Djabuganjdjin

The Djabuganjdjin, also called Djabugay or Tjapukai, are the Aboriginal people of the densely forested Great Dividing Range behind Cairns, holding the plateau south and east of Mareeba, the Barron River from Mareeba to Kuranda and the country reaching north toward Port Douglas.

Their language, Djabugay, belongs to the Yidinic branch of the Pama-Nyungan family and is closely related to Yidiny; it is one of the few Australian languages with no dual form.

In their bulurru, or Dreamtime, the Rainbow Serpent Gudju Gudju, in the shape of the giant carpet snake Budadji, carved the Barron Gorge on his journey to the sea, while the ancestral brothers Damarri and Guyala shaped the land, made the plant foods and gave the people their customary law and moiety-based marriage rules.