TheMaijabi (Mayi-Yapi) were anindigenous Australian people of the state ofQueensland.
According toNorman Tindale, the Maijabi held some 4,000 square miles (10,000 km2) of territory centered on the area running from theCloncurry River south toCanobie and north to Donor Hills, atNumbera or the Cowan Downs. Their eastern boundary lay on theFlinders River and thelower Saxby, while their extension west ran to theupper Dismal Creek and the Leichhardt—Alexandra Divide.[1]
The Maijabu were a non-circumcising tribe, and subincision likewise was not practised.[2]
One early estimate of the number of Maijabi at the time of first contact was around 1,000. By 1868, they were down to 250 'souls', and by 1879 a remnant of about 80 survived. The reasons given for this were.
'the murderous onslaughts of themounted Native Police and to venereal diseases and measles, which were introduced by the Whites, also to prostitution and infanticide, which have enormously increased.'[3]
Edward Palmer, who had taken over their hunting grounds on the Canobie Station in 1865,[4] in talking of Maijabi food gathering, was the first white colonialist to discover what emerged to be the widespread practice of harvestingnative purslane seeds, which the Maijabi calledthukouro, by gathering the plants and threshing them in an improvised stone circle.[5]
'The stems were eaten raw and also heated in ashes, the rest of the plant being placed on the heap to wilt. Maijabi women used freshwater mussel shells to scoop up the seed that accumulated. There it was ground between stones, pressed into cakes, and cooked in hot ashes.'[5]
Source:Tindale 1974, p. 180
Source:Palmer 1886, p. 338