
The Jagera people, also written Yagarr, Yaggera, Yuggera, and other variants, are the
Australian First Nations people who speak the Yuggera language. The Yuggera language which encompasses a number of dialects was spoken by the
traditional owner
Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title right ...
s of the territories from
Moreton Bay to the base of the
Toowoomba
Toowoomba ( ), nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar', is a city on the border of South East Queensland and Darling Downs regions of Queensland, Australia. It is located west of Queensland's capital, Brisbane. The urban population of Toowoom ...
ranges including the city of
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...
. There is debate over whether the
Turrbal people of the Brisbane area should be considered a subgroup of the Jagera or a separate people.
Language
Yuggera belongs to the
Durubalic subgroup of the
Pama–Nyungan languages
The Pama–Nyungan languages () are the most widespread language family, family of Australian Aboriginal languages, containing 306 out of 400 Aboriginal languages in Australia. The name "Pama–Nyungan" is a merism: it is derived from the two e ...
, and is sometimes treated as the language of the
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...
area. However, Turrbal is also sometimes used as the name for the Brisbane language or the Yugerra dialects of the Brisbane area. The
Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language. While Australia has no of ...
word "yakka" (loosely meaning "work", as in "hard yakka") came from the Yuggera language (''yaga'', "strenuous work").
According to
Tom Petrie, who provided several pages listing words and placenames in the languages spoken in the area of Brisbane (''Mianjin''), ''yaggaar'' was the local word for "no". (The word for "no" in Aboriginal languages was often an
ethnonymic marker of difference between Aboriginal groups.) Mianjin is a Yuggera/Turrbal word meaning "spike place" or "tulip wood". It was used for the area now covered by
Gardens Point and the
Brisbane central business district. The Yuggera word for the Aboriginal people of Brisbane was Miguntyun.
Ludwig Leichhardt recorded the name for the land holding area from Gardens Point to
Breakfast Creek as Megandsin or Makandschin.
Country
The precise territorial boundaries of the Jagera are not clear.
Norman Tindale defined the "Jagara" (Jagera) lands as encompassing the area around the
Brisbane River from the
Cleveland district west to the
dividing range and north to the vicinity of
Esk. According to Watson, the "Yugarabul tribe" (Jagera) inhabited the territories from
Moreton Bay to
Toowoomba
Toowoomba ( ), nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar', is a city on the border of South East Queensland and Darling Downs regions of Queensland, Australia. It is located west of Queensland's capital, Brisbane. The urban population of Toowoom ...
to the west, extending almost to
Nanango in the northwest. He also describes their territory as "the basins of the Brisbane and
Caboolture Rivers" and states that a sub-group of the Yugarabul was the "Turaubul" (Turrbal) people whose territory included the site of the modern city of Brisbane. According to Steele, the territory of the "Yuggera people" (Jagera) extended south to the
Logan river, north almost to Caboolture and west to Toowoomba. However, he considered that Turrbal speakers covered much of Brisbane from the Logan river to the
Pine river. Ford and Blake state that the Jagera and Turrbal were distinct peoples, the Jagera generally living south of the Brisbane river and the Turrbal mostly living north.
At the time of European settlement, the Jagera people comprised local groups each of which had a specific territory. The European names for the locality groups, sometimes called clans, of the Brisbane area include the Coorpooroo, Chepara, Yerongpan and others.
Jagera territory adjoined that of the
Wakka Wakka and the
Gubbi Gubbi (also written Kabi Kabi or Gabi Gabi) to the north, and that of the
Yugambeh and the
Bundjalung people to the south.
Native title
Descendants of both the Jagera (Yugara) and the Turrbal consider themselves
traditional custodians of the land over which much of Brisbane is built. Native claim applications were lodged respectively by the
Turrbal in 1998 and the Jagera in 2011, and the two separate claims were combined in 2013. In January 2015,
Justice Christopher Jessup for the
Federal Court of Australia
The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law (with the exception of family law matters), along with some summary (less serious) and indictable (mo ...
, in ''Sandy on behalf of the Yugara People v State of Queensland (No 2)'', rejected the claims on the basis that under traditional law, which was now lacking, none of the claimants would be considered to have such a land right. The decision was appealed before the full bench of the Federal Court, which on 25 July 2017 rejected both appeals, confirming the 2015 decision that
native title does not exist in the greater Brisbane area.
An
Indigenous land use agreement (ILUA) was signed over the site of the historic 1843
Battle of One Tree Hill, now known as
Table Top Mountain, when the warrior
Multuggerah from the Ugarapul tribe and a group of men ambushed and won a battle with settlers in the area. The ILUA was signed between
Toowoomba City Council and a body representing the "Jagera, Yuggera and Ugarapul people" as the
traditional owner
Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title right ...
s of the area, in 2008 .
Variant names and spellings
* ''Jagarabal'' (''jagara'' = no)
* ''Jergarbal''
* ''Yagara''
* ''Yaggara''
* ''Yuggara''
* ''Yugg-ari''
* ''Yackarabul''
* ''Turubul'' (language name)
* ''Turrbal''
* ''Turrubul''
* ''Turrubal''
* ''Terabul''
* ''Torbul''
* ''Turibul''
* ''Yerongban''
* ''Yeronghan''
* ''Ninghi''
* ''Yerongpan''
* ''Biriin''
Place names

* Meebatboogan,
Mount Greville,
Moogerah Peaks National Park
* Cooyinnirra,
Mount Mitchell,
Main Range National Park
* Booroongapah,
Flinders Peak,
Flinders Peak Group
* Ginginbaar, Mount Blaine, Flinders Peak Group
Notable people
*
Multuggerah, 19th-century warrior
* Hon.
Neville Bonner, former Australian senator, Jagera elder
*
Jeanie Bell, Australian linguist
* Faye Carr, 2017 National
NAIDOC Awards Winner Female Elder of the Year
* Latia Schefe, 2017 National
NAIDOC Awards Winner Youth of the Year
* Susan McCarthy, originally Bunjoey, daughter of Moonpago
* Uncle Desmond Sandy, Aunty Ruth James and Aunty Pearl Sandy, claimants in the
2015 native title case
Notes
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{{Authority control
Aboriginal peoples of Queensland
Brisbane