Jagera people

Language

Yuggera belongs to the Durubalic subgroup of the Pama–Nyungan languages, and is sometimes treated as the language of the Brisbane area. However, Turrbal is also sometimes used as the name for the Brisbane language or the Yugerra dialects of the Brisbane area. The Australian English word "yakka" (loosely meaning "work", as in "hard yakka") came from the Yuggera language (yaga, "strenuous work").

According to Tom Petrie, who provided several pages listing words and placenames in the languages spoken in the area of Brisbane (Mianjin), yaggaar was the local word for "no". (The word for "no" in Aboriginal languages was often an ethnonymic marker of difference between Aboriginal groups.) Mianjin is a Yuggera/Turrbal word meaning "spike place" or "tulip wood". It was used for the area now covered by Gardens Point and the Brisbane central business district. The Yuggera word for the Aboriginal people of Brisbane was Miguntyun.

Ludwig Leichhardt recorded the name for the land holding area from Gardens Point to Breakfast Creek as Megandsin or Makandschin.

Country

The precise territorial boundaries of the Jagera are not clear. Norman Tindale defined the "Jagara" (Jagera) lands as encompassing the area around the Brisbane River from the Cleveland district west to the dividing range and north to the vicinity of Esk. According to Watson, the "Yugarabul tribe" (Jagera) inhabited the territories from Moreton Bay to Toowoomba to the west, extending almost to Nanango in the northwest. He also describes their territory as "the basins of the Brisbane and Caboolture Rivers" and states that a sub-group of the Yugarabul was the "Turaubul" (Turrbal) people whose territory included the site of the modern city of Brisbane. According to Steele, the territory of the "Yuggera people" (Jagera) extended south to the Logan river, north almost to Caboolture and west to Toowoomba. However, he considered that Turrbal speakers covered much of Brisbane from the Logan river to the Pine river. Ford and Blake state that the Jagera and Turrbal were distinct peoples, the Jagera generally living south of the Brisbane river and the Turrbal mostly living north.

At the time of European settlement, the Jagera people comprised local groups each of which had a specific territory. The European names for the locality groups, sometimes called clans, of the Brisbane area include the Coorpooroo, Chepara, Yerongpan and others.

Jagera territory adjoined that of the Wakka Wakka and the Gubbi Gubbi (also written Kabi Kabi or Gabi Gabi) to the north, and that of the Yugambeh and the Bundjalung people to the south.

Native title

Descendants of both the Jagera (Yugara) and the Turrbal consider themselves traditional custodians of the land over which much of Brisbane is built. Native claim applications were lodged respectively by the Turrbal in 1998 and the Jagera in 2011, and the two separate claims were combined in 2013. In January 2015, Justice Christopher Jessup for the Federal Court of Australia, in Sandy on behalf of the Yugara People v State of Queensland (No 2), rejected the claims on the basis that under traditional law, which was now lacking, none of the claimants would be considered to have such a land right. The decision was appealed before the full bench of the Federal Court, which on 25 July 2017 rejected both appeals, confirming the 2015 decision that native title does not exist in the greater Brisbane area.

An Indigenous land use agreement (ILUA) was signed over the site of the historic 1843 Battle of One Tree Hill, now known as Table Top Mountain, when the warrior Multuggerah from the Ugarapul tribe and a group of men ambushed and won a battle with settlers in the area. The ILUA was signed between Toowoomba City Council and a body representing the "Jagera, Yuggera and Ugarapul people" as the traditional owners of the area, in 2008 .

Variant names and spellings

• Jagarabal (jagara = no)
• Jergarbal
• Yagara
• Yaggara
• Yuggara
• Yugg-ari
• Yackarabul
• Turubul (language name)
• Turrbal
• Turrubul
• Turrubal
• Terabul
• Torbul
• Turibul
• Yerongban
• Yeronghan
• Ninghi
• Yerongpan
• Biriin

Place names

• Meebatboogan, Mount Greville, Moogerah Peaks National Park
• Cooyinnirra, Mount Mitchell, Main Range National Park
• Booroongapah, Flinders Peak, Flinders Peak Group
• Ginginbaar, Mount Blaine, Flinders Peak Group

Notable people

• Multuggerah, 19th-century warrior

• Hon. Neville Bonner, former Australian senator, Jagera elder

• Jeanie Bell, Australian linguist

• Faye Carr, 2017 National NAIDOC Awards Winner Female Elder of the Year

• Latia Schefe, 2017 National NAIDOC Awards Winner Youth of the Year

• Susan McCarthy, originally Bunjoey, daughter of Moonpago

• Uncle Desmond Sandy, Aunty Ruth James and Aunty Pearl Sandy, claimants in the 2015 native title case

Notes

Citations

Sources

• {{Cite news| title = Aboriginal Language
• {{Cite book| title = Legends of the Coochin Valley
• {{Cite web| title = Negative determination of native title over Brisbane upheld
• {{Cite web| title = Aboriginal languages of the Greater Brisbane Area
• {{Cite book| title = Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development | author-link = Robert M. W. Dixon
• {{Cite book| title = Australian Aboriginal Words in English: Their Origin and Meaning | edition = 2nd | author1-link = Robert M. W. Dixon
• {{Cite book| title = Leichhardt, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (1813–1849) | edition = 2: 1788–1850 I-Z
• {{Cite web| title = Full Federal Court determines native title does not exist over a large part of greater Brisbane
• {{Cite book| title = The native tribes of South-East Australia
• {{Cite news| title = Indigenous land use agreement signed in Toowoomba | access-date = 30 May 2022 | archive-date = 11 February 2014
• {{cite news| title = Last of Her Tribe-- Ugaraphul Princess Buried At Coochin
• {{Cite book| title = Voices in the Wilderness: Images of Aboriginal People in the Australian Media
• {{Cite news| title = Mills takes out Person of the Year at NAIDOC Awards
• {{Cite news| title = This Yuggera Grandmother of 47 scores Female Elder of the year award at NAIDOC
• {{Cite book| title = Tom Petrie's reminiscences of early Queensland (dating from 1837)
• {{Cite web| title = QCD2015/001 – Yugara/YUgarapul People and Turrbal People
• {{Cite news| title = Queenslanders Honoured at National NAIDOC Awards
• {{Cite news| title = Turrbal-Yugara native title claim over Brisbane rejected
• {{Cite book| title = Historical Dictionary of Australian Aborigines
• {{Cite book| chapter = Semantic Change: Intersubjectivity and Social Knowledge in the Sydney Morning Herald | editor1-last = Calabrese | editor1-first = Rita | editor2-last = Chambers | editor2-first = J. K. | editor3-last = Leitner | editor3-first = Gerhard | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=naDWCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA215
• {{cite AustLII| litigants = Sandy on behalf of the Yugara People v State of Queensland (No 2)
• {{Cite web| title = Full Federal Court confirms native title does not exist over greater Brisbane
• {{Cite book| title = Aboriginal Pathways: in Southeast Queensland and the Richmond River
• {{cite news| title = This Week'S Book Reviews
• {{Cite book | title = Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names | author-link = Norman Tindale
• {{Cite journal | title = Vocabularies of four representative tribes of South Eastern Queensland: with grammatical notes thereof and some notes on manners and customs, also, a list of Aboriginal place names and their derivations | access-date = 31 October 2017
• {{Cite news| title = Naidoc awards: Dianne Ryder, Ollie George and Patty Mills among winners