Maia people

See also: Maia language (Australia)

The Maia were an indigenous Australian tribe of Western Australia.

Language

The Maia appear to have spoken a dialect similar to that of the Yingkarta.^[1]

Country

Maia traditional lands extended over an estimated 4,700 square miles (12,000 km²). They consisted mainly of a strip on the coast facing the Indian Ocean, and a western hinterland and up to and beyond Boolathanna, Mooka, Mardathuna, Binthalya, and the Kennedy Range. They also lived around the coastal salt lakes near Carnarvon to Manberry and Hutton Creek. Their southern flank ran down to the floodplain of the Gascoyne River,^[2] and on Lake Macleod.^[1]

History of contact

The Maia are believed to have been extinct by 1910. Their area was afflicted by diseases like smallpox and influenza which ravaged the coastal populations after the establishment of pearling stations on the coast, at Shark Bay and Cossack. Subsequently, "nigger hunting" to cull hands to work the pearling trawlers, and a system of indentured labour imposed on the tribes found by pastoralists on their runs, effectively decimated people like the Maia by breaking up their kinship groups.^[3]

Alternative names

• Majanna (nggarda exonym)
• Miah

Source: Tindale 1974, p. 246

Some words

• baba (1.breasts; 2.rain; 3.water)
• doodoota (wild dog)
• mamma (father)
• manghana (tame dog)
• marawa (white man)
• ngangerreta (mother)
• yamba (baby)

Source: Barlee 1886, pp. 307–308