Mua people (Mualgal) alternatively the Moa, are an Indigenous Australian Torres Strait Island people based on Moa (Banks Island). According to Alfred Cort Haddon their lifestyle, culture, myths and kinship networks overlapped closely with those of the Kaurareg on neighbouring Muralag, while also forming an integral part, linguistically and culturally, with all Western and Central Island peoples of Torres Strait.

They speak a dialect of Kalaw Lagaw Ya of the Pama-Nyungan language family.

According to the Mua, fire was brought to the island by Waleku, the frilled-necked lizard augadh (totem), which had travelled up to Mawatta in Papua to get the fire.

On death, one became a mari, a potentially dangerous spirit because it had not yet left for Kibukuth "Horizon's End", the world of the ancestral spirits over the western horizon. Then, with a community death "festival", the markai thaay (now called the Kulagudpudai "Tombstone Opening", the mari, envisaged as a spirit with feathers on its head, was free to travel to Bœigu (Boigu) in northwest Torres Strait, accompanied by markai who had come to take them home to the Augadh's gœgaith (clan land) in Kibukuth, leaving from Bœigu Gœwath (inlet) on northwest Mua. At Bœigu (the island) it might speak to or otherwise leave a message for the marimulaimœbaigal "ghost talkers", Bœigu men with the power (wœnewœn) to talk to the ghosts, to tell them how they died. The mari was then taken by its markai relatives towards the west, transforming into a markai "ancestral spirit" at a specific sand bar just west of Bœigu. The group then travelled by markai gul "markai sailing canoe/ship" on to Kibukuth over the western horizon. Two other markai spirit forms were buk and padutu; these were fertility and life spirits. Particular areas of an island were thought to be inhabited by dhogai (devil women) or adhiadh (giants).

Mua island, lying east of Badu (Mulgrave Island), is dominated by Mt Augustus, also known as Mua Pad (Mua Peak), with its twin boulders (Baudhar), the highest peak in the Torres Strait. Archaeological evidence points to habitation on Mua since the mid-late first millennium. The poor quality of the soil is explained by a myth which has the culture hero Gelam gathering up the best soil and foodstuffs and, on a dugong canoe, abandoning Mua to travel over and settle east, on the island of Mer. The quality of its soil is poor and the local vegetation thin, while swamps and mangroves are characteristic of the littoral zone. Notwithstanding this low fertility, Mua afforded a notable variety of fruit and tubers: aubau (noni fruit); goegoebe (bellfruit); kawai (red wild apple), kupa (white apple); mai a red fruit baked in oven pits (amai); putit (yellow cherry); sizoengai (black fruit); uzu (white island fig); wanga (a plum-dized black fruit); wangai (island plum) and yararkakur (monkeynut); kurub (varieties of island banana), and six varieties of yam: buwa, kuthai, gabau, mapet, sari and thapan. They also cooked a seed-pod (biyu sama) harvested from mangroves.

The timing of the foraging and hunting cyclea depended on the seasons. Specialists among the elders, the zugubaumœbaig or star gazer, determined by close observation of the heavens, the rhythms of the tides and seasons, governed by the Zugub (plural Zugubal), the pre-Christian Sky Gods, who oversaw the seasons, fertility, horticulture, hunting and food gathering, battle and headhunting in conjunction with the dhogai, and who became specific stars and constellations The onset of the south-east season is signaled by the dawn rising of the Yam Star (Kek, a senior Zugub) over Baudhar.

Men would fish beyond the shores for many kinds of fish, including Black spinefoot, parrot fish, dugong, turtle and crayfish, or shot the Torresian pigeons (goeinaw) using a variety of weapons: wap (harpoon spear, such as the thoelu wap fashioned from bloodwood), amu (harpoon rope), gabagaba (a club with a round stone head). Women could fish inshore, near reefs, using a wali line woven from the dhani (wild fig), or scouring the shoreline for Hawksbill turtle eggs (which however they were forbidden to eat during lactation), and the akul, goba and silel varieties of shellfish. Only after menopause were women allowed to partake of goeinau pigeon flesh.

Like other Torres Strait island cultures, Mua society was ruled by a gerontocracy of male elders, often maidhalgal (men of magic) whose mastery of magical techniques and lore was fundamental to the regulation of both social groups and the natural increase in foods. They lived part of the year in solitude, or with a few select assistants, directed the initiation rites at sacred ceremonial grounds (kod), and were reputed shapeshifters, reminiscent of shamans, capable of coercing both nature and men through sorcery, through secret herbal lore and the manipulating of effigies (wauri).