List of Australian Aboriginal group names
Wikimedia list article
This list of Australian Aboriginal group names includes names and collective designations which have been applied, either currently or in the past, to groups of Aboriginal Australians. The list does not include Torres Strait Islander peoples, who are ethnically, culturally and linguistically distinct from Australian Aboriginal peoples, although also an Indigenous Australian people.
Typically, Aboriginal Australian mobs are differentiated by language groups. Most Aboriginal people could name a number of groups of which they are members, each group being defined in terms of different criteria and often with much overlap. Many of the names listed below are properly understood as language or dialect names; some are simply the word meaning man or person in the associated language; some are endonyms (the name as used by the people themselves) and some exonyms (names used by one group for another, and not by that group itself), while others are demonyms (terms for people from specific geographical areas).
List
See also
Australian frontier wars
Indigenous peoples of Australia
Languages confirmed by AIATSIS
Notes
^ This name is one of the names used on the widely used Aboriginal Australia Map, David Horton (ed.), 1994 published in The Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Australia by AIATSIS. Early versions of the map also divided Australia into 18 regions (Southwest, Northwest, Desert, Kimberley, Fitzmaurice, North, Arnhem, Gulf, West Cape, Torres Strait, East, Rainforest, Northeast, Eyre, Riverine, Southeast, Spencer and Tasmania); the region of the tribes which are depicted in this map are shown in the last column of this table.
^ This name is the main name used in Norman Tindale's Catalogue of Australian Aboriginal Tribes. Each has a separate article under the name listed there, and alternative names are also listed. In most cases (but not all) the name in the left column "Group name" is also the main name used by Tindale.
Citations
Sources
External links
Aboriginal Culture
"About us".
“List of Australian Aboriginal group names” enters the record as wikimedia list article. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what List, Australian and Aboriginal can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“List of Australian Aboriginal group names” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, List, Australian and Aboriginal provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3329367. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “List of Australian Aboriginal group names”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow List of Australian Aboriginal group names primary sources, List of Australian Aboriginal group names archive and List research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “List of Australian Aboriginal group names”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “List of Australian Aboriginal group names” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.