Barada people


The Barada were an Indigenous Australian people of Central Queensland.

Country

Barada lands, according to Norman Tindale's estimation, stretched over some. They inhabited the area of the Connors River from Killarney north to Nebo. Their westward extension stopped around Bombandy. They were wedged between the coastal Koinjmal and the Barna to their west. Their northern borders met with those of the Wiri.

Social organization

The Barada, like the other Mackay area tribes, are said to have had two main social divisions, or phratries namely the Yungaroo and Wootaroo. These classificatory terms are applied not only to the constituent groups, but to all natural phenomena, which are ascribed to either one or the other of the two basic classes.
At least two distinct sub-branches or bands are known to have formed part of the Barada.
The area around Mackay began to be colonized in 1860, and, according to George Bridgeman,
During the eight or ten years which followed, about one-half of the aboriginal population was either shot down by the Native Mounted Police and their officers, or perished from introduced loathsome diseases before unknown.'

Bridgeman named the Barada as one of the 4 Mackay tribes that suffered from this decimation. Though the "dispersal" shootings are thought to have accounted for the majority of deaths, a measles epidemic struck the survivors in 1876, drastically reducing their numbers, and, according to one estimating, the remnants of the original tribe in 1880 amounted to no more than a hundred people, 80 evenly divided between men and women, and the remainder their children.

Alternative names