Ayapathu
An inland group — probably a subgroup of the Bakanh and closely related to the coastal Yintyingka, the Ayapathu (alternatively, Ajabatha (Norman Tindale's preferred term), Ayabadhu or Aiyaboto, Aiabadu, Jabuda, Koka Ai-ebadu, Aiebadu, Koko Aiebadu, Kikahiabilo), According to Tindale, their tribal lands extended from north of Ebagoola to Musgrave in the south and from the Great Dividing Range and Violet Vale to the headwaters of the Coleman and Holroyd rivers with the Wik-Mungkan to their west, the Kaantju to their north, and the Thaayorre to the west. Although structurally different, their language appears to have been closely related to the coastal Yintyingka. The two tongues are generally considered dialects of the same language.
Although they appear in 19th-century police records — Police Commissioner William Parry-Okeden and Musgrave Native Mounted Police Sergeant George Smith reported complaints by pastoralists — and fieldwork by Donald Thomson and Ursula McConnel between 1927 and 1934, noted that they hunted on the upper Holroyd, intermarried with the Kaantju, and had ceremonial connections with the Kaantju and the Wik-Mungkan, little is known about them. After pastoral expansion disrupted their traditional lifestyle, dispersed remnants gathered around Coen, where they merged into similarly displaced groups and lost their original identity. Recent ethnographic reconstruction of remembered tradition and land claims has seen their descendants begin to reclaim part of their heritage.
