Unjadi


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

Language

According to Lauriston Sharp, the Unjadi language differed only marginally from that spoken by the neighbouring Okara.

Country

The Unjadi's traditional lands, embracing some of territory, lay around the upper Dulhunty tributary of the Ducie river as far north as the headwaters of the Jardine River.

Social organization

The American anthropologist R. Lauriston Sharp described the Unjadi as belonging to what he called the Jathaikana type with regard to their totemic organization. By this he meant that the Unjadi lacked a moiety and section division. Their totemic clans were patrilineal whose totems were not normally tabu, tabus being applied rigorously only to personal totems from the mother's clan, which were assigned to male and female individuals with the onset of puberty.

Alternative names