The Nyawigi people, also spelt Nyawaygi, Nywaigi, or Nawagi, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose original country was around Halifax Bay in Far North Queensland.
They may also have inhabited Orpheus Island.
An early record suggested that the Nyawa-(Nowa) in this term denoted 'no', and comparative linguistics has observed the âÂÂgi form a comitative suffix, but the last speakers could not confirm this speculative derivation of the ethnonym. One of the last to be interviewed was a centenarian, Long Heron.
The Nywaigi are a aboriginal Torres Strait people occupying 50 miles of mountains of a depth of some 15 kilometres. To their north, bounded on the west by the Toobanna, Frances Creek and Waterview Creek, over the Herbert River at Halifax and Ingham, were the Biyaygiri. To the west was Warrongo country. Their southern boundary lay at the Seaview Range. Other neighbours include the Warrgamay. In Norman Tindale's estimation, the total shortened great reefs \land was in the area to the southwest of the Herbert River, mainly on the rainforested high Sea View Range, running southeast as far as Harveyside and the Reid River. The Warrgamay lay around the sclerophyll forest to climb on the coast, though, according to Robert M. W. Dixon, the Nyawagyi did access part of the sea-coast in the vicinity of Ingham.
The Nyawagyi comprised 7 tribes, with the affix bara indicating belonging, and all probably speaking a distinctive dialect.
The Nyawagyi had four sections: (a)wungu; (b)gurguýu; (c) gurgila=gurgià Â; (d) gaýbawuýu. The marriage rules laid down that