folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
entity that is reputed to live in the Outback. The creature has its roots in Aboriginal oral history. In parts of
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, establishe ...
, they are known as ''quinkin'' (or as a type of quinkin), and as ''joogabinna'', in parts of
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
they are called ''Ghindaring'', ''jurrawarra'', ''myngawin'', ''puttikan'', ''doolaga'', ''gulaga'' and ''thoolagal''. Other names include ''yaroma'', ''noocoonah'', ''wawee'', ''pangkarlangu'', ''jimbra'' and ''tjangara''. Yowie-type creatures are common in
Aboriginal Australian
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...
legends, particularly in the eastern Australian states.
Description
The yowie is usually described as a hairy and
ape
Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...
-like creature standing upright at between and . The yowie's feet are described as much larger than a human's, but alleged yowie tracks are inconsistent in shape and toe number, and the descriptions of yowie foot and footprints provided by yowie witnesses are even more varied than those of Bigfoot. The yowie's nose is described as wide and flat.
Behaviourally, some report the yowie as timid or shy. Others describe the yowie as sometimes violent or aggressive.
Origins of the term
The origin of the name "yowie" to describe unidentified Australian hominids is unclear. The term was in use in 1875 among the Kámilarói people and documented in Rev. William Ridley's "Kámilarói and Other Australian Languages" page 138 :
''“Yō-wī” is a spirit that roams over the earth at night.''
Some modern writers suggested that it arose through Aboriginal legends of the "Yahoo". Robert Holden recounts several stories that support this from the nineteenth century, including this European account from 1842:
Another story about the name, collected from an Aboriginal source, suggests that the creature is a part of the
Dreamtime
The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal beliefs. It was originally used by Francis Gillen, quickly adopted by his co ...
.
On the other hand,
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl ...
's
yahoo
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...
s from '' Gulliver's Travels'', and European traditions of hairy wild men, are also cited as a possible source. Furthermore, great public excitement was aroused in Britain in the early 1800s with the first arrivals of captive orangutan for display.
History of sightings
In a 1987 column in ''
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'' columnist Margaret Jones wrote that the first Australian yowie sighting was said to have taken place as early as 1795.
19th century
In the 1850s, accounts of "Indigenous Apes" appeared in the ''Australian Town and Country Journal.'' The earliest account in November 1876 asked readers; "Who has not heard, from the earliest settlement of the colony, the blacks speaking of some unearthly animal or inhuman creature ... namely the Yahoo-Devil Devil, or hairy man of the wood ..."
In an article entitled "Australian Apes" appearing six years later, amateur naturalist Henry James McCooey claimed to have seen an "indigenous ape" on the south coast of New South Wales, between Batemans Bay and Ulladulla:
McCooey offered to capture an ape for the
Australian Museum
The Australian Museum is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. It is the oldest museum in Australia,Design 5, 2016, p.1 and the fifth oldest natural history museum in the ...
for £40. According to Robert Holden, a second outbreak of reported ape sightings appeared in 1912. The yowie appeared in
Donald Friend
Donald Stuart Leslie Friend (6 February 1915 – 16 August 1989) was an Australian artist and diarist who lived much of his life overseas. He has been the subject of controversy since the posthumous publication of diaries in which he wrote of sex ...
's ''Hillendiana'', a collection of writings about the goldfields near Hill End in New South Wales. Friend refers to the yowie as a species of
bunyip
The bunyip is a creature from the aboriginal mythology of southeastern Australia, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes.
Name
The origin of the word ''bunyip'' has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia ...
. Holden also cites the appearance of the yowie in a number of Australian tall stories in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Present day
According to "Top End Yowie investigator" Andrew McGinn, the death and mutilation of a pet dog near Darwin could have been the result of an attack by the mythological Yowie. The dog's owners believed dingoes were responsible.
Australian Capital Territory
In 2010, a Canberra man said he saw an animal described as "a juvenile covered in hair, with long arms that almost touched the ground" in his garage. A friend later told him it could be a yowie.
New South Wales
Accounts of yowie-sightings in New South Wales include:
* In 1977, the '' Sydney Morning Herald'' reported that residents on Oxley Island near
Taree
Taree is a town on the Mid North Coast, New South Wales, Australia. Taree and nearby Cundletown were settled in 1831 by William Wynter. Since then Taree has grown to a population of 26,381, and is the centre of a significant agricultural distr ...
recently heard screaming noises made by an animal at night, and that cryptozoologist
Rex Gilroy
Rex may refer to:
* Rex (title) (Latin: king, ruler, monarch), a royal title
** King of Rome (Latin: Rex Romae), chief magistrate of the Roman Kingdom
People
* Rex (given name), for people with the given name
* Rex (surname), for people with th ...
would soon arrive to search for the mythological yowie.
* In 1994,
Tim the Yowie Man
Tim the Yowie Man is an Australian writer, author and cryptonaturalist who was born in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.
Life and career
Born Timothy Bull, TYM has changed his name by deed poll. He is an Australian National University gr ...
claimed to have seen a yowie in the
Brindabella Ranges
The Brindabella Range, commonly called The Brindabellas or The Brindies, is a mountain range located in Australia, on a state and territory border of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The range rises to the west o ...
.
* In 1996, while on a driving holiday, a couple from Newcastle claim to have seen a yowie between Braidwood and the coast. They said it was a shaggy creature, walking upright, standing at a height of at least 2.1 metres tall, with disproportionately long arms and no neck.
* In August 2000, a Canberra bushwalker described seeing an unknown bipedal beast in the Brindabella Mountains. The bushwalker, Steve Piper, caught the incident on videotape. That film is known as the 'Piper Film'.
* In March 2011, a witness reported to NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service seeing a yowie in the Blue Mountains at Springwood, west of Sydney. The witness had filmed the creature, and taken photographs of its footprints.
* In May 2012, a United States television crew claimed it had recorded audio of a yowie in a remote region on the NSW-Queensland border.
* In June 2013, a Lismore resident and music videographer claimed to have seen a yowie just north of Bexhill.
In the mid-1970s, the Queanbeyan Festival Board and 2CA together offered a
AU$
The Australian dollar ( sign: $; code: AUD) is the currency of Australia, including its external territories: Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island. It is officially used as currency by three independent Pacific Isla ...
200,000 reward to anyone who could capture and present a yowie: the reward is yet to be claimed.
Northern Territory
In the late 1990s, there were several reports of yowie sightings in the area around Acacia Hills. One such sighting was by mango farmer Katrina Tucker who reported in 1997 having been just metres away from a hairy humanoid creature on her property. Photographs of the footprint were collected at the time.
Queensland
The
Springbrook Springbrook may refer to:
Places Australia
* Springbrook, Queensland
** Springbrook National Park, Queensland
** Springbrook State School, a heritage-listed building in the park
** Springbrook Road, a heritage-listed road
Canada
* Springbrook, ...
region in south-east Queensland has had more yowie reports than anywhere else in Australia. In 1977, former Queensland Senator
Bill O'Chee
William George "Bill" O'Chee (born 19 June 1965) is an Australian politician. He was a National Party member of the Australian Senate from 1990 to 1999, representing the state of Queensland.
Biography
O'Chee was born to a Chinese father and a ...
reported to the ''Gold Coast Bulletin'' he had seen a yowie while on a school trip in Springbrook. O'Chee compared the creature he saw to the character Chewbacca from Star Wars. He told reporters that the creature he saw had been over 3 metres tall.
A persistent story is that of the Mulgowie Yowie, which was last reported as having been seen in 2001.
In March 2014, two yowie searchers claimed to have filmed the yowie in South Queensland using an infrared tree camera, collected fur samples, and found large footprints. Later that year, a Gympie man told media he had encountered yowies on several occasions, including conversing with, and teaching some English to, a very large male yowie in the bush north east of
Gympie
Gympie ( ) is a city and a locality in the Gympie Region, Queensland, Australia. In the Wide Bay-Burnett District, Gympie is about north of the state capital, Brisbane. The city lies on the Mary River, which floods Gympie occasionally. The ...
, and several people in Port Douglas claimed to have seen yowies, near Mowbray and at the Rocky Point range.
Prominent yowie hunters
*
Rex Gilroy
Rex may refer to:
* Rex (title) (Latin: king, ruler, monarch), a royal title
** King of Rome (Latin: Rex Romae), chief magistrate of the Roman Kingdom
People
* Rex (given name), for people with the given name
* Rex (surname), for people with th ...
. Since the mid-1970s, paranormal enthusiast Rex Gilroy, a self-employed
cryptozoologist
Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness ...
, has attempted to popularise the yowie. Gilroy claims to have collected over 3000 reports of them and proposed that they comprise a
relict
A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon.
Biology
A relict (or relic) is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas.
Geology and geomorphology
In geology, a r ...
population of extinct ape or ''
Homo
''Homo'' () is the genus that emerged in the (otherwise extinct) genus '' Australopithecus'' that encompasses the extant species ''Homo sapiens'' ( modern humans), plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely relat ...
'' species. Rex Gilroy believes that the yowie is related to the North American Bigfoot. Along with his partner Heather Gilroy, Gilroy has spent fifty years amassing his yowie collection.
*
Tim the Yowie Man
Tim the Yowie Man is an Australian writer, author and cryptonaturalist who was born in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.
Life and career
Born Timothy Bull, TYM has changed his name by deed poll. He is an Australian National University gr ...
. A published author who claims to have seen a yowie in the Brindabella Ranges in 1994. Since then, Tim the Yowie Man has investigated yowie sightings and other paranormal phenomena. He also writes a regular column in Australian newspapers ''
The Canberra Times
''The Canberra Times'' is a daily newspaper in Canberra, Australia, which is published by Australian Community Media. It was founded in 1926, and has changed ownership and format several times.
History
''The Canberra Times'' was launched in ...
'' and ''
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
''. In 2004, Tim the Yowie Man won a legal case against Cadbury, a popular British confectionery company. Cadbury had claimed that his moniker was too similar to their range of Yowie confectionery.
* Gary Opit, ABC Local Radio Wildlife Programmer and environmental scientist.
Rejection of the yowie in favour of the yahoo
Australian historian Graham Joyner maintains the yowie has never existed. He points out that it was unknown before 1975 and that it originated in a misunderstanding.
Joyner's interest has been in the nineteenth century phenomenon known as the yahoo (also called the hairy man, Australian ape or Australian gorilla), a shadowy creature then seen as an undiscovered marsupial but one that was presumably extinct by the early twentieth century. There is some evidence for its former existence (Joyner 2008, p. 109). His 1977 book ''The Hairy Man of South Eastern Australia'' is a collection of documents about the yahoo. It was based on research begun in 1970 and summarised in a paper dated July 1973 ('Notes on the hairy man, wild man or yahoo', National Library of Australia MS 3889), at which time the yahoo had long been forgotten and nothing had been heard of the alleged yowie. He has since explained that the book was published to promote the former and to counter, not to endorse, the then new and extraordinary claims about the latter (Joyner 2008, p. 10).
According to Joyner, the notion of the yowie arose following a review in a Sydney newspaper of John Napier's 1972 book Bigfoot: The Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality, Jonathan Cape, London. In response the
cryptozoologist
Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness ...
and
ufologist
Ufology ( ) is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial alien visitors). While there are instances of government, private, and ...
Rex Gilroy
Rex may refer to:
* Rex (title) (Latin: king, ruler, monarch), a royal title
** King of Rome (Latin: Rex Romae), chief magistrate of the Roman Kingdom
People
* Rex (given name), for people with the given name
* Rex (surname), for people with th ...
, citing an Aboriginal figure from western and central Australia called the Tjangara, made the astonishing claim that Australia was home to its own Abominable Snowman. However, the image of the enormous primate that Gilroy eventually presented to the Australian public in May 1975 as the yowie, while overtly modelled on exotic forms like the yeti, was apparently inspired by muddled recollections from the newspaper's readers of much earlier stories about the yahoo (Joyner 2008, pp. 5–8). On this estimation only the yahoo has (or more accurately had) a basis in reality.
See also
*
Bunyip
The bunyip is a creature from the aboriginal mythology of southeastern Australia, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes.
Name
The origin of the word ''bunyip'' has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia ...
, a water-dwelling creature from Australian Aboriginal mythology
*
List of monotremes and marsupials of Australia
Mammals are divided into two subclasses based on reproductive techniques: egg laying mammals (the monotremes), and live birth mammals. The second subclass is divided into two infraclasses: pouched mammals (the marsupials) and placental mammals.
...
*
Orang Mawas In Malaysian folklore, the Orang Mawas or Mawas (also known as the Orang Dalam) is an entity reported to inhabit the jungle of Johor in Malaysia. It is described as being about 10 ft (2.4–3 m) tall, bipedal and covered in black fur, and has b ...
Bukit Timah Monkey Man
The Bukit Timah Monkey Man, commonly abbreviated as BTM or BTMM, is a legendary creature said to inhabit Singapore, chiefly in the forested Bukit Timah region. The creature is often cited as a forest-dwelling hominid or primate, and is also acco ...
*
Tim the Yowie Man
Tim the Yowie Man is an Australian writer, author and cryptonaturalist who was born in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.
Life and career
Born Timothy Bull, TYM has changed his name by deed poll. He is an Australian National University gr ...
Yowie (chocolate)
Yowie is a confectionery and publishing brand originating in Australia in 1995 by Cadbury and Kidcorp. It was one of the top selling chocolates in Australia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, selling over a million units a week.
After a break of ...
, a line of toys based on the yowie
*
Yara-ma-yha-who
The Yara-ma-yha-who is a legendary creature found in Australian Aboriginal mythology. The legend is recounted by David Unaipon. According to legend, the creature resembles a little red frog-like man with a very big head, a large mouth with no tee ...
, a creature from Australian Aboriginal mythology
* Dulagal, the
Yuin
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-group ...
equivalent of the yowie
*
Yeren
The yeren (, "wild man") is a cryptid apeman reported to inhabit remote, mountainous regions of China, most famously in the Shennongjia Forestry District in the Hubei Province. Sightings of "hairy men" have remained constant since the Warring S ...