Yinikutira, also recorded as the Jinigudira, are the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land along the Ningaloo Coast in the area of the Exmouth Peninsula in Western Australia now known as the Cape Range National Park.
[1] While they were observed by early explorers deploying rafts to venture out into the sea for hunting, their primary source of food came from a network of fish traps which they maintained in tidal estuaries.
[2] The area was described by William Dampier, in 1699, and American whalers are known to have hunted sperm and then humpback whales off the Ningaloo coast as early as the 1790s, and it is thought probably they landed to seek meat and refresh their water supplies.
It has been speculated that, after the Colonial Secretary's Office forbade the use of convict labour above the 26th parallel, the local workforce among pearlers and pastoralists began to recruit indigenous tribes.
The provisions of the subsequent Master and Servant Act (1867) meant that in this area, as applied, natives who absconded from contracted service ended up doing hard labour in Roebourne prison.