The Yir-Yoront, also known as the Yir Yiront, are an Indigenous Australian people of the Cape York Peninsula now living mostly in Kowanyama (kawn yamar or 'many waters') but also in Lirrqar/Pormpuraaw, both towns outside their traditional lands.
Alpher argues that the more convincing etymon is yorr (sand), sandridges constituting the core geomorphic feature of Yir Yoront traditional territory.
The word also signified a doppelganger or guardian spirit, distinct from both one's mang (reflection, image) and the pam-ngerrr or inner soul, pulse, breath of a person.
[5] Yir-Yoront land divisions were based on patrilineal clans, each of which had a swathe of territory segments of which, on the birth of individual clan-members was then assigned to members according to their respective conception totems (lerrn nerp).
[7] This territory extended into the tribal areas of the Kuuk-Thaayorre and Yirrq-mayn (Bakanh) to their north and northwest through political alliances and exogamous marriages that led to Yir-Yoront people adopting other languages ).
[16] The Australian anthropologist W.E.H Stanner cited the essay to question the very notion of a perduring and stable tradition within Aboriginal society, since it appeared that crucial events could vanish from memory within a brief period.
Once nearby purchase became accessible, the facility had a revolutionizing ripple down effect of disruption on the earlier exchange system, breaking the monopoly of the elders.
[23] This was cited in turn by Marshall Sahlins in his Stone Age Economics[24] who argued that while what we call institutional differentiation exists among them, they do not, as civilized people do, draw a clear line between work and play.