[3] Irukandji country, according to Norman Tindale, extended over some 200 square miles (520 km2), running along the narrow coastal strip from Cairns to the Mowbray River at Port Douglas.

William Parry-Okeden, in a short report on Queensland Aboriginal people written in his capacity as Police Commissioner, wrote in 1897[7] that he counted 6 Yettkie, a name now thought to refer to a remnant of the Irukandji.

[8] Writing in 1974 Tindale stated: 'The term Irukandji for the people on the coast near Redlynch in the area around Cairns has been in dispute because of their early demise as a tribe.

By 1952 remembrance of their existence had almost died out and a mixed Tjapukai and Mamu group, from higher up the Barron River, and from the south had usurped their territory.

They based their ideas on information that irukandji meant “from the north.” They suggested that if a Keramai (Giramai) or a Mamu was questioned about the country from which a northern stranger might have come he would simply refer to him as an Irukandji, that is, a “northerner.” In similar fashion he might refer to a man from the west as gambilbara, a rain forest man, or from the east as a djindigal (Jindigal).