The Nyawigi people, also spelt Nyawaygi, Nywaigi, or Nawagi, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose original country was around Halifax BayinFar North Queensland.[1]
They may also have inhabited Orpheus Island.[2]
An early record suggested that the Nyawa-(Nowa) in this term denoted 'no', and comparative linguistics has observed the –gi form a comitative suffix, but the last speakers could not confirm this speculative derivation of the ethnonym.[3] One of the last to be interviewed was a centenarian, Long Heron.[4]
The Nywaigi are a coastal people occupying 50 miles of coastland to a depth of some 15 kilometres. To their north, bounded on the west by the Toobanna, Frances Creek and Waterview Creek, over the Herbert RiveratHalifax and Ingham, were the Biyaygiri.[5] To the west was Warrongo country. Their southern boundary lay at the Seaview Range. Other neighbours include the Warrgamay. In Norman Tindale's[unreliable source?] estimation, the total extent of their land was 2,300 square miles (6,000 km2) in the area to the southwest of the Herbert River, mainly on the rainforested high Sea View Range, running southeast as far as Harveyside and the Reid River. The Warrgamay lay around the sclerophyll forest to their east on the coast, though, according to Robert M. W. Dixon, the Nyawagyi did access part of the sea-coast in the vicinity of Ingham.[6]
The Nyawagyi comprised 7 tribes, with the affix bara indicating belonging, and all probably speaking a distinctive dialect.[3]
The Nyawagyi had four sections: (a)wungu; (b)gurguɽu; (c) gurgila=gurgiŋ; (d) gaɽbawuɽu.[3] The marriage rules laid down that
