Yalada (Welcome)

Mason’s Tours have a long friendship with the Aboriginal people of Far North Queensland and on our tours our knowledgable guides will provide an insight into their history and culture.

Visitors from overseas who are accustomed to man-made heritage with historic buildings and ruins, find Australia vastly different from their own countries.

Australia has a different heritage, a natural heritage, and part of Australia's natural history are our indigenous people, the Australian Aboriginals, who are thought to be the oldest race on earth.

Whilst the Aboriginals have lived on this continent for around 40 thousand years, there is little sign of their prior existence, other than rock paintings and carvings, their burial sites, bora rings where ceremonial corroborees and initiations were performed, and shell middens.

Living a nomadic life they travelled country wide in search of seasonal food.

They lived in the barest of accommodation that provided minimum shelter from the weather and always their spiritual life was far more important than any material possessions.

Their Dreamtime stories were passed down the generations by their spiritual ancestors and your further reading about their fascinating creation stories, many childlike and innocent, will engender a feeling in you that will help you understand these beautiful first Australians and the world's most ancient civilisation.

Kuku Yalanji tribe

The entire Daintree-Cape Tribulation/Bloomfield region is a small part of the Kuku Yalanji tribal area. As a whole, this extends from Mossman in the south to Annan River in the north and as far west as Laura and Palmer River.

The Kuku Yalanji people are a single tribal group as distinct from the neighbouring Kuku Yimidhirr to the north and Jabugay/Yirrigandji to the south.
The groups to the east of the range associated with the rainforest environment are more commonly referred to as Eastern Kuku Yalanji.

They have a single language with slight dialect variations according to various sub-groups.

These larger nations consist of smaller, geographically bound clan estates whose ownership and use rights are passed through the male line. These family estates are essentially a complex network of sites of religious, resource or other practical significance, along with the lands and resources between them.

The Kuku Yalanji people are the only aboriginal tribe in Australia who still have their own language. They describe themselves as true rainforest people who live in absolute harmony with their environment.

Mythology

Kuku Yalanji mythology and presence in this region originates from the actions of the Rainbow Serpent (Kurriyala) in a very ancient time (Nujakura) and its creations of the environment as we see it today. Many prominent features of the region have a complex mythological component.

These may be either animal-like, human-like or an element of the universe. As a result, story places or cultural sites represent past activities or current residence beneath the surface and have a very high cultural significance, so are often considered dangerous to approach or take resources from, except in prescribed ways or by the right person.

The mythology and other powerful properties attributed to most story places are the reason why the Kuku Yalanji regard damage and destruction or inappropriate management as not acceptable.

Cultural Features

The islands, beaches, creek mouths, backing dunes and lowland rainforest of the Daintree area also provided a major focus for camping and other uses for the Kuku Yalanji. Combined with the fringing reef and sea, a diverse range of resources were available to the Yalanji people on a systematic, seasonal and cultural basis.

Characteristic cultural features of the Daintree region include a complex network of Aboriginal walking tracks. These were based around two major tracks, one along the coast and one further inland which were joined by an intricate network of associated tracks which connected all destinations, places of cultural importance and resource use.

Many of these were later developed into the roads and tracks used today.

Open sites are also common in the rainforest-covered coastal flats and coastal areas as isolated camps. Such sites generally consist of small nut cracking rocks, grinding implements or combination of both. Artifacts are also often present.

Post Contact Settlement and Land Use

Although Cook in 1770 and King (in 1827) passed near the coast, Europeans did not enter the region until the late 1870s when red cedar was discovered and harvested on the Daintree and Bloomfield Rivers.

The Daintree was opened for selection in 1877 and blocks of land were taken up at Bloomfield in 1882.

The Mason family were the first white settlers in the Cape Tribulation area. At the time of their arrival Walter Mason reported that more than 300 aborigines lived along this coast in small family units and many more camped here on the way to adjacent areas.

Following the cutters and tin mining activity in and around the region, combined with permanent European settlements, the Kuku Yalanji were forced into Missions at Bloomfield in 1885, Mossman Gorge (1916) and Daintree River (1961).

From then on traditional lifestyles were irreversibly changed with the Kuku Yalanji subjected to various Government policies of the time which ranged from 'dispersal' to 'assimilation' to the current 'self-determination' policy.

Despite all of this the Kuku Yalanji have managed to maintain many important aspects of their cultural identity and most predominantly their use, association and connection to Kuku Yalanji Country.

To the Kuku Yalanji people today, the concept of nature and culture being inextricably bound continues. As a result the Daintree area and its features maintain their high cultural significance, not only in relation to traditional ownership and native title interest to the land, but also because of its complex system of totemic features, oral traditions, its important plant and animal species, other significant cultural places, old and current camping places, walking track networks and their archaeological and environmental features.

Amongst the Kuku Yalanji there is extensive knowledge of boundaries, family connection, place names, bush medicine and other detailed cultural information. As culture is not static, modern lifestyles contain a mix of these traditional practices with more common contemporary practices.

**The Mossman Gorge Community Rangers have provided this information and it has been approved by the Kuku Yalanji elders to be told to visitors. This section is taken from 'A Handbook for Tour Guides - Daintree River to Cape Tribulation' (pp.1-8, 1-9), a co-operative venture between the Wet Tropics Management Authority and the Queensland Environment Protection Agency, and funded by the Daintree Rescue Package.

Nugal-warra people

The Nugal-warra clan's lands stretch from Cooktown to Hope Vale, which is some 340 km north of Cairns, and they conduct the Guurrbi Tours.
They will show you ancient rock art paintings and tell you stories of their history and creation.

Yaba Yabaju people

The Yaba Yabaju of the Kuku Yalanji tribe from lands around Port Douglas specialise in coastal habitat walks, interpretive talks and night spearing.

The following links to indigenous Web sites contain many interesting links to other Web sites. Please support the businesses mentioned.
These links will open in a new screen.

Cape York Peninsula Development Association (CYPDA)
CYPDA

Arts Queensland, Indigenous Arts
Arts Qld.

If you have a Web site, or you know of a site containing information about North Queensland's
indigenous people that you think would be of interest to our visitors, please email Webmaster
and we will consider a link. We are particularly interested in emerging indigenous businesses.

The Mason Family embrace their indigenous friends and are proud to have been accepted into their community.