The Paakantyi, or Barkindji or Barkandji, are an Australian Aboriginal tribal group of the Darling River (known to them as the Baaka[1]) basin in Far West New South Wales, Australia.

When parched conditions set in, the Paakantyi would withdraw into the backcountry around the few perennial springs, and hunt the wildlife that came to drink water there.

[12] The first European who travelled through their territory, Thomas Mitchell, appears to be referring to the Barkindji when he mentions the Occa tribe in the area of Wilcannia.

[b] One estimate of the population for the period immediately before contact with whites, taking into account the hard climatic conditions, suggested that the 2,000 square miles (5,200 km2) could have sustained no more than 100 people.

[10] On the other hand, Simpson Newland, a contemporary familiar with the district where they lived, wrote in illustration of the point that: "we cannot but admit that our happy prosperous lot in these bright colonies is purchased at the cost of the welfare, nay, even the lives of the possessors of the soil", and illustrated the point in the following words: A few years ago the aboriginals of the Upper Darling were comparatively numerous; now they, in common with other tribes wherever the European has settled, have nearly passed away.

I can vouch for their being well fed and clothed, and for years spirits were almost entirely kept from them; yet they died off, the old and young, the strong and weakly alike, sometimes with startling suddenness, at others by a wasting sickness of a few days, weeks, or months.

Panic overtook the two peoples, they took flight, leaving those struck by the illness unburied in the sandhills - the mortality was particularly high around Peri Lake - as they sought refuge at the Paroo river, where the disease was unknown.

Overgrazing by cattle and sheep, the arrival of rabbits in the early 1890s and the Federation drought led to soil degradation and extensive loss of vegetation.

[23] Their native title was officially recognised by the Australian government, in a ruling handed down by federal judge Jayne Jagot, after 18 years of legal battle, in 2015.