The Yuin nation, also spelt Djuwin, is a group of Australian Aboriginal peoples from the South Coast of New South Wales. All Yuin people share ancestors who spoke, as their first language, one or more of the Yuin language dialects. Sub-groupings of the Yuin people are made on the basis of language and other cultural features; groups include the Brinja or Brinja-Yuin, Budawang, Murramarang, Yuin-Monaro, Djiringanj, Walbunja, and more. They had a close association with the Thaua people.
Name and identity
The ethnonym Yuin ("man") was selected by early Australian ethnographer, Alfred Howitt, to denote two distinct tribes of New South Wales, namely the Djiringanj and the Thaua. In Howitt's work, the Yuin were divided into northern (Kurial-Yuin) and southern (Gyangal-Yuin) branches.
The term "Yuin" is commonly used by South Coast Aboriginal people to describe themselves, although in a 2016 New South Wales native title application for land overlapping Yuin country, "South Coast people" is used. The name is also spelt Djuwin and Juwin.
The native title application depends on establishing the South Coast Aboriginal people as a distinct and continuing group that has existed since colonisation. South Coast Aboriginal people have identified 59 apical ancestors that lived during the settlement of the region in 1810–1830; current South Coast Aboriginal people are either descended from these ancestors or integrated into families that descend from these ancestors.
In 2018, the National Native Title Tribunal ruled that the South Coast people represent a "single cohesive kinship population" going back to colonisation, governed by shared rules, with a "single system of religion" centred on the figure Darhumulan, a marine-based economy, sacred sites that continue to be recognised, exogamous marriage rules, and a male initiation ceremony called Bunan (remembered, but not practised since the 1920s).
Language
Dialects of the Yuin language group include the Djiringanj, Thaua, Walbanga, Wandandian and Dhurga languages, from north of Moruya River to Nowra.
Country
The country the Yuin ancestors occupied, used, and enjoyed reached across from Cape Howe to the Shoalhaven River and inland to the Great Dividing Range. Their descendants claim rights to be recognised as the traditional owners of the land and water from Merimbula to the southern head of the sea entrance of the Shoalhaven River. The Yuin people consisted of 12 clans at the time of European arrival in the area.
The Yuin groups include:
Walbanga, or Walbunja, north of present-day Moruya River
Murramurang, north of Deua River to south of Lake Conjola
Dyiringanj, or Djiringanj, from Corunna Lake, south to Bega and west to the top of the range Brinja from South Kianga to Moruya River. Budawang Murramarang Yuin-Monaro
The Yuin are set out as follows by Howitt (1904): Guyangal Yuin (South-Yuin)
(1) Thauaira, east of Mallacoota Inlet.
(2) Tadera-manji,- in the Bega district.
(3) Bugelli-manji, in the Moruya district
Kurial-Yuin (North-Yuin)
(4) Name not ascertained, in the Braidwood district.
(5) Name not ascertained, in the Ulladulla district.
(6) Gurungatta-manji, in the Lower Shoalhaven River district.
Contemporary sources report that the Brinja-Yuin people's traditional lands extended along the "Lagoon Coast", south of the Moruya River to South Kianga, or further south to the Wagonga Inlet at Narooma. The Bugelli-manji people lived around Moruya.
During the push in the late 1970s and early 1980s to protect Mumbulla Mountain, Wallaga Lake people led by Guboo Ted Thomas described the Yuin tribe as "shar[ing] the one walkabout from Mallacoota in the south to the Shoalhaven River in the north".
In 2016, 12 applicants representing South Coast Aboriginals lodged a native title claim in the Federal Court for Yuin country in New South Wales. The claim is made by 52 family groups and was approved by more than 500 Aboriginal people. The claim extends into the ocean and includes traditional fishing rights. In 2018, the registration was accepted.
History
The population before 1788 has been estimated at about 11,000 between Cape Howe and Batemans Bay. The population was reduced to only 600 by the mid nineteenth century due to smallpox epidemics in 1789 and 1830, as well as tribal battles and the spread of venereal disease from whalers.
The Eurobodalla Shire Council signed a Local Agreement with the Northern Yuin people in 1998. In 2001, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Bega, Eden and Merrimans Local Aboriginal Land Councils, the Native Title Holders and the Bega Valley Shire Council.