Bunyip

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

Bunyip
Bunyip (1935) Artist Unknown, from the National Library of Australia digital collections.
Creature
Name:	Bunyip
Classification
Grouping:	Cryptid
Sub grouping:	Lake monster
Data
First reported:	Early 1800s
Country:	Australia
Region:	Throughout Australia
Habitat:	Water
Status:	Unsubstantiated

The bunyip (usually translated as "devil" or "spirit"^[1]) is a mythical creature from Australian folklore. Various accounts and explanations of bunyips have been given across Australia since the early days of the colonies. It has also been identified as an animal recorded in Aboriginal mythology, similar to known extinct animals.

Characteristics

Descriptions of bunyips vary widely. It is usually given as a sort of lake monster. Common features in Aboriginal descriptions include a dog-like face, dark fur, a horse-like tail, flippers, and walrus-like tusks or horns. According to legend, they are said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes.

Early accounts

During the early settlement of Australia by Europeans, 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 animal 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.^[2]

As European exploration of Australia proceeded, the bunyip increasingly began to be regarded as nonexistent. 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.

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, while others believed it had died once its habitat was gone.^[3]

Explanations

Diprotodon australis

Although no documented physical evidence of bunyips has been found, it has been suggested by cryptozoologists that tales of bunyips could be Aboriginal folk memory of the Diprotodon, or other extinct Australian megafauna which became extinct some 50,000 years ago, such as the Procoptodon, a Kangaroo-like animal, that had a rounded face and could lift its arms above head height, or the Quinkana, a land-crocodile.^[4]

Cultural references

See also: Bunyip aristocracy, Kurdaitcha, Yowie (cryptid), Drop bear, Bunyip River, and Bunyip, Victoria

Bunyip in 1890
Illustrated Australian News

• The Bunyip River flows into Westernport Bay in southern Victoria and the town of Bunyip, Victoria is named for the legendary creature.
• As a part of the Monorail tour amusement at Coffs Harbour's The Big Banana, a mechanical bunyip appears out of the dam, which is a popular segment of the tour.
• The Bunyip is the banner of a local weekly newspaper published in the town of Gawler, South Australia. First published as a pamphlet by the Gawler Humbug Society in 1863, the name was chosen because, "the Bunyip is the true type of Australian Humbug!" ^[5]
• There is a coin operated Bunyip in Murray Bridge, South Australia at Sturt Reserve on the town's river front. ^[6]
• The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek ^[7] is a popular Australian children's picture book about a bunyip seeking to learn who he is by asking everyone he meets "What do bunyips look like?"
• The title inspired the House of the Gentle Bunyip, ^[8] was a community house established in the 1970s and preserved in 1997 after the longest community picket in Australian history.
• A tale of a bunyip is included in Andrew Lang's The Brown Fairy Book (1904).
• Barry Humphries once played a bunyip, in about 1955 in Melbourne, in a children's play called The Bunyip and the Satellite, produced by Peter O'Shaughnessy. 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.
• During the 1950s and 1960s, "Bertie the Bunyip" was a children's show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, created by Lee Dexter, an Australian.^[9]
• "Dot and the Kangaroo", an animated musical feature from Australia (1977) showed an aboriginal painting representation of the feared bunyip during the song about the bunyip. The sequel "Dot and the Smugglers" (1987) has Dot rescue not only the native animals, but also a bunyip.
• During the 1980s, Australian children's television and literature featured a more friendly version of the bunyip - "Alexander Bunyip" created by Michael Salmon.
• Another depiction of a bunyip in the 1989 illustrated children's book A Kangaroo Court ^[10].

See also

• Australian Aboriginal mythology: 'Rainbow Serpent' myth

External links

• The Bunyip: Mythical Beast, Modern-day Monster
• Bunyips ... enter the lair of the bunyip if you dare - interactive for kids / National Library of Australia
• Bunyip (Encyclopedia Mythica)
• Bunyip - Skeptic World
• Bunyips in Cryptozoology

References