The former Noosa Shire was home to an estimated several hundred aboriginal people before the arrival of the first Europeans in the mid 1800's. These people were of the Ka'bi Ka'bi language group, who inhabited an area from as far north as Fraser Island, south to Pumicestone Passage and west to the Conondale and Blackall Ranges, up to Kilkivan.

The term Gubbi Gubbi was unknown in the Noosa Area before 1993. All historians who wrote about the Noosa area recorded the Ka'bi Ka'bi people inhabiting the area. As a young member of the Noosa Sea Scouts in Noosaville I clearly remember the photos on the wall of the Kabi speaking peoples. Tristan.

Brett Green is very informative on his website.

Please click on this link to see the AIATSIS Map of Aboriginal Australia, showing the tribal boundaries that existed in pre-european Australia. You will see the Ka'bi Ka'bi land that includes the Noosa Shire bordered by their neighbours including the Badtjala and Waka Waka groups.

Indigenous Cultural Heritage Study The report was produced by the former Noosa Council with the valuable assistance of Dr Eve Fesl and funded by the Environmental Protection Agency through the Queensland Community Cultural Heritage Incentive Program.

Primarily, the aim of the report was to identify sites and places that have Indigenous cultural heritage values in the former Noosa Shire and develop appropriate mechanisms for managing those values.

Indigenous Cultural Heritage of the Noosa Shire - A shorter and simpler summary of the main historical and cultural information contained in this report suitable for the student and casual reader.

Aboriginal massacres of the Noosa Shire The history of Noosa's Indigenous people is no less dark and tragic as the story of Indigenous people accross Australia. Amongst the charges of poisonings, the incidence of disease, the introduction of alcohol and the forced dispersion and removal of people from their land, Noosa is also the scene of two massacres that took place in the mid 1800's.

The Noosa Shire Museum houses a permanent display of Ka'bi Ka'bi artefacts and information http://noosamuseum.spiderweb.com.au/gubbi.html

Various books that explore the indigenous history of the Sunshine and Cooloola Coasts are available from the Sunshine Coast Libraries Local Studies Units including:

Cooloola Coast: Noosa to Fraser Island, the aboriginal and settler histories of a unique environment by Elaine Brown.

Noosa and Gubbi Gubbi: the land, the people, the conflict by Rod Adams.

In the Tracks of the Rainbow: Indigenous Culture and Legends of the Sunshine Coast by Robyn Wells.

---