With the onset of white settlement, the tribe's demographic statistics suggested an original population of some 400 people. Within two decades, the numbers had been halved, with 200 remaining, as a result of what one observer stated was 'the rifle and syphilis'.[1] A branch of the Maikulan soon shifted down the Norman River to settle around Normanton, which misled some early reports to take them to be indigenous to the latter area.[2]
Armit, W. E. (1886). "The Mouth of the Leichardt River"(PDF). In Curr, Edward Micklethwaite (ed.). The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over the continent. Vol. 2. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 300–305.
Lamond, M.S. (1886). "Between the Gregory and the Leichardt Rivers"(PDF). In Curr, Edward Micklethwaite (ed.). The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over the continent. Vol. 2. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 322–325.