Yowie (cryptid)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses of the word see the Yowie disambiguation page.
| Yowie | |
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| Statue of a Yowie in Kilcoy, Queensland, Australia |
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| Creature | |
| Name: | Yowie |
| AKA: | Yowie-Whowie |
| Classification | |
| Grouping: | Cryptid |
| Sub grouping: | Hominid |
| Data | |
| First reported: | Mid to late 19th Century |
| Last sighted: | Present day |
| Country: |  Australia |
| Region: | Great Dividing Range, Northern Territory, South Australia, West Australia |
| Habitat: | Forests, mountains |
| Status: | Unsubstantiated |
In a modern context, Yowie is the generic (and somewhat affectionate) term for the unidentified hominid reputed to lurk in the Australian wilderness. It is an Australian cryptid similar to the Himalayan Yeti and the North American Bigfoot.
Rather confusingly, Yowie (or "Yowie-Whowie") is also the name of a completely different mythological character in native Australian Aboriginal folklore. This version of the Yowie is said to be a bizarre, hybrid beast resembling a cross between a human and an ape with big red eyes on the side of his head, big canine teeth and large fangs. It emerges from the ground at night to eat whatever it can find, including humans. This creature's characteristics and legend are sometimes interchangeable with those of the bunyip.
The origin of the term "Yowie" in the context of unidentified hominids is unclear. Some presume that it simply arose through confusion with the aforementioned Aboriginal legend. On the other hand, Jonathan Swift's yahoos from Gulliver's Travels are sometimes cited as a source. The word "Yowie" was also apparently a slang term for the Orang-utan in Victorian England.
The earliest published reference to the word in its current usage is in Donald Friend's Hillendiana [1] a collection of writing about the goldfields near Hill End in New South Wales. Friend refers to the "Yowie" as a species of "bunyip", an Aboriginal term used to describe monsters said to dwell in many Australian rivers and lakes. Researcher Rex Gilroy popularised the word in newspaper articles during the 1970s and 1980s.[2]
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[edit] Sightings and reports
Reports of Yowie-type creatures are common in the legends and stories of Australian Aboriginal tribes, particularly those of the eastern states of Australia (Healy & Cropper, p.6). The mid to late 19th Century saw a wealth of sightings, most describing a large, gorilla-like creature (albeit usually bipedal), which lived in remote mountainous or forested regions. Reports have continued to the present day with the trail of evidence following the pattern familiar to most unidentified hominids around the world – i.e. eyewitness accounts, mysterious footprints of hotly-disputed origin, and a frustrating lack of conclusive proof.
[edit] Candidates
Australian Rex Gilroy, a self-proclaimed cryptozoologist, has attempted to popularise the scientific term Gigantopithecus australis for the yowie.[verification needed] He claims to have collected over 3000 reports of them and proposed that they comprise a relict population of extinct ape or Homo species.[3] There is, however, no evidence that Gigantopithecus ever existed in Australia.
Several Murri and Koori tribes of eastern Australia have dreamtime legends about an ancient battle between their ancestors and a race of hairy apemen.[citation needed] The stories share some common elements. The aboriginals won the battle quite decisively. This is attributed to their weapons including the spear and war boomerang. The apemen fought bare handed. The surviving creatures ran off to the mountains from which they occasionally invaded the forests to steal human babies.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Friend, Donald (1915-1989) [1956]. A collection of Hillendiana : comprising vast numbers of facts and a considerable amount of fiction concerning the goldfield of Hillend and environs. Sydney: Ure Smith.
- ^ Healy & Cropper, p.13
- ^ Shuker, Karl P. N. [1995]. "The Alien Zoo", In search of prehistoric animals; Do giant extinct creatures still exist?, 1, Blanchford, 189. ISBN 0 7137 2469 2. “Rex Gilroy... collected over 3000 sightings of a giant hairy creature sighted across the continent.”
[edit] Bibliography
- Friend, Donald "Hillendiana", 1956, Ure Smith, Sydney
- Gilroy, Rex and Heather [2001]. Giants from the dreamtime : the Yowie in myth and reality. Katoomba, N.S.W.: Uru publications, 379 p.. ISBN 0957871600.
- Healy, Tony and Cropper, Paul The Yowie: The Search for Australia's Bigfoot, November 2006, Anomalist Books, ISBN 1-933665-16-5.
