Kuuku-Yau

The Kuuku-Yau, more properly the Pakadji, are an Aboriginal people of the north-eastern Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, whose country lay on the Coral Sea coast around Lloyd Bay and the Lockhart River. Their speech belongs to the Umpila dialect group of the North Cape York Paman languages, and the name Kuuku Ya'u, given them by southern neighbours, combines words for speech and this way.

Like other sandbeach peoples they lived from the sea, moving inland in the dry kawali season for yams, bush honey and spear wood, and spending the monsoon season on the coast; they also used a one-handed sign language. Captain Cook charted their coast in 1770, though permanent outside settlement came only after the period.