Yir-Yoronti

The Yir-Yoront are an Aboriginal people of the south-western Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland, whose country lay along rivers and coastal flats facing the Gulf of Carpentaria. The sandridges there give their name its second element, yorront. Their language belongs to the Pama-Maric group, and their society was built on patrilineal clans divided into two moieties, with each person assigned clan land through a conception totem.

Because their territory had little usable stone, even stone axes reached them only through long-distance trade. They lived by hunting, fishing and gathering across the seasonal wetlands.

In 1623 a Dutch expedition under Jan Carstenszoon landed on their coast to trade; the logbook noted that the people knew nothing of metals or spices, and of the Dutch goods only the iron pieces failed to enter their everyday use.