Wakara people explained

The Wakara or Wakura were an indigenous Australian people of the state of Queensland.

Country

The Wakara are estimated by Norman Tindale to have had a tribal domain of some 3.100mi2, running along the southern flank of the upper Mitchell River, and extending eastwards as far as Mount Mulligan. To the west their frontiers lay around Wrotham Park and Blackdown.

History of contact

White contact with the Wakara people began in 1875, when settlers remarked that they were a powerful tribe in the region. They also noted the presence of another group, west of Mount Mulligan, called the Wunjurika, which may have been an autonomous tribe or simply a band society of the Wakara. Within 15 years, by 1890, the Wunjurika had been so thoroughly absorbed into the Wakara tribe that they lost whatever independent identity they may have had. Though numerous at the initial stage of contact, the Goldfields Commissioner on the Hodgkinson diggings, H. M. Mowbray, wrote that within the decade, they had been "much reduced by its frequent encounters with the Native Police and the settlers, as well as by diseases introduced by the Whites." Syphilis, also spread by contact with whites. Most descendants of the Wakara people by the 1930s were more than 90% white and 10% indigenous. Most wakara descendants predominantly the women did not identify as aboriginal to protect themselves and their children during the “stolen generation” which further severely damaged their culture and knowledge of their heritage.

Alternative names

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Some words

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Notes

Citations

Sources

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