Gidhabal

The Gidhabal, also known as Kitabal and Githabul, are an Aboriginal Australian people of southern Queensland,^[1] who inhabited an area in south-east Queensland and north-east New South Wales, now within the Southern Downs, Tenterfield and Kyogle Local Government regions.

Language

The Gidhabal people's language is called Gidhabal.^[2] It is variety of the Condamine-Upper Clarence language, a dialect cluster of the wider Bundjalungic branch of Pama–Nyungan language family,^[3] though the Githabul dislike calling their language Bundjalung as a descriptor of their speech.^[4]

Country

According to Norman Tindale, the Githabul people owned over some 1,700 square miles (4,400 km²) of territory, which lay around the headwaters of the Clarence, Richmond, and Logan rivers on the Great Dividing Range. He adds that it extended from Killarney to Urbenville, Woodenbong, Unumgar (Nganamgah^[5]), and Tooloom. at Rathdowney and about Spicer Gap. Tindale placed its southern reaches near the vicinity of Tabulam and Drake.^[6]

Social organisation

R. H. Mathews stayed with the Githabul in 1898 and picked up the following information concerning their social divisions, which were fourfold.^[7]

Cycle	Mother	Father	Son	Daughter
Karrpiyan[a]	Barrangan	Dyerwain	Bandyoor	Bandyooran
	Bandyooran	Bunda	Barrang	Barrangan
Tiyatyi[b]	Dyerwaingan	Barrang	Bunda	Bundagan
	Bundagan	Bandyoor	Dyerwain	Dyerwaingan

Native title

In September 1995 Githabul legal scholar Trevor Close, on behalf of his people, lodged a native title claim for 140,600 ha (347,000 acres) in the Kyogle, Woodenbong and Tenterfield areas in northeast New South Wales and in Queensland, south of Rathdowney. Justice Catherine Branson of the Federal Court of Australia, on 29 November 2007, made a consent determination recognising their non-exclusive native title rights and interests over 1,120 square kilometres (430 sq mi) in nine national parks and 13 state forests in northern New South Wales.^[8]

In May 2021 the Githabul peoples lodged a Native Title claim (Waringh Waringh) over much of the former Warwick Shire within the Southern Downs Regional Council area of Queensland.^{[citation needed]}

Alternative names

• Kidabal, Kidjabal, Kit(t)a-bool, Kittabool, Kitabool, Kitapul
• Gidabul, Gidjoobal
• Kuttibul
• Noowidal^[6]

Notable people

• Frank Roberts (1945–2011), boxer, one of three first Indigenous Australians to participate in the Olympics, in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics^[9]