Gangulu

Not to be confused with the Ganulu, another people of Queensland also known as Kanolu.

The Gangulu people, also written Kangulu, Kaangooloo, Ghungalu and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people from the Woorabinda, Duaringa and Mount Morgan area in Queensland, Australia.

Traditional lands of Australian Aboriginal tribes around Gladstone

Name

At least one variant name for the Kangulu, Kaangooloo, was formed from the word for "no", ka:ngu.^[1]

Language

The Gangulu language belongs to the Maric languages of the Pama-Nyungan language family.^[2][3] The language was silenced during the 19th and 20th centuries through the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act.^[4] The Gangulu community are now working to reawaken their language.^[5]

Country

Gangulu traditional lands occupy an estimated 16,000 square kilometres (6,000 sq mi) about the Dawson River as far south as Banana and Theodore. To the west, they extend to the Comet River, including Blackdown Tablelands^[6] and the vicinity of Woorabinda, Duaringa and Coomooboolaroo,^[7] and north to the Mackenzie River. Their eastern frontier lay towards Biloela, Mount Morgan, Gogango Range, and the upper Don River. Thangool and the headwaters of Grevillea Creek marked its southeastern limits.^[1]

People

A correspondent of E. M. Curr, Peter McIntosh, a resident of the area, stated that the Gangulu were a confederation of several groups, the main ones being the Karranbal, the Maudalgo, and the Mulkali.^[8] No further data were recorded to enable ethnographer Norman Tindale to clarify the precise nature of the last two groups,^[1] but the AUSTLANG database by AIATSIS reports that the Karranbal is the Garaynbal (Garingbal) language^[9] and Maudalgo is a variant name of the Wadjigu language and people, a separate group from the Biri, who spoke a Bidjara dialect.^[10] Mulkali is not further described.

Along with many other Queensland tribes whose traditional lands had been annexed by colonial pastoralists, many Gangulu people were forcibly removed to the Woorabinda and Cherbourg government reserves.^[11][4]

Alternative names

• Ghungalu^[12]
• Kaangooloo
• Cangoolootha (tha meant "speech")
• Khangalu, Kangalo, Kongulu, Kongalu
• Kangool-lo, Konguli, Gangulu^[1]

• Cangoolootha, Gangu, Kangool lo, Kongulu, Khang, Ghangulu, Ka ngool lo^[2]