial site, and strong
phratric groupings of clans, bound to the totems of their constituent clans. Clan descent was
patrilineal
Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...
, with; the spirit babies (''bukwa nepi'') usually located on the land belonging to the father's clan.
The Ajabakan, together with the southern Ayapathu and
Koko olkolo, . would come from their respectives heartlands on the upper Edward, upper Holroyd, and Coleman Rivers to meet up with the
Kaantju
The Kaantyu people are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Cape York Peninsula in north Queensland. They live in the area around the present-day town of Coen. Most of their traditional tribal land has been taken over for cattle stations. ''Ka ...
on ceremonial occasion on the
Ebagoolah cattle-run. These Kaantju had an important wedge role as a territorial mediator between Gulf watershed and east coast tribes.
Alternative names
* ''Aiabakan''
* ''Bakanu''
* ''Baganu''.
* ''Pakanh''
* ''Yirrq-mayn'' (Bakanh)
Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{authority control
Aboriginal peoples of Queensland