Gubbi-Gubbi

The Gubbi-Gubbi, also called the Kabi Kabi, are an Aboriginal Australian people of south-eastern Queensland, whose name comes from their word for no. Their country, well-watered rain forest kept open by regular firing, covered the Mary River basin from Wide Bay and Hervey Bay south towards Noosa and Caboolture and inland to the Coast Ranges.

They were organised into clans around bora ceremonial grounds and spoke Gubbi Gubbi, a Waka-Kabic tongue of the Pama-Nyungan family close to the language of the neighbouring Badtjala.

On 18 May 1770 James Cook's Endeavour passed their coast and he named Double Island Point at the southern end of Wide Bay. In 1829 the escaped convict James Davis took refuge among them and was accepted as Duramboi, the reincarnated son of the elder Pamby-Pamby, and lived as a Gubbi-Gubbi man.