Bakanh
By Norman Tindale's reckoning, the Bakanh (a.k.a. Ajabakan, Aiabakan, Bakanu, Baganu, Pakanh, Yirrq-mayn) occupied around 3,600 square kilometres around the upper Edward River and the McIlwraith Range with the Thaayore to their west, the Wik people and the Kaantju to the north, the Umbindhamu and Lamalama to the east and the Kunjen to the south. They spoke Bakanha/Ayabakan(u), which Robert M. W. Dixon classified as one of the languages of the Middle Paman/ Wik subgroup of the Pama–Nyungan language family.
Although European settlement and the ensuing socio-cultural disruption appears to have eclipsed a distinct Bakanh identity, recent moves towards self-management and self-determination have rekindled it as the focus for land-holding groups and native title/land rights claims.
An 1897 report by Police Commissioner William Parry-Okeden recorded about four hundred Kokoaiabito living inland from Princess Charlotte Bay when he passed through the area investigating pastoralists' complaints that the Native Mounted Police were failing to defend them against Aboriginal attacks. He was also looking to defend his Native Police force against a recent critical report by Archibald Meston. In the same year, Smith, the Acting Sergeant of the Musgrave Native Mounted Police Station, recorded a camp of the Iabitha tribe at Port Stewart at the mouth of the Stewart River.
