Although they have a strong sense of identity, the fourteen clans on Groote Eylandt and the surrounding islands did not have a collective name that they referred to themselves.

In exchange, they provided beads, metal, canoe technologies, sails, ceramics, earthenware pots and fishing hooks.

On his 1803 voyage mapping Australia's coastline, Matthew Flinders came across one expedition, led by a Macassan naval chief named Pobasso, involving some 1,000 sailors across 60 praus.

The Australian government introduced taxes in the 1880s leading to its decline and the Macassan trade was effectively halted by the White Australia policy by 1906–1907.

In 1964, the Groote Eylandt Mining Company was given a lease over the island, in exchange for royalty payments to the Church Missionary Society.

[9] The establishment of the mine caused upheavals in traditional land sensibilities since the Indigenous people were forcibly dislocated and compelled to live in close proximity to one another.

As a consequence, two clans, the Mamarika and Amagula, have been feuding for some decades, perhaps reflecting a longer historical enmity, and on occasion eruptions of violence, involving also machetes, have broken out.

[18] Groote Eylandt has a variety of habitats: dense stands on monsoon forests rising behind coastal sand dunes, alternating with mangrove and mudflats.

[6] The fruit of the Zamia palm called burrawang which, although containing the deadly toxin macrozamin,[6] is reported to have been generally avoided, except as a "hard time food".

From the mid-18th century onwards, through marriage and migration, many Nunggubuyu people from the adjacent mainland community of Numbulwar settled on the islands, amalgamating the two cultures.

[2] Wurnungawerrikba (Wurrawilya), Warnungwijarrakba (Jaragba), Warnungwadarrbulangwa (Wurrabadalamba, Bara) Wurraliliyanga (Wurramarrba), Warnungwamakarjirrakba (Wurramarrba), Durila (Durila, Wanambi) Like other Aboriginal cultures, 'poison cousins' (wurrudajiya) or avoidance relationships exist in Anindilyakwa culture, where certain people are required to avoid family members or clan.