The Gubbi Gubbi people also known as Kabi Kabi are an
Aboriginal Australian
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 Isl ...
people native to south-eastern Queensland. They are now classified as one of several
Murri language groups in Queensland.
Naming
As is often the case,
ethnonyms distinguishing one tribe from another select the word used by any one group for the concept 'no', which is the meaning of ''kabi/gubi/gabi''. However,
AIATSIS's
Austlang database prefers Gubbi Gubbi,
There is a disagreement both about the name and which group(s) represent the nation or peoples known as Gubbi Gubbi or Kabi Kabi.
Country
John Mathew
John Mathew (31 May 1849 – 11 March 1929) was an Australian Presbyterian minister and anthropologist, author of ''"Eaglehawk and Crow"'' and ''"Two Representative Tribes of Queensland"''.
Biography
Mathew was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on ...
, who lived among them, described the Gubbi Gubbi lands as roughly coextensive with the
Mary River Basin, though stretching beyond it north to the
Burrum River
The Burrum River is a river located in the Wide Bay-Burnett region of Queensland, Australia.
Course and features
The river rises within Lake Lenthall, impounded by Lenthalls Dam at the confluence of several smaller watercourses including Harw ...
and south along the coast itself. He estimated their territory to cover . According to
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 ...
, however, the Gubbi Gubbi people were an inland group living in the
Wide Bay–Burnett
Wide Bay–Burnett is a region of the Australian state of Queensland, located between north of the state capital, Brisbane. The area's population growth has exceeded the state average over the past 20 years, and it is forecast to grow to more ...
area, and their lands extended over and lay west of
Maryborough. The northern borders ran as far as
Childers and
Hervey Bay
Hervey Bay () is a city on the coast of the Fraser Coast Region of Queensland, Australia. The city is situated approximately or 3½ hours' highway drive north of the state capital, Brisbane. It is located on the bay of the same name open to ...
. On the south, they approached the headwaters of the
Mary River and
Cooroy
Cooroy is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Noosa, Queensland, Australia. In the the locality of Cooroy had a population of 3,791 people.
Geography
Cooroy is inland from the northern Sunshine Coast hinterland about west of Noosa H ...
. Westwards, they reached as far as the
Coast Ranges
The Pacific Coast Ranges (officially gazetted as the Pacific Mountain System in the United States) are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the West Coast of North America from Alaska south to Northern and Central Mexico. Although th ...
and
Kilkivan. Gubbi Gubbi country is currently located between
Pumicestone Road, near
Caboolture in the south, through to Childers in the north. Their country was originally rain forest, with cleared areas created by regular firing of the scrub.
The neighbouring tribes were the
Turrbal
The Turrbal are an Aboriginal Australian people from the region of present-day Brisbane, Queensland. The name primarily referred to the dialect they spoke, the tribe itself being alternatively called ''Mianjin/Meanjin''. Mianjin was the Turrba ...
to the south, the
Taribelang
The Taribelang are an Aboriginal Australian people of central Queensland.
Country
The Taribelang lived on of territory around Bundaberg, and inland to near Walla, and north as far as Baffle Creek
The Baffle Creek is a creek in Central Qu ...
north,
Goreng Goreng to their northwest and the
Wakka Wakka
Wakka Wakka, or Waka Waka, people are an Aboriginal Australian community of the state of Queensland.
Name
"''Wakka''" was assigned the meaning "no" by Western linguists who documented the Wakawaka language. Ethnonyms based on the duplication o ...
westwards.
Language
The language of the Gubbi Gubbi can be foun
here. The Dictionary of the Gubbi-Gubbi and Butchulla languages / compiled by Jeanie Bell, with assistance from Amanda Seed.
The Dictionary has been available since 1994 with both Gubbi-Gubbi and Butchulla vocabularies with English finder-list; sources of words given; notes on phonology, morphology and syntax.
Some say the name was taken from the pale honey gathered from the eucalypts of the hinterland.
History of contact
Some Gubbi Gubbi/ Kabi Kabi died in the mass poisoning of upwards of 60 Aboriginal on the
Kilcoy run
Kilcoy Homestead is a heritage-listed homestead at Kilcoy-Murgon Road, Winya, Somerset Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built . It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
History
Kilcoy Homestead, a single-s ...
in 1842. A further 50-60 are said to have been killed by food laced with arsenic at
Whiteside Station in April 1847. As colonial entrepreneurs pushed into their territory to establish pastoral stations, they together with the
Butchulla
The Butchulla, also written Butchella, Badjala, Badjula, Badjela, Bajellah, Badtjala and Budjilla are an Aboriginal Australian people of K'gari, Queensland, and a small area of the nearby mainland of southern Queensland.
Language
The Butchulla ...
set up a fierce resistance: from 1847 to 1853, 28 squatters and their shepherds were killed. In June 1849 two youths, the Pegg brothers, were speared on the property while herding sheep.
Gregory Blaxland, the 7th son of the eponymous explorer Gregory Blaxland took vengeance, heading a vigilante posse of some 50 squatters and station hands and, at
Bingera, ambushed a group of 100 sleeping
myall Myalls are any of a group of closely related and very similar species of ''Acacia
''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it ...
s of the "Gin gin tribe" who are usually identified now as the Gubbi Gubbi. They had feasted on stolen sheep. Marksmen picked off many, even those fleeing by diving into the
Burnett River
The Burnett River is a river located in the Wide Bay–Burnett and Central Queensland regions of Queensland, Australia.
Course and features
The Burnett River rises in the Burnett Range, part of the Great Dividing Range, close to Mount Gaeta a ...
. The slaughter was extensive, and the bones of many of the dead were uncovered on the site many decades later. Blaxland was in turn killed in a payback action sometime in July–August 1850. His death was revenged in a further large-scaled massacre of tribes in the area.
The escaped convict James Davis, in addition to dwelling with several other tribes, is said to have lived for a time with the Kabi Kabi.
John Mathew
John Mathew (31 May 1849 – 11 March 1929) was an Australian Presbyterian minister and anthropologist, author of ''"Eaglehawk and Crow"'' and ''"Two Representative Tribes of Queensland"''.
Biography
Mathew was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on ...
, a clergyman turned anthropologist, also spent five years with them at
Manumbar and mastered their language. He described their society in a 1910 monograph, ''Two Representative Tribes of Queensland''. The Kabi Kabi people he grew up with numbered no more than a score by the early 1880s, and by 1906, after they had been forcibly removed to the
Barambah reserve, (an
Aboriginal reserve
An Aboriginal reserve, also called simply reserve, was a government-sanctioned settlement for Aboriginal Australians, created under various state and federal legislation. Along with missions and other institutions, they were used from the 19th c ...
created under the ''
'' ), he stated that only 3-4 full-blooded members of the group remained among the 'remnants'.
Culture and people
Gubbi Gubbi people â€
their official name- shown in early history books, articles and present day (2021) land claims. Kabi Kabi is also used by many and claims respectfully acknowledge both Gubbi Gubbi and Kabi Kabi.
Social organisation
The Gubbi Gubbi were divided into several
clans or ''bora'':
Native title claims
There has been a number of
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, ...
claims by various groups of contemporary Gubbi Gubbi/Kabi Kabi people, all through the same representative body, the Southern and Western Queensland Region.
Other groups of descendants, using the "Kabi Kabi" spelling of the name, have made a total of six applications for native title, with some earlier ones combined into later ones and one still active. The first two, made in 2006, were discontinued, while the third in the same year was dismissed. Claims made in 2013, and 2016 were combined, resulting in a sixth claim in 2018, which is still active. This claim covers an area from
Redcliffe, not far north of
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...
to around
Isis Junction, in the
Bundaberg region, but excluding Maryborough.
Some words
* ''kavai'' (small stingless
light-grey native bee).
* ''killa'' (small stingless
dark native bee)
* ''mothar''/''dhi'' (whiteman)
* ''mular'' (ceremonial scars)
* (''n'')''a'von'' (mother)
* ''pa'bun'' (father)
* ''widha karum'' (wild dog)
* ''wiyidha/widha'' (tame dog)
* ''wunya'' (greeting)
Notable people
*
Arthur Beetson,
Queensland Rugby League player and former Australian captain
*
Tahj Minniecon
Tahj James Rodney Minniecon is an Indigenous Australian soccer player who most recently played for Davao Aguilas FC in Philippines Football League in 2018.
Early life
Tahj James Rodney Minniecon grew up in Brisbane and went to Cavendish Road ...
,
Soccer player who has played for Brisbane Roar, Gold Coast United and Western Sydney Wanderers
*
Eve Fesl ,
former champion
discus thrower
The discus throw (), also known as disc throw, is a track and field event in which an athlete throws a heavy disc—called a discus—in an attempt to mark a farther distance than their competitors. It is an ancient sport, as demonstrated by th ...
of
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
and Queensland, and the first
Koori
Koori (also spelt koorie, goori or goorie) is a demonym for Aboriginal Australians from a region that approximately corresponds to southern New South Wales and Victoria. The word derives from the Indigenous language Awabakal. For some people ...
to receive a
PhD from an Australian university in 1990. She is a member of both the Gubbi Gubbi and
Gungulu nations.
*
Lance McCallum, Member of the
Legislative Assembly of Queensland
The Legislative Assembly of Queensland is the sole chamber of the unicameral Parliament of Queensland established under the Constitution of Queensland. Elections are held every four years and are done by full preferential voting. The Assembl ...
for the Electoral District of
Bundamba
Bundamba is a suburb of Ipswich in the City of Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. In the Bundamba had a population of 6,514 people.
Geography
The Bremer River forms the western part of the suburb's northern boundary. The Warrego Highway enter ...
, who mentioned his heritage during his inaugural speech on 19 May 2020.
Notes
Citations
Honours
Sources
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External links
Gubbi Gubbi Dyungungoo*
{{Authority control
Aboriginal peoples of Queensland
South East Queensland
Kabi Kabi