Wikapatja

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The Wikapatja were an indigenous Australian people of the Cape York Peninsula of northern Queensland.

Cape York Peninsula peninsula in Far North Queensland, Australia

Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest unspoiled wilderness in northern Australia. The land is mostly flat and about half of the area is used for grazing cattle. The relatively undisturbed eucalyptus-wooded savannahs, tropical rainforests and other types of habitat are now recognized and preserved for their global environmental significance, but native wildlife is threatened by introduced species and weeds. In 1606, Dutch sailor Willem Janszoon on board the Duyfken reached Australia as its first known European explorer, discovering the Cape York Peninsula.

Queensland North-east state of Australia

Queensland is the second-largest and third-most populous state in the Commonwealth of Australia. Situated in the north-east of the country, it is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean. To its north is the Torres Strait, with Papua New Guinea located less than 200 km across it from the mainland. The state is the world's sixth-largest sub-national entity, with an area of 1,852,642 square kilometres (715,309 sq mi).

Contents

Language

The Wikapatja spoke Wik Paach, which despite the name, is not one of the Wik languages.

Wik Paach (Wikapatja), also known as Abodja, is an extinct Australian language of Queensland. It remains unclassified. The form of the name comes from one of the Wik languages, where wik means "language", but Paach is not itself a member of that family.

Wik languages

The Wik languages are a subdivision of the Paman languages consisting of sixteen languages, all spoken on the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, Australia. This grouping was first proposed by R. M. W. Dixon.

Country

The Wikapatja were a small tribe whose territory, estimated by Tindale as not exceeding 100 square miles (260 km2), was limited to the mangroves around the delta of the Archer River. [1]

Norman Tindale Australian biologist

Norman Barnett Tindale AO was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist.

Mangrove swamp Saline woodland or shrubland habitat formed by mangrove trees

A mangrove swamp is a distinct saline woodland or shrubland habitat formed by mangrove trees. They are characterized by depositional coastal environments, where fine sediments collect in areas protected from high-energy wave action. The saline conditions tolerated by various mangrove species range from brackish water, through pure seawater, to water concentrated by evaporation to over twice the salinity of ocean seawater.

River delta Silt deposition landform at the mouth of a river

A river delta is a landform created by deposition of sediment that is carried by a river as the flow leaves its mouth and enters slower-moving or stagnant water. This occurs where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, or another river that cannot carry away the supplied sediment. The size and shape of a delta is controlled by the balance between watershed processes that supply sediment, and receiving basin processes that redistribute, sequester, and export that sediment. The size, geometry, and location of the receiving basin also plays an important role in delta evolution. River deltas are important in human civilization, as they are major agricultural production centers and population centers. They can provide coastline defense and can impact drinking water supply. They are also ecologically important, with different species' assemblages depending on their landscape position.

People

The tribe was deemed to be extinct by the time of Tindale's writing in 1974.

Notes

    Citations

    1. ↑ Tindale 1974, p. 188.

    Sources

    Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

    The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, publishing and research institute and is considered to be Australia's premier resource for information about the cultures and societies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The Institute is a leader in ethical research and the handling of culturally sensitive material and holds in its collections many unique and irreplaceable items of cultural, historical and spiritual significance. The collection at AIATSIS has been built through over 50 years of research and engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and is now a source of language and culture revitalisation, native title research and family and community history. AIATSIS is located on Acton Peninsula in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.

    Ursula McConnel Australian anthropologist

    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.

    Oceania is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal that was established in 1930. It covers social and cultural anthropology of the peoples of Oceania, including Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia, and Southeast Asia. The journal publishes research papers as well as review articles, correspondence, and shorter comments.

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