Sub-groupings of the Yuin people are made on the basis of language and other cultural features; groups include the Brinja or Bugelli-manji, , Wandandian, Jerrinja, Budawang, Yuin-Monaro, Djiringanj, Walbunja, and more.

The ethnonym Yuin ("man") was selected by early Australian ethnographer, Alfred Howitt, to denote two distinct Nations of New South Wales, namely the Djiringanj and the Thaua.

[7] The native title application depends on establishing the South Coast Aboriginal people as a distinct and continuing group that has existed since colonisation.

[5] In 2018, the National Native Title Tribunal ruled that the South Coast people represent a "single cohesive kinship population" going back to colonisation, governed by shared rules, with a "single system of religion" centred on the figure Darhumulan, a marine-based economy, sacred sites that continue to be recognised, exogamous marriage rules, and a male initiation ceremony called Bunan (remembered, but not practised since the 1920s).

The country the Yuin ancestors occupied, used, and enjoyed reached across from Cape Howe to the Shoalhaven River and inland to the Great Dividing Range.

Their descendants claim rights to be recognised as the traditional owners of the land and water from Merimbula to the southern head of the sea entrance of the Shoalhaven River.

[22][23] During the push in the late 1970s and early 1980s to protect Mumbulla Mountain, Wallaga Lake people led by Guboo Ted Thomas described the Yuin tribe as "shar[ing] the one walkabout from Mallacoota in the south to the Shoalhaven River in the north".

The population was reduced to only 600 by the mid nineteenth century due to smallpox epidemics in 1789 and 1830, as well as tribal battles and the spread of venereal disease from whalers.

Gulaga itself symbolises the mother,[28] and has several sacred sites relating to places where the women went for storytelling and to participate in ceremonies and to give birth.

[29] Umbarra, aka Merriman Island, in Wallaga Lake is a particularly sacred place for the Yuin people.

[31][32] Mumbulla Mountain is the central place of significance in Biamanga National Park,[28] and is known for its importance in men's initiation ceremonies.

[32][29] On 6 May 2006 the freehold titles to Gulaga and Biamanga National Parks were handed back to the Yuin people by the New South Wales Government.

[37] This is a Djiringanj, version Barunguba Story, as told by Ruby Henry when looking after Reid children in Vulcan St. Moruya Dyillagongarmi, pronounced Dilly gone gar me.

Instead, Yuin kinship would have involved "extensive networks of relatedness within and between exogamous intermarrying country groups".

The main reason was death came quickly if you sustained an injury and marriage was more about survival of the tribe than the present days view.

[39] Yuin typically do not marry people with connections to the same personal or family beings (see below, Relationship with the natural world).

[41] Anthropologist Alfred William Howitt briefly described Yuin spiritual connections with animals in 1904, in The native tribes of south-east Australia.

[51] Dreamtime stories for the creation of the diving birds and the black swan are recorded by Susan Dale Donaldson.

[40] Yuin elder Randall Mumbler describes the significance of the different levels of connection:[59] There are personal, family, tribal, and ceremonial totems.

[62] Genealogist and researcher Dave Tout, a relative of King Merriman, has identified at least four groups and their spiritual connection:[39] In 1904, the ethnologist Howitt described Yuin "totems" as patrilineal (i.e. inherited from the father), and gave budjan, mura and jimbir as Yuin terms for these "totems".

[71] Willie wagtails deliver bad news, like the death of a loved one, and swans flying north indicate approaching storms.

[71] Some Yuin believe in dulagal (also rendered doolagarl) or "hairy man", a powerful being that lives on Mount Gulaga or in the bush between Bermagui and Mumbulla, but travels down to the coast.

Yuin children were warned not to stray from the campsite for fear of dulagal, and he was said to be able to draw people to him or put them to sleep, and to imitate bird sounds.