Kwini

The Kwini, also spelt Gwini and often grouped with the neighbouring Yiiji under the name Yeidji, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the far north Kimberley in Western Australia. Norman Tindale understood Gwini as a directional word meaning ‘easterners’, used by inland peoples for the coastal groups around the Forrest River. Their country ran from the shores of Cambridge Gulf up the Forrest River to the Milligan ranges.

From the eighteenth century onwards they dealt with Makassan traders sailing to the Kimberley coast, whose landfalls began sometime between 1669 and 1763, and Kwini canoemen travelled out to islands such as Sir Graham Moore Island to gather and cure sea cucumber.