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The Wiradjuri people (; ) are a group of Aboriginal Australian people from central New South Wales, united by common descent through kinship and shared traditions. They survived as skilled hunter-fisher-gatherers, in family groups or clans, and many still use knowledge of hunting and gathering techniques as part of their customary life.

In the 21st century, major Wiradjuri groups live in , Peak Hill, and Griffith. There are significant populations at and Leeton and smaller groups at , Parkes, , Forbes, , , and Young.

Name
The Wiradjuri autonym is derived from wiray, meaning "no" or "not", with the suffix -dhuray or -dyuray meaning "having". That the Wiradjuri said wiray, as opposed to some other word for "no", was seen as a distinctive feature of their speech, and several other tribes in New South Wales, to the west of the Great Dividing Range, are similarly named after their own words for "no". A similar distinction was made between Romance languages in medieval France, with the and the langues d'oïl distinguished by their word for "yes".

In his book Aboriginal Tribes of Australia (1974), wrote that Wiradjuri was one of several terms coined later, after the 1890s had seen a "rash of such terms", following the publication of a work by ethnologist John Fraser. In 1892, Fraser had published a revised and expanded edition of Lancelot Threlkeld's 1834 work on the Awabakal language, An Australian Grammar, in which he created his own names for groupings, such as Yunggai, Wachigari and Yakkajari.

Tindale says that some of the later terms had entered the literature, although not based on fieldwork and lacking Aboriginal support, as artificial, collective names for his "Great Tribes" of New South Wales. He writes that there was such a "literary need for major groupings that Fraser set out to provide them for New South Wales, coining entirely artificial terms for his 'Great tribes'. These were not based on field research and lacked aboriginal support. His names such as Yunggai, Wachigari and Yakkajari can be ignored as artifacts...During the 1890s the idea spread and soon there was a rash of such terms...Some of these have entered, unfortunately, into popular literature, despite their dubious origins."

He lists Wiradjuri (NSW) as one of these artificial names, along with Bangarang () (Vic.); (Vic. & SA); Barkunjee () (NSW), (Vic.), Thurrawal () (NSW), and Malegoondeet (?) (Vic.). He also mentions R. H. Mathews, A. W. Howitt and as promulgators of the "nations" concept. However, Tindale refers to Wiradjuri in his own work (p. 200): "Wiradjuri 'Wiradjuri (Wi'raduri)".

Wiradjuri language
Wiradjuri is a Pama–Nyungan family and classified as a member of the small Wiradhuric branch of Australian languages of Central New South Wales.

The Wiradjuri language is effectively extinct, but attempts are underway to revive it, with a reconstructed grammar, based on earlier ethnographic materials and wordlists and the memories of Wiradjuri families, which is now used to teach the language in schools. This reclamation work was originally propelled by elder Stan Grant and who had previously studied Australian Aboriginal languages in .

Country
The Wiradjuri are the largest Aboriginal group in New South Wales. They once occupied a vast area in central New South Wales, on the plains running north and south to the west of the Blue Mountains. The area was known as "the land of the three rivers", the Wambuul (Macquarie), the Kalare later known as the and the Murrumbidgee, or Murrumbidjeri.

estimated the territorial range of the Wiradjuri tribal lands at . Their eastern borders ran from north to south from above , down to the foothills of the Blue Mountains east of Lithgow and Oberon, and east of , Young and and south to the at and east to about . The southern border ran to . Its western reaches went along to beyond Mossgiel. They extended southwest to the vicinity of Hay and . southwards to , , , , Parkes, Trundle; , , and Rylstone, Wellington, and Carcoar all lay within Wiradjuri territory.

The forms the Wiradjuri's southern boundary and the change from woodland to open grassland marks their eastern boundary.

Social organisation
The Wiradjuri were organised into bands. quotes Alfred William Howitt as mentioning several of these local groups of the tribe:
  • Narrandera (prickly lizard)
  • Cootamundra (kuta-mundra, kutamun turtle)
  • Murranbulla (maring-bula, two bark canoes)

Burial rite
The Wiradjuri, together with the (who however used them in bora ceremonies), were particularly known for their use of carved trees which functioned as taphoglyphs, marking the burial site of a notable medicine-man, ceremonial leader, warrior or orator of a tribe. On the death of a distinguished Wiradjuri, initiated men would strip the bark off a tree to allow them to incise symbols on the side of the trunk which faced the . The craftsmanship on remaining examples of this funeral artwork displays notable artistic power. Four still stand near at the Grave of Yuranigh.

They are generally to be found near rivers where the softer earth allowed easier burial. Alfred William Howitt remarked that these trees incised with taphoglyphs served both as transit points to allow to ascend to, and descend from, the firmament as well as a means for the deceased to return to the sky.

Lifestyle
The Wiradjuri diet included and fish such as from the rivers. In dry seasons, they ate kangaroos, emus and food gathered from the land, including fruit, nuts, yam daisies ( Microseris lanceolata), wattle seeds, and orchid tubers. The Wiradjuri travelled into in the summer to feast on .

The Wiradjuri were also known for their handsome possum-skin cloaks stitched together from several possum furs. Governor Macquarie was presented with one of these cloaks by a Wiradjuri man when he visited Bathurst in 1815.

British penetration
Wiradjuri territory was first penetrated by colonists in 1813. In 1822 took up an extensive lot of land, later known as Brucedale Station, after Wiradjuri guides showed him an area with ample water sources. Suttor learnt their language, and befriended , and attributed conflict to the harshness of his own people's behaviour, since the Wiradjuri were in his view, fond of white people, as they would call them. Clashes between the British settlers and the Wiradjuri, however, multiplied as the influx of colonists increased, and became known as the . The occupation of their lands and their cultivation caused famine among the Wiradjuri, who had a different notion of what constituted property. In the 1850s there were still around , but there were fewer clashes.

Notable people
Historical
  • , massacre survivor and early Aboriginal land owner
  • (c1845 - 1917) matriarch and midwife
  • , explorer, guide and interpreter
  • , massacre survivor and World War One serviceman
  • , important Aboriginal leader during the
  • , a much prized guide for the explorer Thomas Mitchell, especially during his expedition to the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1845–1846. On hearing of Yuranigh's death in 1852, Mitchell put up £200 to have his gravesite marked with a tombstone.

Modern
  • , astronomer
  • , actor, writer and producer
  • , member of the Australian House of Representatives
  • Evonne Goolagong Cawley, tennis player
  • , present at the opening of Provisional Parliament House in 1927
  • Bill Ferguson – activist, leader, organiser of 1938 Day of Mourning protest
  • Isobelle Mary Ferguson, nurse and activist, daughter of Bill
  • Kevin Gilbert, 20th century author
  • Stan Grant, journalist, son of Stan Grant Sr
  • Stan Grant Sr, a Wiradjuri elder and linguist
  • contemporary novelist
  • Kate Howarth author
  • , academic
  • Kerry Reed-Gilbert, poet, author and elder
  • (born 1932), elder and advocate for the Stolen Generation; NSW State Recipient of Senior Australian of the Year 2021; oldest living survivor of those forcibly removed under the Aborigines Protection Act 1909 (NSW)
  • , founding principal of the Cape York Girl Academy
  • Mum (Shirl) Smith, community activist
  • , co-founder of the Australian Aborigines League
  • Joyce Williams, Wiradjuri elder, health campaigner, native title activist
  • , land activist and proponent in the Lake Cowal Campaign
  • Tara June Winch, author
  • (1943–2022), actor, elder, activist
  • , poet and academic

Music/the arts

Sporting
Rugby league

Australian rules football

Other sports

Places of significance
  • Koonadan Historic Site, located 9 km north-west of Leeton
  • The Wellington Convict and Mission Site in Wellington, a former convict settlement and Aboriginal mission
  • 56 historical sites found during survey work at Yathong Nature Reserve, including , camp sites and
  • A historical site, consisting of an open campsite, found during survey work at Nombinnie Nature Reserve
  • Mungabareena Reserve, a meeting place at Albury

Wiradjuri culture in fiction
The short story Death in the Dawntime, originally published in The Mammoth Book of Historical Detectives (Mike Ashley, editor; 1995), is a that takes place entirely among the Wiradjuri people before the arrival of Europeans in Australia.

In 's novel Jessica, the plot is centred in Wiradjuri region. Jessica's best friend (Mary Simpson) was from Wiradjuri.

Noel Beddoe's novel The Yalda Crossing also explores Wiradjuri history from an early settler perspective, bringing to life a little-known massacre that occurred in the 1830s.

Andy Kissane's poem, "The Station Owner's Daughter, Narrandera" tells a story about the aftermath of that same massacre, and was the inspiration for Alex Ryan's short film, Ngurrumbang.

Anita Heiss's historical novel, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, set in 1852 around the time of the devastating Gundagai flood, follows the life of a young Wiradjuri woman named Wagadhaany.

(2025). 9781760850456, Simon & Schuster Australia.

Alternative names
The variety of spellings for the name Wiradjuri is extensive, with over 60 ways of transcribing the word registered.

Some words
  • guwandhaang 'native peach'. The English word for this in Australia, , is thought to derive from the Wirandjuri term.
  • wagga 'crow'. The Wiradjeri term perhaps lies behind the toponym for the town of . The reduplication may be a pluralizer suggesting the idea of "(place of) many crows". This has recently been questioned by Wiradjuri elder Stan Grant Sr and Tim Wess, an academic. The word behind the is, they claim, waga, meaning "dance", and the reduplicative would mean "many dances/much dancing".

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