Iwaidja people

The Iwaidja are an Indigenous Australian people of the Cobourg Peninsula in the Northern Territory. They are also known as the Arrarrkbi or Warrkbi, reflecting their amalgamation since British colonisation with the neighbouring survivors of the Garig, Ilgar, Marrgu and Wurrugu people. ^{[1] [2]}

Name

Norman Tindale states that the name is based on their word for 'no' (ii). ^[3]

Language

Iwaidja is one of the Iwaidjan languages of the Cobourg Peninsula, all of which are non-Pama–Nyungan languages. It is still spoken by some 150 speakers, at Minjilang on Croker Island. ^[4]

Country

In Tindale's estimation the Iwaidja possessed some 100 square miles (260 km²) of tribal lands. Their centre was at Mountnorris Bay, in the eastern area of the Cobourg Peninsula. ^[5] Tindale interprets Paul Foelsche's Unalla as a reference to the Iwaidja. Foelsche informed Edward Micklethwaite Curr that:

The country frequented by this tribe extends from Raffles Bay to Port Essington Harbour and thence midway up the Cobourg Peninsula to Popham Bay. ^[6]

Their neighbours were the Marrgu, Wurrugu, Ilgar, and Garig people. ^[a]

Social organization

Four other groups were reported to share the same territory, though for Tindale their status as either hordes or independent tribes was undetermined. They were listed as:

• Wonga:ran (in the mainland area immediately opposite Croker Island)
• Ka:ri:k (east of Cape Don)
• Nga:dalwuli (a coastal people lying to the east of the Ka:ri:k)
• Mandu:wit (northwest, and east of the Nga:dalwuli) ^[5]

History of contact

If we take the Unalla as interchangeable with the Iwaidja, they were a once numerous tribe which, with the onset of colonial settlement, was reduced to a mere 30 members by 1881, consisting of 7 men, 12 women, 9 boys and 2 girls. Foelsche stated that the community was ravaged after Malay traders introduced smallpox during a visit in 1866. ^[9]

Alternative names

• Eae-warge-ga
• Eaewardja
• Eaewarga
• Eiwaja ^[7]
• Iwaija
• Iwaiji
• Iyi
• Ji:wadja
• Jiwadja
• Juwadja
• Limba-Karadjee
• Limbakaraja
• Tarula (Melville Islanders exonym meaning 'riflemen') ^[b]
• Unalla ^[10]
• Uwaidja

Some words

• illpoogee (kangaroo)
• kamoomoo (mother)
• looloot (tame dog)
• lurkakie (wild dog)
• nowajuk (father)
• warranganababoo (white man)

Source: Foelsche 1886 , p. 274

Notable people

• Mildirn

Notes

1. The last two tribes were mentioned by Foelsche ^[7] (together with the Eiwaja (which Tindale identified as another name for the Iwaidja which Tindale was unable to identify^{[ clarification needed ] [8]}
2. According to Tindale, they earned this monicker from the fact that they were employed by an early settler, Joe Cooper, to assist him in defending himself. (Tindale 1974, p. 227)

Citations

1. "Iwaidja". Documentation of Endangered Languages. DOBES. Retrieved 25 August 2025.
2. "Global events recognise Cobourg Peninsula's historic role as the first-ever Ramsar site". Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water. Australian Government. Retrieved 25 August 2025.
3. Tindale 1974, pp. 42, 226.
4. Evans 1998, p. 115.
5. Tindale 1974, p. 226.
6. Foelsche 1886, p. 270.
7. Foelsche 1886, p. 273.
8. Tindale 1974, pp. 266, 314.
9. Foelsche 1886, p. 271.
10. Foelsche 1895, p. 191.

Sources

• Dixon, Robert M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-47378-1.
• Earl, G. Windsor (1846). "On the Aboriginal Tribes of the Northern Coast of Australia". The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London . 16: 239–251. doi:10.2307/1798232. JSTOR   1798232.
• Earl, G. Windsor (1853). The native races of the Indian Archipelago: Papuans (PDF). London: H. Bailliere – via Internet Archive.
• Evans, Nicholas (1998). "Iwaidja mutation and its origins". In Siewierska, Anna; Song, Jae Jung (eds.). Case, Typology and Grammar: In honor of Barry J. Blake. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 115–149. ISBN   978-9-027-22937-3.
• Foelsche, Paul (1886). "Raffles Bay: The Unalla Tribe" (PDF). In Curr, Edward Micklethwaite (ed.). The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over the continent. Vol. 1. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 270–275 – via Internet Archive.
• Foelsche, Paul (1895). "On the Manners, Customs, &c., of some Tribes of the Aborigines, in the neighbourhood of Port Darwin and the West Coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, North Australia". Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland . 24: 190–198. JSTOR   2842215.
• Hart, C. W. (July 1930). "The Tiwi of Melville and Bathurst Islands". Oceania . 1 (2): 167–180. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1930.tb01643.x. JSTOR   40327319.
• Jennison, J. C. (1927). "Notes on the language of the Elcho Island aborigines". Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia . 51: 177–192 – via BHL.
• Spencer, Baldwin (1914). Native tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia (PDF). London: Macmillan Publishers – via Internet Archive.
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Iwaidja (NT)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University. ISBN   978-0-708-10741-6. Archived from the original on 20 March 2020.