Bunyip

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This article is about a mythical creature. There is also a town called Bunyip, Victoria

The bunyip ("devil" or "spirit") is a mythical creature from Australian Aboriginal mythology.

Contents

[edit] Characteristics

Descriptions of bunyips vary wildly. Common features in Aboriginal drawings include a horse-like tail, flippers, and walrus-like tusks. According to legend, they are said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes. At night their blood-curdling cries can be heard as they devour any animal or human that ventures near their abodes.

[edit] Existence

During the early settlement of Australia, the notion that the bunyip was an actual unknown animal that awaited discovery became common. Early European settlers, unfamiliar with the sights and sounds of the island continent's peculiar fauna, regarded the bunyip as one more strange Australian animal, and sometimes attributed unfamiliar calls or cries to it. At one point, the discovery of a strange skull in an isolated area associated with these 'bunyip calls' seemed to provide physical evidence of the bunyip's existence.

In 1846 a peculiar skull was taken from the banks of Murrumbidgee River in New South Wales. In the first flush of excitement, several experts concluded that it was the skull of something unknown to science. In 1847 the so-called bunyip skull was put on exhibition in the Australian Museum (Sydney) for two days. Visitors flocked to see it and the Sydney Morning Herald said that it prompted many people to speak out about their 'bunyip sightings' "Almost everyone became immediately aware that he had heard 'strange sounds' from the lagoons at night, or had seen 'something black' in the water." It was eventually concluded that it was a 'freak of nature' and not a new species. The 'bunyip skull' disappeared from the museum soon afterwards, and its present location is unknown.[1]

As European exploration of Australia proceeded, the bunyip increasingly began to be regarded as not existing. The mysterious skull was later identified as that of a disfigured horse or calf. The idiom 'why search for the bunyip?' emerged from repeated attempts by Australian adventurers to capture or sight the bunyip, the phrase indicating that a proposed course of action is fruitless or impossible.

[edit] Greta Bunyip

The Greta Bunyip was a bunyip which was believed to have lived in the swamps of the Greta area, in Victoria, Australia. Locals often heard a loud booming sound which emitted mysteriously from the swamps, yet none of the frequent search parties were able to locate the source of the sound. Once the swamps were drained, the sound subsided. Some Greta locals believed that the bunyip moved on to another area, whilst others believed it had died once its habitat was gone.[2]

[edit] Explanations

Although no documented physical evidence of bunyips has been found, it has been suggested by cryptozoologists that tales of bunyips could be Aboriginal memories of the diprotodon, or other extinct Australian megafauna which became extinct some 50,000 years ago. The cries of the possum or koala could likely be mistaken for the bunyip, as most people are surprised to find koalas or possums are capable of such loud roars. The Barking Owl, a nocturnal bird that lives around swamps and billabongs in the Australian bush is sometimes credited for making the sounds of the bunyip. The bird is known to make a call that can easily be mistaken for the cries of a woman or child.

[edit] Bunyips in popular culture

  • The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek by Jenny Wagner (ISBN 0-14-050126-6) is a popular Australian childrens picture book about a bunyip seeking to learn who he is by asking everyone he meets "What do bunyips look like?".
  • The House of the Gentle Bunyip, in Hodgkinson St, Clifton Hill, Victoria (next to the Baptist Church) was a community house established in the 1970's. The name was inspired by the book by Jenny Wagner. After the 1867 house was sold to developers in 1997, a community campaign to save it led to the longest community picket in Australian history. The house was finally saved by Ecumenical Housing (now Melbourne Affordable Housing) and redeveloped as a home for low income people. The campaign and VCAT hearings set many precedents for planning in Victoria.
  • Andrew Lang included a tale of a bunyip in The Brown Fairy Book(1904).
  • Barry Humphries played a bunyip early in his career, in about 1955 in Melbourne, in a children's play called The Bunyip and the Satellite, produced by Peter O'Shaughnessy, which was seen in rehearsals by a young Olivia Newton-John. Having little to go on, he created the character as a prancing, bird-like clown. Humphries recreated the character shortly afterwards on live television for Melbourne's Channel Seven, telling fanciful stories to a juvenile audience.
  • "Dot and the Kangaroo" animated musical feature from Australia (1977) showed an aboriginal painting representation of the feared bunyip during the song about the bunyip, and ten years later in the movie "Dot and the Smugglers" (1987), Dot tries to rescue not only the native animals, but, ironically enough, the bunyip itself.
  • During the 1980s, Australian children's television and literature featured a more friendly version of the bunyip - "Alexander Bunyip" created by Michael Salmon.
  • During the 1950s and 1960s, "Bertie the Bunyip" was a children's show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, created by Lee Dexter, an Australian. [1]
  • A popular New Zealand reggae band was named 'Bunyip', with a career that spanned from 1998 to 2003. During this time they released the hit singles 'Routes' and 'Long Long Way', and toured NZ extensively.
  • In the PlayStation game Chrono Cross, a Bunyip is a boss monster in Fort Dragonia. It starts as a red innate monster, but transforms into a hulking black cyclops halfway through the battle.
  • In the videogame Ty The Tasmanian Tiger, Bunyips are important characters along with a cast of other Australian creatures.
  • In the pen-and-paper RPG Werewolf: The Apocalypse, the Bunyip was a "lost tribe" of Garou (werewolves) who went extinct due to being hunted and slaughtered by their own kinsmen.
  • In the Playstation2 game Final Fantasy X, the bunyip is a creature encountered frequently in random fights. However, it resembles nothing close to the "real" bunyip, as this one looks more like a turtle.
  • In the Playstation2 game Culdcept, the bunyip is a formidable water element creature that can be played on a territory.
  • Bunyips in the Australian Classroom - The Bunyip Collaborative Web project is a learning sequence. It is built around the question: What do Bunyips look like? The focus is the creation of a bunyip in parts and sharing the bunyip parts using web based tools. The developed bunyip is shared on a web space. This learning sequence has been utilised for the last five years by Australian Teachers and students. Visit http://www.education.tas.gov.au/ictpl/n-touch/Bunyip/default.htm to learn about the bunyips as a framework for inquiring and being information literate in a teaching and learning sequences.
  • In the Nintendo GameCube game Animal Crossing, and the Nintendo DS follow-up Animal Crossing: Wild World, a rabbit character known as Snake uses the word "bunyip" as his default catchphrase.
  • On Charmed, the Bunyip is one of the many demonic creatures the charmed ones must battle, and one of the few non-humanoid. It is depicted in the Book of Shadows as being a goats head on a purple-and-white T-Rex's body. Although never seen, Phoebe Halliwell once mentioned that they'd fought one and vanquished it using a spell (which included Elementals heed my call, remove this creature from these walls) Although the spell does not appear in the book, it was mentioned in "Chick Flick", and seen in the book in "Morality Bites", "Nymphs Just Wanna Have Fun" and several other episodes.
  • There's a bunyip in the 1989 illustrated children's book A Kangaroo Court (ISBN 0-333-45032-9), written by Mary O'Toole, illustrated by Keith McEwan.
  • 'The Bunyip' is a local weekly newspaper published in the town of Gawler, South Australia. First published as a pamphlet by the Humbug Society in 1863, the name was chosen because, "the Bunyip is the true type of Australian Humbug!"[2]
  • On the Australian kids show, Hi-5, Kellie Hoggart took a journey to 'Bunyip Island'. Jennifer Peterson-Hind also visited 'Bunyip Island' on the American version of the show.
  • There is a coin operated Bunyip in Murray Bridge, South Australia at Sturt Reserve on the town's riverfront. [3]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/bunyips/html-site/evidence/skull.html
  2. ^ Ellis, S. E., A History of Greta, Lowden Publishing, Kilmore, Victoria, 1972.
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