The last fluent speakers of Yidiny were Tilly Fuller (d. October 1974), George Davis (b.1919), Dick Moses (b.1898) and his sister Ida Burnett of White Rock.
[3] The Yidiny lands were in lowland rainforest areas,[4] stretching from Barron River near Cairns down to the south, where their borders met those of the Ngajanji and the Mamu.
[6] The Yidiny, along with most other tribal peoples in the tropical rainforest regions (from Cairns to Ingham) and the Atherton Tableland, were killed or otherwise forced off their homelands to further the establishment of white settlements, cattle stations and sugarcane plantations.
[7] One group of the Yidiny broke off from the rest of the tribe in the early period of settlement, and, after shifting to the area of the present-day Redlynch, asserted a distinctive identity by calling themselves the Djumbandji.
[5] Starting around 1910, those who remained—even within the areas of white settlements—were the focus of a Queensland Government campaign of assimilation by the Anglican mission at Yarrabah (on the Cape Grafton peninsula).