In The Beginning
Origins of the name "Yandina "
The First Residents
The Yandina Creek Bora Ring

In The Beginning….
Aborigines of the Yandina District belonged to the Gubbi Gubbi language group.
This language group consisted of a number of tribes including the Nalbo, Kabi, Dallambra and Undanbi. The basic unit of Aboriginal society was a tribe of up to seventy people owning their homeland and governing themselves. Tribes in turn would belong to a language group.
The areas east and west of the present day Yandina railway line, were occupied by the Undanbi and Nalbo respectively

Origins of the name "Yandina"
For many place names of Aboriginal origin, there is a choice of different meanings as there is no accurate written word, just oral history. Yandina town is one of these place names.
There is general consensus that the original name of the area in the Gubbi Gubbi language was "Koongalba" which could have meant, "place of small water", referring to the rock reef that acts as a ford and river crossing (The Rocks). Or it could have meant, "place of clean water" referring to the point where the river is no longer tidal and has only fresh water.
The name, however, may have originated from journeying Turrubal language group of the south near Brisbane that travelled to the Yandina Creek area. In this language group, Yandina means "to go on foot" (yan, go; dinna, on foot). Again referring to the rock reef that acts as a ford and river crossing (The Rocks)
The other theory is that Yandina was a word used by the Kabi tribe to indicate that something is finished or gone forever. There was a Kabi legend that once the sea came up and covered the area around Yandina Creek until the wallum country rose up again and the sea retreated. Their campsites, which had been used for centuries, were of no more use then; they were "yandina" or "gone forever".
On Expedition, it is recorded that Tom Petrie had identified the area as Yandina which meant "small place of water" referring to the rock reef that acts as a ford and river crossing (The Rocks).

The First Residents
Aborigines have resided in Australia for more than 60 thousand years, although it is thought that the Gubbi Gubbi language group has lived in the Yandina area for the last 20 thousand years.
Aborigines are famous for their hunter gatherer skills as well as being extremely in tune with their natural environment. Their hunting practices and fire-stick farming sustained their resources and the environment. Around Yandina, there was an abundance of natural resources.
More information is available at the "Yandina & District Historical Society"
Or "A Short History of Maroochyshire"

The Yandina Creek Bora Ring
Until the late 1970's, the outline of a traditional Bora Ring was found at Yandina Creek signifying that the Aborigines gathered there on social and ceremonial occasions. Their customs of burial were maintained into the 1880s.

The Bora Ring was the stage for one of the most important ceremonies of the Aboriginal culture. It was here that young men were initiated into the tribal laws and customs that formed the basis of their way of life. The country in which they lived was harsh and the laws that were imposed upon the men and women of the tribe ensured them continuing survival in this environment. Both girls and boys had to pass through an initiation ceremony, but by far the most exacting and important was the Bora ceremony for the young men of the tribe. A boy's childhood was carefree but once he passed through the Bora Ring, he had to accept all the responsibilities of manhood. The initiation ceremonies varied from tribe to tribe and no details of the Yandina Creek Bora Ring are known, however it was common that the knocking out of teeth, circumcision and scarring of body parts constituted some of the tests that had to be passed by young men.

Middens on the Riverbank
There is evidence of middens on the banks of the Maroochy River where the Aborigines had great feasts of shellfish. The word 'midden' means rubbish dump and a shell midden is a place where debris from eating shellfish has accumulated. Shell middens can also contain such things as the bones of fish, birds and mammals used for food, and tools made from stone, shell or bone. Shell middens provide a lot of information about Aboriginal activities in the past. The types of shells present can indicate the season and the aquatic habitat being used when the site was occupied. Different types of shells can indicate different habitats being used or changes in the diet over time.

The Bunya Feast
Every 3 years, Aborigines from various language groups & tribes journeyed to Blackall Range for a 'corroboree" which included a feasting on Bunya nuts, exchanging of goods, initiating of young men, organised competition fights and dance performances. This was one of their ways of unifying their culture.

A Helping Hand
Aborigines helped to establish European settlements in the district. They helped the timber-getters to find the trees suitable for milling and helped in the felling. Settlers employed them to cut firewood, punt goods on the river, clear land and mind children as well as perform some household tasks
Early explorers like Andrew Petrie who ventured into the Blackall Range in the west were shown pathways and food sources among which were the bunya pines. The road makers of the Brisbane to Gympie road, completed in 1868, were helped by Aborigines who thereafter maintained the telegraph line route.
With the coming of the Europeans, life became very difficult for the Aboriginal inhabitants of the district. They could no longer pursue their nomadic way of life. In 1897, the Government legislated that people of Aboriginal descent were to live on land especially set aside for them. Most of those living in the Yandina district were resettled on Fraser Island and Stradbroke Islands.
Those taken to Fraser Island were later taken to a reserve at Cherboug in the South Burnett. In 1996 a number of descendants of the Undanbi and Nalbo peoples have returned to live in the Yandina District.
The landforms and Aboriginal myth
The Yandina area is blessed with natural beauty and dramatic landforms. The 2 dominant landmarks are Mt Ninderry & Mt Coolum. Both have a prominent place in myth:
"…long ago in the Dreamtime, a beautiful dark maiden named Maroochy was loved by Coolum, a handsome young warrior. Another warrior, Ninderry, wanted Maroochy for himself and tried to steal her away. Coolum challenged Ninderry to a duel and they fought.
The two warriors attacked each other with such ferocity that the earth trembled and the ocean roared, the birds took flight and the koalas and kangaroos hid in fear, until at last, Ninderry, with a mighty blow of his club, killed the warrior Coolum.
The Creator, known to the Undanbi tribe as Birral, was so moved by their love and courage, that he turned their fallen bodies into a mighty stone mountains, as a monument to their bravery.
The grief-stricken Maroochy fled high into the hills and wept so copiously that her tears formed the Maroochy River.
Those tears will flow forever, while the majestic monoliths of Mt Coolum & Mt Ninderry stand against the sun, gazing down on the river and out to sea, remembering the beautiful maiden they loved."