The Ngajanji,[1] also written Ngadyan, and Ngadjon-Jii[2] are an Indigenous Australian people of the rainforest region south of Cairns, in northern Queensland.
Joseph Birdsell and Norman Tindale once argued that the Ngatjan were one of the tribes demonstrating their Barrinean hypothesis, according to which the Ngatjan, together with 11 other tribes of this area, -Mamu, Wanjiru, Tjapukai, Mbabaram, Yidinji, Gungganyji, Buluwai, Djiru, Dyirbal, Gulngai and Girramay, - were remnants of a Tasmanoid type retaining the small negrito stature attributed to the original first wave of Aboriginal peoples in Australia.
Their transgression roused the ire of the Rainbow serpent, who set the land under their camping site trembling, as cyclonic winds also blew in, and a strange red hue coloured the sky.
Dixon considers this legend, which he recorded in 1964, to accurately reflect the historic formation of the volcanic lakes some 10,000 years ago, an event retained by virtue of the tenacious transmission of memories of the eruption among this people and another Dyirbal tribe, the Mamu.
[13] The Ngajanji around Yungaburra and Lake Eacham were affected by the rush of settlement that followed John Atherton's discovery of tin in 1878 at Tinaroo, and development of Robson's track linking the district to the coast.