The Djabugay people (also known as Djabuganydji or Tjapukai) are a group of
Australian Aboriginal
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait I ...
people who are the original inhabitants of mountains, gorges, lands and waters of a richly forested part of the
Great Dividing Range including the
Barron Gorge and surrounding areas within the
Wet Tropics of Queensland
The Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Site consists of approximately 8,940 km2 of Australian wet tropical forests growing along the north-east Queensland portion of the Great Dividing Range. The Wet Tropics of Queensland meets all f ...
.
Language
Djabugay
The Djabugay people (also known as Djabuganydji or Tjapukai) are a group of Australian Aboriginal people who are the original inhabitants of mountains, gorges, lands and waters of a richly forested part of the Great Dividing Range including th ...
belongs to the
Yidinic branch of the
Pama–Nyungan language family, and is closely related to
Yidin. It shares the distinction, with
Bandjalang in north-eastern New South Wales and
South East Queensland
South East Queensland (SEQ) is a bio-geographical, metropolitan, political and administrative region of the state of Queensland in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million people out of the state's population of 5.1 million. Th ...
, and
Maung spoken on the
Goulburn Islands
The Goulburn Islands are a group of small islands and islets in the Arafura Sea off the coast of Arnhem Land in Northern Territory of Australia. The largest islands are Weyirra (North Goulburn Island) and Warruwi (South Goulburn Island), where t ...
off the coast of
Arnhem Land, of being one of only three languages that lack the
dual form
Dual (abbreviated ) is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities (objects or persons) identified ...
. The last speaker with a good knowledge of the language was Gilpin Banning.
Country
Norman Tindale
Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist.
Life
Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...
described the territory of the Tjapukai (Djabugay) as extending along the plateau south of and to the east of south of
Mareeba
Mareeba is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Mareeba in Far North Queensland, Australia. Between 2008 and 2013, it was within the Tablelands Region. The town's name is derived from an Aboriginal word meaning ''meeting of the waters'' ...
, from
Barron River, south of Mareeba to
Kuranda and north toward
Port Douglas
Port Douglas is a coastal town and locality in the Shire of Douglas, Queensland, Australia, approximately 60 km north of Cairns. In the , Port Douglas had a population of 3,504 people. The town's population can often double, however, with the in ...
. Their western boundary was defined by the margin of the rain forest from
Tolga north to
Mount Molloy. By 1952, the Djabugay claimed also the coastal strip between Cairns Inlet and Lamb Range, with one
''horde'' lived near
Redlynch,
Cairns.
Mythology
![QRail Budaji](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/QRail_Budaji.jpg)
The Djabugay word for their
ancestral times, beyond their living memory, (also known as 'Story time' or 'Dreamtime') is ''bulurru'' being a time when, for instance, it is told the
Rainbow Serpent
The Rainbow Serpent or Rainbow Snake is a common deity often seen as the creator God, known by numerous names in different Australian Aboriginal languages by the many different Aboriginal peoples. It is a common motif in the art and religion ...
''Gudju Gudju'', in the form of a giant
carpet snake (aka ''Budadji'') traveled through the country, bartering with families along the way exchanging coastal
nautilus shells for rainforest products such as
dilly bag
A dillybag or dilly bag is a traditional Australian Aboriginal bag generally woven from plant fibres. Dillybags are mainly designed and used by women to gather and transport food, and are most commonly found in the northern parts of Australia.
' ...
s, his body creating within the landscape everything from ''Yaln giri'' (
Crystal Cascades) to ''Ngunbay'' (
Kuranda), moving through the
Mowbray River
The Mowbray River is a river of the south Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. A short upper tributary of the Orari River, it flows north from its sources in the Four Peaks Range northeast of Fairlie.
See also
*List of rivers of Ne ...
to the hill at Port Douglas, finally coming to rest at ''Wangal Djungay'' (
Double Island) In one account, he was killed by
emu
The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus '' Dromaius''. The emu ...
men at Din din'' ( the
Barron Falls
Barron Falls ( Aboriginal: ''Din Din'') is a steep tiered cascade waterfall on the Barron River located where the river descends from the Atherton Tablelands to the Cairns coastal plain, in Queensland, Australia.
In 2009 as part of the Q150 ...
), an incident which unleashed the powerful
monsoon
A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal osci ...
al rains on the region. There were also 2 Bulurru dreamtime brothers, Damarri and Guyala, who laid down the contours, created the plant foods, established the customary law and the system of clan marriage by
moieties. The contours of the Barron River and Redlynch Valley, for example, are thought of as representing the supine body of Damarri.
The tale of Budadji's travels along the Barron Gorge is included in the web guide of
Queensland Rail
Queensland Rail (QR) is a railway operator in Queensland, Australia. Owned by the Queensland Government, it operates local and long-distance passenger services, as well as owning and maintaining approximately 6,600 kilometres of track and relate ...
to the railways journey from Cairns to Kuranda.
History
European settlers explored and cleared the land for
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
and
tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
. "Dispersals", the euphemism for shooting groups of blacks, were undertaken at
Smithfield (1878), at
Biboohra near the Clohesy River close to
Kuranda in the early 1880s, and also near
Mareeba
Mareeba is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Mareeba in Far North Queensland, Australia. Between 2008 and 2013, it was within the Tablelands Region. The town's name is derived from an Aboriginal word meaning ''meeting of the waters'' ...
in 1881.
In May 1886, a railway was constructed from
Cairns to
Herberton
Herberton is a rural town and locality in the Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Herberton had a population of 855 people.
Geography
Herberton is on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland. It is situa ...
with part of the rails going on top of a walking track. The Djabugay were unhappy about this development and withstood the settlement by spearing bullocks and settlers. As the settlers entered, traditional hunting and gathering grounds were taken over.
This led to the notorious
Speewah massacre in 1890 where
John Atherton
John Atherton (1598 – 5 December 1640) was the Anglican Bishop of Waterford and Lismore in the Church of Ireland. He and John Childe (his steward and tithe proctor) were both tried and executed for buggery in 1640.
Life and death
Early l ...
took revenge on the Djubagay by sending in native troopers to avenge the killing of a bullock. The Djubagay were segregated from them and forced to live at the
Mona-Mona Mission and were unable to hunt, fish or move around. Their numbers fell dramatically at the turn of the century.
By 1896, the region supported
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
Seeds of ...
plantations and the Djabugay were used as labour on farms.
Many now own their own land, some other settlements and farms in the area.
On 17 December 2004, it was recognised that native title existed in the
Barron Gorge National Park for the Djabugay..
Native title
All Djabugay peoples share, in common,
descent
Descent may refer to:
As a noun Genealogy and inheritance
* Common descent, concept in evolutionary biology
* Kinship, one of the major concepts of cultural anthropology
**Pedigree chart or family tree
** Ancestry
** Lineal descendant
**Heritag ...
from ancestors who (a) have been given personal names that are sourced from, spoken in, and almost exclusively belong to the
Djabugay language
Djabugay (or ''Djabuganjdji''; see below for other names) is an endangered Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Djabugay people with 46 native speakers at the 2016 census. The Djabugay language region includes Far North Queensland, parti ...
s (or dialects) and who (b) have transmitted, from generation to generation, Djabugay language (or dialects), Djabugay knowledge, Djabugay tradition, Djabugay heritage, plus Djabugay law.
In 2004,
Justice Jeffrey Spender, a
Federal Court judge, in analyzing Djabugay land claims in terms of Australian legislation regarding
native title
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...
, touched on the concept of ''bulurru'' and affirmed that for them the geomorphic features of the area affirm the truth of the laws instituted by the dreamtime, and are taken as tangible proof of bulurru and the totemic beings in Djabugay country. It followed that the physical landscape, its "storyplaces" and "storywaters" in bulurru tradition underline the 'inalienable connection between the native claimants, their ancestral beings and the land.
In land title claims, there was a long running dispute between the Djabugay and the
Yirrganydji
The Yirrganydji (Irrukandji) people are an Indigenous Australian people of Queensland who trace their descent from the ''Irukandji'' and, as such, are the original custodians of a narrow coastal strip within Djabugay country that runs northward ...
the latter claiming
native title
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...
to the area from Cairns to Port Douglas. The clash arose out of the siting of the
Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park. Though some Djabuguy wished their claim to be included under the general claim, regarding them as part of the Dajabugay people, the Yirrganydji insisted on maintaining their separate identity. Eventually the two corporations representing the groups came to a compromise agreement.
Notable people
*
David Hudson
Notes
Citations
Sources
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External links
Djabugay community websiteDjabugay Indigenous Land Use Agreement for Barron Gorge National ParkIndigenous Community in KurandaQPWS website ''Barron Gorge National Park – Nature, culture and history''*
Cablecar protest includes Djabugay-->
{{Authority control
Aboriginal peoples of Queensland
Far North Queensland