First Nations

The Jinibara People are the mountain people. The tribal name Jinibara comes from bara meaning “people” and Jini meaning “lawyer vine”. The Jinibara People are the “people of the lawyer vine”, the traditional people who live in the mountains and valleys where lawyer vine grows. The Jinibara people consists of four sub-groups or clans.

The Jinibara traditional society is complex. Individuals inherit their connection to traditional country from their father, but also have certain rights in their mother’s country. From their mother, they inherit their dilbayan or so-called moiety, i.e., one of the four possible sections or classes to which they could belong. This inheritance affected their choice of spouse. 

In addition, a person also inherits from their mother their yuri, the so-called skin or totemic relationship with specific animals. A person’s yuri placed responsibility to care for the wellbeing of that animal. But it is also linked to people, so a person would consider all other people also belonging to that person’s yuri as their brothers and sisters.

In addition these inheritances, a person may also be given a role within their clan at the time of their initiation into adult life. For example, men could be given the role of fisherman, hunter, tree climber, or maker of utensils and weapons; both men and women could become imarbara, those who, sang and pacified restless babies; and women became weavers, possum cloak makers, and specialists in gathering certain foods.

Almost all people, both girls and boys, went through initiation into adult life. However, if the individual chose to, they could attempt to pass through another six layers of initiation (seven levels of initiation in all). Becoming a songman or woman – a person responsible for preparing and performing songs about clan events, history and stories – required initiation through six levels; becoming a gundir – a person considered to have ngul or spiritual powers – was the highest form of initiation. Other than initiation into adult life, all initiation levels were voluntary and could be failed.

Life for the Jinibara people was not a relentless search for food.  Traditional country was bountiful, and individuals had their personal responsibilities for providing for the group. The area was known for its bunya feasts which happened every third year when the giant bunya tree was in fruit.

Nor did people move nomadically. Rather, each clan had places where camps were erected on an annual basis, providing people with a consistent lifestyle in an area for several months. Smaller groups used other camps as well, to move through their traditional country, or to take advantage of certain resources or ceremonial requirements. 

Camps were kept clean and hygienic, with traditional laws dictating where people established their houses, and where other activities occurred. When people became sick, medicines and special ceremonies were provided to assist their cure. Women during pregnancy and childbirth were cared given considerable support. Older members of the group were also looked after.

People chose to visit other clans and tribal groups, often for festivals, ceremonies, and sporting functions such as wrestling and other games. Many people, including their Kabi Kabi neighbours, visited the bunya festivals held in Jinibara traditional country at Burun, now known as Baroon Pocket, and at Buruja, now known as Villeneuve. In return, members of the Jinibara People used to visit gatherings in other traditional countries. People travelled through other traditional countries with the permission of those traditional custodians, usually following pathways which visitors were allowed to use. An example of such a pathway was approximately where Old Gympie Road now passes today.

Festivals and ceremonies provided a good opportunity for law-makers, muninburum (clan leaders) and elders to meet. For example, those men who belonged to the Bora Council, the group that managed bora (initiation) ceremonies, came together to make decisions on such matters. 

Headmen and women of a clan also met, to make decisions about inter-group matters, such as marriages and disputes. Festivals and ceremonies also provided a forum for trade between groups. Extensive trading systems existed across Southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales. The Jinibara People were famous for gugunde or black possum fur cloaks they produced, which they traded for diverse goods from other traditional countries.

Arrivals of the Europeans

Maleny

The first European to document Maleny was the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt who described the area in 1844. British settlement followed in the wake of the Gympie gold rush of 1867. 

The Blackall Range was named in 1874 after the Governor of Queensland, Samuel Wensley Blackall.  A track linking Maleny to Landsborough was cut in 1880. An official proclamation of Maleny as a town occurred in 1891. The name appears to come from the village Malleny in Scotland.

In the days of the first settlers, the higher heavily-timbered scenic region was known as the Blackall Range. The towns of the Range did not connect directly across the range but were linked with the townships directly below the Range, due to rough logging transport routes.

Cedar and other valuable timbers were intensively forested, and for several decades timber-cutting and sawmilling were the principal industries. In 1878 the first settler took up farmland, and a small settlement evolved – the Blackall Range School opened in 1886, and a post office was opened four years later, the same year as the name Maleny was adopted. 

Dairying expanded and by 1904 Maleny’s first butter factory had opened. A second factory opened in 1912. Dairy produce was transported by road to the Landsborough railhead. 

By this time Maleny was served by rudimentary civic facilities: a bank opened in 1906, a hotel (1907), Union church (1908), and a school of the arts. By 1912 businesses including auctioneer, baker, butcher, blacksmith, contractors, plumber, saddler, and two stores. By the 1920s there were more shops and a hospital (1920). Two sawmills operated.

Maleny has become noted for its dairying, together with orchard and nut plantations. A rainforest reserve was established in the Mary Cairncross Park, from which there is a good view of the Glass House Mountains.

Maleny continued mostly as a rural township with a showground, a memorial hospital, five churches and State primary and secondary schools (1897, 1987), until the 1980s when middle class retirees discovered the joys of one- and two-acre allotments on which to build ranch-style homes. Since then, Maleny has emerged as something of an ‘arts and crafts’ centre, benefiting from hinterland tourism, as it is an easy day-trip from both Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. An inflow of new residents, many swapping city life for a rural lifestyle, has brought development pressures in recent years.

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Mapleton

The Mapleton area was used for farming and fruit growing for many years, and still is.  From 1842 until 1860, the Blackall Range was part of a large reserve declared by Governor Gipps to protect the bunya pine food source for local Indigenous groups. It was illegal to settle or clear land where bunya pines occurred. However, this status was rescinded, and pastoralists and timber-getters came in numbers. In the 1880s prized timber including red cedar, white beech, bunya pine, blackbutt and tallowwood was logged. The forest around Kondalilla was heavily logged. 

From the early 1900s, people began visiting this area for its natural scenery, waterfalls and spectacular views.  The first area to be protected was Kondalilla – in 1906 it became a recreational area, then a national park in 1945.

Its popularity as a tourist destination was reflected by the opening of the Ocean View Hotel in 1915, as well as a number of guest houses.  A tourist route through Mapleton, Montville and the Blackall Range grew, due to its elevated position, good views and cooling breezes from seaward.  

Today Mapleton is a small but busy town providing great views towards the coast. It had a large recreation lake with a good walkway through the park. The Mapleton Tavern is a large and impressive structure. But there are no real heritage buildings that are found in so many country towns.

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Montville

Timber getters knew of the rich timber resources  of the area but it is not until the eighteen-eighties that land selections were permitted to settlers who took up residence in 1887. 

The first task of the settlers was to clear land for their sustenance and living. The clearing was in itself the industry of timber getting, and “shutes” were used to slide the huge logs down the mountain to bullock wagons or creeks, to take the timber to mills on the coast. Farming followed old European patterns for a time, and dairying was a staple industry, but soon the subtropical climate fostered the farming of citrus, pineapples, macadamias and avocados.

In the 1890’s, Henry Smith and his brother Alfred moved into the area. Henry was a business man and built the first cattle dip, opened the first store and Post Office, had a store in Palmwoods by the railhead, and ran the first private telephone line between the shop and his Montville home. That house still exists, a beautifully preserved private home called “Belbury” looking down on the park.

The road to the coast was a rough track down the Razorback ridge, it was not until 1929 that the “Palmwoods Road” was completed

In 1896 a school was established and the original schools  the first public building. It is incorporated in the old teacher’s residence on Razorback Lookout. The School of Arts, built in 1903, is the Montville Village Hall, and contains a fine gallery of early photographs. The Memorial Gates were erected in front of the School Of Arts in 1921.

The Methodist, now Uniting Church, was built in 1912. St.Mary’s Church of England was consecrated in 1914.

From the 1920’s Montville was a thriving mountain holiday resort, with many legendary guesthouses. Sadly, fires decimated most of these wonderful old structures – only a few remain such as the ‘Lachlan”, now called “Rothley”and “Belvedere”. In the 1970’s, as the roads improved, Montville became accessible as a pleasant day trip from the coastal strip and from Brisbane, and the focus of local industry began to change from farming to tourism. The population increased dramatically as did commercial development. 

Today, one of Montville’s features is the number of new guesthouses that have been established, offering all styles of accommodation.

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Kenilworth

Prior to the arrival of the British, the Mary River region was inhabited by the Butchulla First Nations people, who called the river Moonaboola or Numabulla.

In 1842 Governor Fitzroy renamed the river after his wife Mary. Richard Smith set up the first cattle run on the bank of the Mary River in 1850. It was named after Sir Walter Scott’s novel “Kenilworth”. The town was surveyed and split off Kenilworth Station in 1921 and took the name of the Station.

Other settlers arrived in 1891 originally intending to grow small crops for a ready market at the goldfields in Gympie, but after the floods of 1893, 1895 and 1898 had wiped out their crops, most ventured into dairying and pig breeding. In 1901 the Kenilworth Farmers’ Association built the Assembly Hall, which later housed a library and hosted dances. In 1905 the Association established a co-operative butter factory which opened in Caboolture.

By 1925 all the large estates in the district had been subdivided and sold, including Kenilworth Station. Today dairying is still a major part of farming in the area but there has been diversification into fruit and vegetables and pig farming.

Kenilworth Post Office opened by 1926. The first store was opened in 1924 as well as the new hall opening and the first butcher’s shop appeared in 1925. Kenilworth Provisional School opened in 1900 and became a State School in 1909.

1952 Kraft opened a dairy factory which continued to operate until 1989 when it was taken over by a local cooperative.

Today Kenilworth Is known as a charming rural towns where chic coffee shops and cafes abound; where the opportunity to buy excellent cheeses from the Kenilworth Country Food and Cheese
Factory; where the delightful rolling hills of the Conondale and Blackall Ranges can be found; and where there is excellent bush walking, gem fossicking and fishing in the creeks. These all combine to give the town and district an ambience which Is both fashionable, environmentally sensitive and rustic