Yagalingu

Yagalingu is the name of an Aboriginal people and language of Central Queensland. Their country extended from the headwaters of the Belyando River south to Avoca, north toward Laglan, west to the Great Dividing Range and east and south toward the Drummond Range. The Belyando and its tributaries gave this inland country its main lines of movement, linking waterholes, open woodland and patches of richer grass.

The Yagalingu language belongs to the wider Maric group and has been linked with the Bidjara dialects. Early records preserve clan and place names that tie families to particular stretches of country. Wakelbara, for example, was associated with Laglan, and wakel is recorded as the word for eel. Such names joined food resources, kinship and inherited responsibilities rather than describing empty terrain.