Kuku Nyungkal People - History

History

Prior to the 1880s, Kuku Nyungkal people had, since time immemorial, possessed, occupied, used and enjoyed their country in accordance with their lore as follows:

Our Bama lore was strong in the past years ... The lore was made and enacted by Elders .. Everyone has responsibility for passing the lore down to the next generation and for carrying it out ... Some lagoons, swamps, springs and beaches are special story places with lores associated with them. Some are sickness places, some are healing places, some are special places of birds, or feeding areas for other animals. There are special places for hunting and gathering seasonal food such as crab, mussels, bird eggs and certain fish etc

In 1885 tin was discovered at Mount Amos, within Kuku Nyungkal country, following which Kuku Nyungkal people first experienced a small scale "invasion" by tin miners, then decades of sustained tin mining of their country

Looking back, in retrospect, Kuku Nyungkal people living in the area, reflected on the tin mining era, leading anthropologist Dr Christopher Anderson to conclude:

A major effect of tin mining was the disturbance if not outright destruction of ... sites of significance to Kuku Nyungkal people. Almost all important sites in this region are (or were) associated with waterholes and/or waterfalls.

Much of the illness and accidents which Europeans suffered in this area were attributed by Kuku Nyungkul to these actions. Violent thunderstorms or big winds, as well as the failure of certain food resources to appear properly or on time were also said to have stemmed from these actions.

The disturbances which tin-mining brought to these sites could possibly also have had some kind of spiritual or psychological ill-effect for Kuku-Nyungkal people. Because the sites were foci for power of which old mean were meant to have exclusive control, the flouting of site entry restrictions and site disturbance by Europeans ... had important effects

Over the decades that followed Queensland authorities felt it necessary to progressively encourage and often forcibly remove Kuku Nyungkal people from the tin mining areas and associated external settlement, into lands specially reserved for the purpose such as Ayton, Hopevale, Yarrabah, and other reserves.

During the 1950s Lutheran Church of Australia properly established an Aboriginal mission on the Bloomfield River, into which the remnant Kuku Nyungkal population still living on their country were moved. The Lutheran Church described the situation as follows:

The Bama are deeply hurt (the degree can hardly be described) that across the years they have been 'evicted' from their traditional lands by the encroachment of white settlers. From their traditional hunting grounds they were gradually herded into camps along or near the Bloomfield River. Finally they have been constricted within the confines of a 250 acre reserve at Wujal Wujal. The depth of their feelings was variously expressed: "We are like a crane standing on one leg (no room for two feet on the ground) on a little island" : "we are like animals in a wild cage"