people

People

For millennia we have called home the five rivers of the Logan, Albert, Coomera, Nerang and Tweed; these river systems have connected and sustained us for generations, and they are honoured in the name of our claim ‘Danggan Balun (Five Rivers)’.

We are the Mibin (variously spelt Mibunn, Mibiny, Mebbon, Meebin), which refers to the Aboriginal people of these lands and waters. Mibin also means ‘Wedge-Tailed Eagle (Aquila audax)’ as all our people are eagles in spirit.

Origins

**Mibunn / Mibin - The Eagle, the totem of all our people.**

It is said that in our Dreaming, long ago, three brothers came to live at what is now known as Brunswick Heads, after some time they went their own ways, one went south, one went west, and the other north. The brother who came north was Yarberri, who was also known as Jabreen; it was Yarberri who made us, who taught us our language, our lore, our initiation, and most importantly, how to care for ngalingah jagun (our country). Thousands of years later, the sons and daughters of Jabreen, still call this country his, to us it’s not Queensland, it’s Jabreensland!

‘The tribe was subdivided into locality groups, each group occupying a portion of the tribal territory… Each group had a distinctive name, which, in many cases, was derived from some outstanding feature of the group's territory, either of its geography, geology, flora, or fauna. The language and customs of the locality groups were common to the whole tribe to which they belonged, although there were dialectical differences these were not so great as to cause any difficulty in conversation between members of different groups.’

(F. J. Watson - Language Researcher, 1944)

Our Society

Across our Nation lie the Jaran (Freshwater) and Ngarangwal (Saltwater) areas and within each of these is a band of smaller groups, known as tribes/clans/family groups/locality groups; each being individually named and holding a piece of country that is theirs to care for. Yugambeh people share lore and custom, bonded by a common tongue, and united through ceremony and history. We are the Mibin of this jagun.

Our people find their spouse from different clans/families, so many people have different obligations and responsibilities for a number of countries, i.e. the country of their father, mother, mother’s mother, father’s father and more! You may hear people use their clan names, e.g. ‘I’m a Mununjali/Kombumeri man.’, or you may hear references to major towns/cities, e.g. ‘I’m a Beaudesert/Tweed man.’

These clans are composed of a number of family lines, all our people are descendants of a number of old ones or Ngajanggali, each family holds an oral history / genealogy that spans many decades and generations. It is through these Ancestors that people inherit their membership and rights to specific clans.

*S.T. Davies, “Mibinja - Land of the Mibin” (2020) [Click to Enlarge]*

Many of these old ones are also Apical Ancestors (see Native Title), but they are not entirely the same, not every old one is necessarily an Apical Ancestor (sometimes it is only a parent, or a particular husband/wife). The precise number of Ngajanggali is unknown, is it estimated to be between two to three dozen, with each having ~200 to 400 distinct descendants - making our estimated population to be around 3’000 to 5’000!

**Our Social Structure, explained through the ancient pattern of Concentric Circles.**

Our Language

Mibinyah Gulgun, the language of the Mibin, is known as Yugam or Yugambeh, which are the Mibin words for ‘No’ ; within our wider region many groups distinguish their language by the word for No, like the Yuggera of Brisbane, the Jandai of Northern Stradbroke, Gowar of Moreton Island, the Kabi of the Sunshine Coast, and the Wakka of the Burnett Region.

What we call Yugambeh or Mibinyah Gulgun has regional varieties. These differ from one another only by a handful of words, a good example of which is the word for ‘She’:

West: Nyulegan

East: Nyahn

Within each clan and family there may be unique phrases and words as well. These differences aren’t enough to stop us from understanding each other, but they are enough for us to recognise where another person comes from.

To the south of our lands are similar languages to ours that have bigger differences. These belong to the other two brothers of Jabreen and are commonly called Bundjalung and Githabul - the Yagambeh/Yogambeh lingo. These languages have more differences in words (Githabul is 64% the same while Bundjalung is only 52%) and their grammars are similar but quite different to ours. To the north of us, the Yuggera, Jandai, Wakka and Kabi speak languages vastly different that are unrelated to ours.

Colonisation

The Dagay (whitefella) first entered our lands sometime around the early 1800’s, before establishing their ‘penal colony’ in Brisbane. Settlement near the Moreton Bay Penal Colony was restricted for a period of time, though our oral history tells of cedar-getters working along the borders of our country quite early, particularly around the Tweed and Nerang areas. Intense colonisation of our area in the 1850-60’s lead to intense violence and the drastic decline of our population, it is estimated that by the turn of the century, our clans were reduced by 90%!

The taking up of our lands for pastoral homesteads and agriculture disrupted our camps and sacred sites, resulting in the near destruction of native plants and animals that our clans use for food, medicine, tool-making, and camp building. Unwanted Aboriginal people were typically ‘dispersed’ by the Native Police Force’s troopers, such brutal ‘dispersals’ lead to numerous inquiries, but no convictions were ever made.

‘and then he ordered his troopers to surround that camp of blacks and to disperse them, by which he meant firing at them.’

(The Courier - Native Police Report, 20 August 1861)

As colonisation intensified traditional foods became less and less available and our people found work among the newcomers as stock-men, ring-barkers, cedar-getters, oystermen, and fishermen in order to feed their families. The Aboriginal Protection Act (1897) forced many of our people onto Missions, Reserves, and the fringes of our country. This oppressive system was dismantled throughout the 1950s-70s, partly in thanks to a strong movement of Aboriginal people throughout the area advocating for their rights.

**Bullum (John Allen), a Danggan Balun man from the Wanggeriburra clan drew this map in 1913. It shows his Wanggeriburra clan’s boundaries and bordering clans.**

Today

Despite the hardships we’ve endured, we are still here. Living on the jagun of our Ngajanggali (Ancestors), we have continued to uphold our sacred lore to respect and care for our country and its stories, and we have to this day maintained our close bonds of kinship and community. A majority of our families continue to live within our traditional lands, or in nearby major urban centres. People from across our area continue to exercise their traditional rights, whether that be collecting natural resources, walking country with their family, hunting/fishing, making pilgrimage to our sacred sites, or conducting spiritual and community activities on country; we are forever and always teaching mobo jarjum (tomorrow’s children) the ways of our people on the jagun of our ngajanggali.

Understanding our history and our ways will give you some guidance when working and dealing with Danggan Balun people. Learn more about us below!