| Awabakal people | |
|---|---|
| aka: Awabagal, Awaba, Kuri, Minyowa, Minyowie [1] | |
 Mid North Coast bioregion | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Language family: | Pama–Nyungan[2] |
| Language branch: | Yuin–Kuric |
| Language group: | Kuri |
| Group dialects: | Awabakal |
| Area (approx. 1,800 km2 or 690 sq mi) | |
| Bioregion: | Mid North Coast |
| Location: | Mid North Coast, New South Wales |
| Coordinates: | 33°5′S 151°30′E / 33.083°S 151.500°E[1] |
| Other geological: | Lake Macquarie[1] |
| Notable individuals | |
| Biraban | |
The Awabakal people /əˈwɒbəɡæl/, are those Aboriginal Australians who identify with or are descended from the Awabakal tribe and its clans, Indigenous to the coastal area of what is now known as the Hunter Region of New South Wales. Their traditional territory spread from Wollombi in the west, to the Lower Hunter River near Newcastle and Lake Macquarie in the north.
The name Kuringgai, also written Guringai, has often been used as a collective denominator of the Awabakal and several other tribes in this belt, but Norman Tindale has challenged it as an arbitrary coinage devised by ethnologist John Fraser in 1892. For Tindale, Kuringgai was synonymous with Awabakal.[1] Arthur Capell however asserted that there was indeed evidence for a distinct Kuringgai language, which, in Tindale's schema, would imply they were a distinct people from the Awabakal.[3]
- ^ a b c d Tindale 1974, p. 191.
- ^ Lissarrague 2006.
- ^ Attenbrow 2010, p. 33.