Gangulun

The Gangulu are an Aboriginal Australian people of Central Queensland whose traditional lands of some 16,000 square kilometres centred on the Dawson River, west to the Blackdown Tableland and north to the Mackenzie River. Their name derives from gangu, the word for ‘no’ in their tongue, a naming habit shared with neighbouring peoples such as the Gureng Gureng.

They were not a single tribe but a confederation of groups, the principal ones being the Karranbal, the Maudalgo and the Mulkali. Their language belonged to the Maric branch of the Pama-Nyungan family.

Although James Cook charted the Queensland coast far to their east in 1770, Europeans did not reach their inland country until the pastoral push of the mid-nineteenth century, when grazing runs swallowed their hunting grounds and Gangulu people were among those forcibly removed to government reserves such as Woorabinda.