Coast suburbs with Butchulla titles: What they mean

Many Fraser Coast suburbs still have Butchulla names. If you’ve ever wondered what they mean, here’s a guide.

Our native language of the Butchulla people continues to surround us, with some Fraser Coast suburbs translating to other definitions in the Butchulla language.

Many of the Fraser Coast’s suburbs still have names, derived from the Butchulla, or Badtjala, language.

Traditional boundaries of the Butchulla people lie in the Great Sandy region.

Most references currently define the land and water ranging across Fraser Island and the adjacent mainland, around Double Island Point to the mouth of the Burrum River, reaching Bauple Mountain.

Ongoing investigations aim to define the exact boundaries of Butchulla people, located in the Great Sandy region.

The Butchulla language had been mostly lost when European settlement occurred in the 1850s, which “set about to destroy (the) language and culture,” Community Linguist Jeanie Bell wrote in a dictionary of the Gubbi-Gubbi and Butchulla languages.

“Our languages are the voice of the land, and we are the custodians and carries of the language,” she wrote.

In recent decades Fraser Coast advocates like Aunty Joyce Bonner and Sue Coverdale have played an essential role in teaching the language not only to family and friends but in local schools and community groups and via the Fraser Coast council.

The Chronicle’s Let’s Learn Butchulla series in the early 2000s also won a United Nations Peace Award for the promotion of Aboriginal Reconciliation.

Recently, the Chronicle looked back on some of the Fraser Coast suburb names which still use traditional titles, and what they translates to. See the list below.

Bauple: Derived from the word “bau’bal”, noun meaning ‘frilled lizard’.

Boonooroo: Meaning ‘brigalow tree’.

Brooweena: Meaning ‘crab’.

Burgowan: Meaning ‘flat where there are dogwood trees’.

Calgoa: Meaning ‘running through’ or ‘returning’.

Dundathu: Meaning ‘place of timber’, or ‘dead timber’.

Gootchie: Meaning ‘sand goanna’.

Kawungan: Meaning ‘Scrub magpie’.

Mungar: Meaning ‘Blue gum’, referring to the Blue Gum trees.

Yerra: Meaning ‘spotted gum tree’.

The Fraser Coast Chronicle acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of the land. This information has been sourced from books by the Wondunna Aboriginal Corporation.

Originally published as Coast suburbs with Butchulla titles: What they mean