Ayapathu
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The Ayapathu people, otherwise known as the ''Ayabadhu'' or ''Aiyaboto'', 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 ...
group, living on the western side of the
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in northern
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 ...
.


Language

Ayapathu appears to have been closely related to the coastal language of Yintyingka, though structurally different and they may be considered dialects of the same language. Etymologically, ''aya'' means 'language', while ''patha'' may be cognate with the homophonous Yintyingka word for 'to eat', paralleling the
ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
Wik-Mungkan (speech (''wik'')+eat (''mungka''). Little is otherwise known of the language. Some word lists were compiled from information given by George Rocky, whose vernacular was Umpila, though his father was an Ayapathu. He was raised from boyhood at the Lockhart River Mission, and then worked on Japanese lugger boats fishing for
beche-de-mer Sea cucumbers are marine animals of the class Holothuroidea. They can be used as food, in fresh or dried form, in various cuisines. In some cultural contexts the sea cucumber is thought to have medicinal value. The creature and the food product ...
and pearls. The Japanese generally treated their aboriginal hired labourers better than white employers did. The last informants on the language had generally grown up with a neighbouring tribe's culture, and Ayapathu was no longer their first language. Thus just as George Rocky primarily spoke Umpila Jack Shephard, whose mother was an Ayapathu, was himself a Kaantju clansman. The last speakers died out in the late 20th century.


Country

According to
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 ...
, Ayapathu tribal lands extended over some 1,900 sq. miles, stretching from north of Ebagoola, to Musgrave in the south. Their western boundaries were formed by the headwaters of the
Coleman Coleman may refer to: Places Antarctica * Coleman Glacier (Antarctica) * Coleman Peak, Ross Island Canada * Coleman, Alberta * Coleman, Ontario * Coleman, Prince Edward Island United Kingdom * Coleman, Leicester, England United States * C ...
and Holroyd rivers. To the east, they reached the
Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills. It runs roughl ...
and Violet Vale.


History

The Ayapathu were an inland tribe closely related to the coastal Yintyingka people. The first mention of them in settlement records comes from 19th century police reports, in particular those of William Parry-Okeden and sergeant George Smith of the Musgrave Mounted Native Police in 1897, both connected with complaints by pastoralists laid against the aborigines whose land they were occupying. Donald Thomson and Ursula McConnel studied the tribes of the region intensely, the latter from 1927 to 1934, nonetheless she provided little information on them other than noting that their hunting grounds were on the upper Holroyd River, that they intermarried with the Kaantju, and held
corroboree A corroboree is a generic word for a meeting of Australian Aboriginal peoples. It may be a sacred ceremony, a festive celebration, or of a warlike character. A word coined by the first British settlers in the Sydney area from a word in the ...
s with that tribe and the
Wik-Mungkan The Wik-Mungkan people are an Aboriginal Australian group of peoples who traditionally ranged over an extensive area of the western Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland and speak the Wik Mungkan language. They were the largest branch of the ...
at the junction where the Hoyroyd meets the Pretender river. The Wik-Mungkan tribe lay to their west, the Kaantju to their north, and the Koko Taiyari southwest. Otherwise they (called Aiyaboto), reduced by pastoral expansion over their lands, gathered for hand-outs on the river bed outside Coen. The profound disruption to the Ayapathu caused by colonial expropriations devastated the integrity of their tribal world, and they were dispersed into remnants, with a profound loss of their original tribal identity. In recent years, through ethnographic reconstruction, close study of folk memories and land claims, the Ayapathu descendants have begun to reclaim part of their heritage.


Society

The Ayapathu like other tribes in the area were land-holding exogamous estate-holding clans, typified by patrilineal recruitment. The actual land-use was determined by hordes, whose members were generally affiliated to the tribes holding these estates. The kinship terminology of the Ayapathu was essentially identical to that among the Yintyingka.


Alternative names

This is a list of the different names used in the historical ethnographic literature to refer to the Ayapathu: * ''Aiabadu'' * ''Aiyaboto'' * ''Jabuda'' * ''Koka Ai-ebadu'' * ''Aiebadu'' (with glottal stop) * ''Koko Aiebadu'' * ''Kikahiabilo''


Notes


Citations


References

* * * * * * {{authority control Aboriginal peoples of Queensland