The word “koala” comes from the Dharuk word gula. Closely related words appear in other Australian Aboriginal languages, including:

In the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Aborigines called Koalas by the word Cullawines
Near Sydney, Aborigines called Koalas by the word Koolahs
In the Murray Region, Aborigines called Koalas by the word Karbors
Other Aboriginal names for Koalas [...]

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According to Stephen Jackson, in Koala origins of an icon, the European settlers did not discover the koala for ten years after arriving on the Australian continent! For ten whole years they somehow missed the slow-moving, unobtrusive animals. Was this luck on the part of the animal or are they more intelligent than we give [...]

Victorian Aborigines also saw the koala as an animal of much wisdom and, as recorded by R. Brough Smyth in 1878, often sought his advice.
The Native Bear, Kur-bo-roo, is the sage counselor of the Aborigines in all their difficulties. When bent on a dangerous expedition, the men will seek help from this clumsy creature, but [...]

Back in the Dreamtime, the rugged Carnarvon area was a very hot, dry place. There were no trees or bushes, and no grass.
When the first people arrived, the country seemed new and strange, with narrow gorges and the towering sandstone cliffs of Boodyadella, the main dividing range. The people came to love these craggy ranges, [...]

In the last post…we shared one theory of how the koala lost its tail…here is another.
During a drought the animals noted that Koala never seemed to suffer from thirst. Suspecting he had concealed a supply of water for his own use and was unwilling to share with others, they searched high and low. Various birds [...]

It had been raining for days and weeks and months and years. The water ran down the hills, forming creeks and rivers that flowed across the plains and collected in the hollows. The water rose almost imperceptibly, lapping gently at the feet of the hills. As the deepest depressions were filled with waters that grew [...]

Long ago in the distant past all the animals that are now in Australia lived in another land far beyond the sea; they were at that time in human form. One day they met together and decided to set out in a canoe in order to find better hunting grounds over the sea. The whale, [...]

At one time the Kulin were in the habit of skinning the koalas prior to cooking them, as they did with all their other animals. The koalas resented this treatment, and resolved to be revenged upon the Kulin. One day, when all the people were away from their camp, the koalas seized all the tarnuks, [...]