Yuwibara

The Yuwibara, also written Yuibera and Juipera and also known as Yuwi, after their language, are an Aboriginal Australian people, originating from the area around present-day Mackay, on the east coast of Queensland, Australia.

[1][2] According to Norman Tindale's classification, the Yuibera lands, starting from Mackay, were calculated to encompass roughly 1,100 square miles (2,800 km2), ran from St. Helens south to Cape Palmerston and inland reached as far as the Connors Range.

[5] In Mackay and its surrounding areas, six peoples have been identified: other than the Yuwibara, these were the Wiri, Biria, Jangga, Barna and Barada, with each group estimated to have consisted of 500 members.

It was estimated by contemporary local observers, George Bridgman[a] and Pierre-Marie Bucas, that in the decade from 1850 to 1860 roughly 50% percent of the original Aboriginal population of the Pioneer Valley had been killed.

The Native Mounted Police were considered the major cause, shooting down the local population in the ongoing frontier wars, but introduced diseases also played a key role.

[9]Writing in 1908, the early ethnographer Henry Ling Roth stated that: "in the Mackay district at any rate, the aborigines, if not all exterminated, have at least, through European influence, lost all knowledge of their old laws and customs".

Mount Jukes, too, was home to a men's ceremonial site, which is still visited each year by Yuwibara elders, who speak of a large spirit walking around the camping grounds.

[1] The Yuwibara and other Mackay area tribes are said by early ethnographers to have called a man's spirit meeglo, and to have used the term to describe the first whites they encountered, believing them to be embodiments of their forefathers.

[15] An informant of Robert Brough Smyth and resident in Mackay, George Bridgman, noted with regard to area's tribal burial customs that: he heard a funeral oration delivered over the grave of a man who had been a great warrior which lasted more than an hour.

[17] The Traditional Owner Reference Group consisting of representatives of the Yuwibara, Koinmerburra, Barada Barna, Wiri, Ngaro, and those Gia and Juru people whose lands are within Reef Catchments Mackay Whitsunday Isaac region, helps to support natural resource management and look after the cultural heritage sites in the area.