The Wambaya are an Indigenous Australian people of the southern side of the Barkly Tableland, whose lands were estimated by Tindale to have stretched over some 8,100 square miles (21,000 km2).

In the case of the Wambaya people this means, as Harold Koch and Rachel Nordlinger state it, following an observation by Nicholas Evans that: in creation myths it is very common for the ancestors to be described as passing across the lands instilling different languages into different areas as they go.

[10] The first colonial intruders into Wambaya lands were struck by the rich pasturing prospects they detected in the vast plains of Mitchell grass with their lagoons, streams and springs.

[11][12] Large herds of cattle were introduced to graze over the tableland, edging out the kangaroo, emus and bustards which had been the hunting staple of the original inhabitants.

[12] The managers of the Brunette Downs Station endeavoured to bulldoze the last remaining trace of the Wambaya, an encampment they retained on the lagoon, and shift them 60 miles north to Corella Creek.[12][when?]