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Yowie: Bridging the Believer-Skeptic Divide


Night Walker

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Yesterday I attended a seminar on the Yowie by the Australian Yowie Project’s Ray Doherty and wildlife expert and environmental consultant Gary Opit. I’ve previously butted heads with both Doherty and Opit via email but this was the first time we’ve been introduced face-to-face.

A few technical difficulties aside, the seminar went reasonably well. It was recorded on digital camera and if it gets uploaded to YouTube I will post the link. I am also in the process of transcribing the audio which I will also make available.

Much of the presentation was based on Ray’s findings at an alleged remote and inaccessible Yowie habituation site north of Brisbane – one in which I have previously managed to locate and inspect on multiple occasions.

Doherty: “Yes, I agree there are a lot of people out there who take photos of shadows, burnt tree stumps, and noises, misidentification of noises with other animals who come out and claim that that is a Yowie, claim that it’s a creature when in fact it is not and is easily explainable. We’re not talking about chasing myths, superstition, or innuendo – we’re talking about chasing facts.”

Promising but then the evidence presented consisted of photos of shadows and burnt tree stumps which were identified as Yowies, a cast of a large and somewhat unconvincing-looking footprint, while the audio did not work.

24yute1.jpg

Much of the information presented is available on Doherty’s blog and Facebook page.

Things got a little prickly in question-time at the end of the session when an audience member objected to my questions, said that there is no hoaxing (just media beat-ups), and accused me of being sent to the seminar by the scientific community to ridicule the subject. On the up-side, Doherty agreed to accompany me to the site so that will at least provide further opportunity for face-to-face exchange…

________________________

In this thread I am hoping to document my progress (or lack thereof) in bridging the believer-skeptic divide within the Yowie-research community. I am open to criticisms and advice about how to proceed and will appreciate any input. I know that I am as forthright in my opinions as any on the other side of the divide (which is undoubtedly part of the problem) but the Yowie does not belong to anyone – it is my hobby too and I want to understand what is going on as much as anyone…

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Things got a little prickly in question-time at the end of the session when an audience member objected to my questions, said that there is no hoaxing (just media beat-ups), and accused me of being sent to the seminar by the scientific community to ridicule the subject.

wait ... people do that in real life?

I thought it was an Internet phenomenon.

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This is good stuff, Night Walker.

America is home to 300 million, so we think our stuff is the ka-zam! the truth is, Yowie is alleged to be the biggest of the big feets!

Please keep us posted.

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Well, "Bang goes another kanga on the bonnette on the van!" What do aboriginal Australians have say on the topic, Night Walker?

Edited by John Wesley Boyd
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This is good stuff, Night Walker.

America is home to 300 million, so we think our stuff is the ka-zam! the truth is, Yowie is alleged to be the biggest of the big feets!

Please keep us posted.

The traditional legends more often refer to very small hairy creatures in the top end, Ebu Gogo is one in particular that is referenced more often than others from just above Australia. Considering the Hobbit was found just north of Australia that might have something to it, also, when British Settlers came here, there are reports of pygmy tribes being totally exterminated, and again, considering the plight of the Tasmanian Indigenous, that too seems rather plausible.

What is not plausible is a giant hairy man living in what can become one of the hottest places on earth. I bet you have never been here once in your life, yet you regularly produce the argument of "were you there"? Even though you never have been at one location you expect others to be in, this time, I got you. I am here and I know Queensland reasonably well, I have seen a fair bit of this great land. It's hot Earl. Too hot for a giant hairy man to be roaming the outback, or right under our noses. I actually built my house in what Yowie enthusiasts call a Yowie Hotspot. Horse Hockey. Been there since 2006, and trekked a fair bit of the local area. Nothing remotely indicates any type of such activity. I tracked down the Ormeau Yowie, and found it to be some rather disgusting homeless people who were taking advantage of picnickers. The Molendinar Yowie is almost in the heart of suburbia, that's got to be a joke. Meganthropus died out because he was too large and could not cope with a hot climate, as such, the same applies to the so called Yowie. It just could not exist in this climate as per the descriptions. It's for grown ups who have trouble letting go of Santa as Neo said in another thread. This is just pandering to fantasy. I cannot see anyone actually applying science to these tall tales and still holding the opinion that this claim is anything more than a direct rip of of Pattersons creature made famous by the name Bigfoot. That is where genuine inquiry ends as opposed to chasing phantom tracks in the bush.

The only story that may well hold truth is that of the original pygmies. Maybe an indigenous pygmy, we will never know because few records of them remain. But even they have more supporting information than the Yowie, which is not even a traditional term, but coined in the 70's by Rex Gilroy.

Further reading:

LINK - The extinction of the Australian pygmies

LINK - Wikipedia

LINK - Hobbits? We've got a cave full

LINK - In search of the indigenous little people of northern Australia

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Well, "Bang goes another kanga on the bonnette on the van!" What do aboriginal Australians have say on the topic, Night Walker?

Sorry to jump in here, I am not NW. However, I can tell you that not even the term "Yowie" is indigenous. That was made up by a white man named Rex Gilroy who reports on paranormal everything's in Australia, in the early 70's for the newspapers and it stuck. The same man also claimed ancient people, UFO's giant lizards, Aussie Nessies, you name it, if it exists, he will "find" you an Australian version. More of a plagiarist than anything else.

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wait ... people do that in real life?

I thought it was an Internet phenomenon.

I thought it was rather interesting that they thought he was sent "from the scientific community"

Seems to be a mob they do not want to tangle with. No prize for guessing as to why though.

These people really think they are so important that the scientific community would be sending out spies to discredit them? Paranoid much?

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Sorry to jump in here, I am not NW. However, I can tell you that not even the term "Yowie" is indigenous. That was made up by a white man named Rex Gilroy who reports on paranormal everything's in Australia, in the early 70's for the newspapers and it stuck. The same man also claimed ancient people, UFO's giant lizards, Aussie Nessies, you name it, if it exists, he will "find" you an Australian version. More of a plagiarist than anything else.

So, no indigenous legends of gigantic hairy whatsits roaming around in the mystical dreamtime. You'd think they'd come up with something more plausable, like a carniverous kangaroo that really did exist and still has plenty of prey to live on.
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So, no indigenous legends of gigantic hairy whatsits roaming around in the mystical dreamtime. You'd think they'd come up with something more plausable, like a carniverous kangaroo that really did exist and still has plenty of prey to live on.

Actually, there are a fair few hairy Dreamlike beasties, but clearly "scary buggers who lure you out of the safety of their tribe by imitating humans" (Quinkins) doesn't appeal to the "Yowie botherers".

Edited by Sir Wearer of Hats
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So, no indigenous legends of gigantic hairy whatsits roaming around in the mystical dreamtime. You'd think they'd come up with something more plausable, like a carniverous kangaroo that really did exist and still has plenty of prey to live on.

Ohh, they have plenty of those, Giant Wombats and the like, and there is a few large hairy men legends in some tribes, not a one called Yowie though, they have Indigenous names like "Noocoonah", "Doolagahl", "Gooligah", "Thoolagal" or "Yaroma". Most have differences between the tribes as well with regards to appearance and behaviour. Largely, these terror stories from Indigenous legend seem to be aimed at keeping children behaved and away from water bodies where they could drown, or dangerous places. And much of dreamtime is exactly that - from a dream world that intersects ours as all time is as one.

It's the pygmies that seem to have actually existed.

Edited by psyche101
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Actually, there are a fair few hairy Dreamlike beasties, but clearly "scary buggers who lure you out of the safety of their tribe by imitating humans" (Quinkins) doesn't appeal to the "Yowie botherers".

And indeed many, many, many more beasties of all shapes sizes descriptions and levels of scariness. Of course the Giant Snake probably being the most prominent overall.

Alway been partial to a Bunyip myself :D I hope kids are still reading The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek!

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The traditional legends more often refer to very small hairy creatures in the top end, Ebu Gogo is one in particular that is referenced more often than others from just above Australia. Considering the Hobbit was found just north of Australia that might have something to it, also, when British Settlers came here, there are reports of pygmy tribes being totally exterminated, and again, considering the plight of the Tasmanian Indigenous, that too seems rather plausible.

I've read about the Australian pygmys and they seem to me to have been most likely real. There are lots of pictures and written accounts of meeting and trading with them. Didn't they basically die out because they left the forests to come live at a Christian Mission? Town life apparently did not agree with them. Maybe it was disease. But they didn't last long after that.

I found this pic too. (Put into Spoiler mode for PG-13 reasons.... Native nakedness...)

pygmies.jpg

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I think what Night Walker is doing is cool, but is there a real point to it? Is Mr Doherty going to change his mind, or stop selling his snake oil, based on NWs working with him?

Is Mr Doherty going to allow dissenting views to be published, or spoken, at his conferences perhaps?

Wish you luck NW.

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I've read about the Australian pygmys and they seem to me to have been most likely real. There are lots of pictures and written accounts of meeting and trading with them. Didn't they basically die out because they left the forests to come live at a Christian Mission? Town life apparently did not agree with them. Maybe it was disease. But they didn't last long after that.

It sounds a bit convenient. That every single Pygmy would die and still have such few records of them. I honestly doubt that every single one would opt to go to a mission. Sadly, we have a very dubious past that is rather quiet on grander scales. We have the dark track record of Early settlers wiping out the Tasmanian Indigenous entirely, and between 1824 and 1908 White settlers and Native Mounted Police in Queensland, according to Raymond Evans, killed more than 10,000 Indigenous, who were regarded as vermin and sometimes even hunted for sport. The List of Indigenous Massacres is long and embarrassing. I could see another genocide being covered up before considering every single pygmy went to a mission and simply died leaving no photo's records or anything.

I found this pic too. (Put into Spoiler mode for PG-13 reasons.... Native nakedness...)

pygmies.jpg

Sweet :D :D

Never say no to boobies. They could initiate World Peace.

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I think what Night Walker is doing is cool, but is there a real point to it? Is Mr Doherty going to change his mind, or stop selling his snake oil, based on NWs working with him?

Is Mr Doherty going to allow dissenting views to be published, or spoken, at his conferences perhaps?

Wish you luck NW.

If he thinks he has "hard facts" it sounds like his mind is well and truly made up already. I have to say it was an impressive effort from Nightwalker to get this far.

Still chuckling at the "sent from the scientific community to discredit" bit. What phobia fears science? Fringe.

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What do aboriginal Australians have say on the topic, Night Walker?

The earliest reference to Aboriginal belief on the subject that I have found is from 1827:

They believe in a good spirit, which they call Koyan, and in an evil spirit named Potoyan. The former is held to watch over and protect them from the machinations of the latter, and to assist in restoring the children which the other decoys, to devour.

_______________

From 1837: The natives are greatly terrified by the sight of a person in a mask, calling him "devil" or Yah-hoo, which signifies 'evil spirit'...

http://home.yowieoca...Wild_Hairy_Man/

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From 1847: "He is as big as a man and shaped like him in every respect, and is covered with stiff bristly hair, excepting about the face, which is like an old man's full of wrinkles ; he has long toes and fingers, and piles up stones to protect him from the wind or rain, and usually walks about with a stick, and climbs trees with great facility ; the whole of his body is hard and sinewy, like wood to the touch." Worrongby also told me "that many years since, some of these creatures attacked a camp of natives in the mountains, and carried away some women and children, since which period they have had a great dread of moving about there after sunset. The only person now alive who killed one, he informed me, was Carbora, the great doctor, who had succeeded in striking one in the eye with his tomahawk. On no other part of his body was he able to make the least impression."

http://home.yowieoca...ld_Hairy_Man_2/

______________

From 1986: Where a wild man is described on the evidence of Aboriginal traditions, he is an unearthly humanoid monster, a “devil-devil”, “big-pfeller devil”, or a mythical bogeyman. Where specified, the locale of such beliefs is always the coastal region: the Hunter River, or the New South Wales south coast as far inland as Braidwood. In one case, the Ngarigo dulugal (almost the same word as used in the coastal Dhurga, Dyirringan and Dharawal languages) is not especially supernatural, but a “wild black fellow”; the Ngarigo language, as Joyner records, was spoken in the Delegate region, near Bombala (somewhat inland from the coast). Note than an Anglo resident of the Snowy Mountains region at the turn of the century stated that he had many times asked local Aborigines about the “hairy man,” and they denied any knowledge of it.

http://www.bigfooten...logy/groves.htm

______________

2004: The authors emphasise that the Ingelba Aboriginal people would not tell there stories of the spirit world unless there was a majority of “believers” present when the stories were being related.

My adopted relatives also tried to protect me from any dangers in the spirit world. Margaret was terrified every time that I had to drive over the White Mountain area between Torrens Creek and Pentland on the Charters Towers-Hughenden road – a long stretch with virtually no habitation for two hundred and forty kilometres. She was adamant that, “gardagella [yowies or giant hairy men] prowled around [the area] and take women away. Don’t you drive around there after ten at night, girlie!” she admonished me. “Gardagella live up there. He real,” she told me with eyes protruding. When I asked her, “Are they like the giant quinkan Dick Roughsey wrote about?” she nodded.

http://researchonlin...1/2/02whole.pdf

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2014: Wonnarua Nation Aboriginal Corporation’s Laurie Perry said the story of yowies, also known among Aboriginal people as the medicine men, was told to the children.

He remembers hearing the story as a child and said children would not stray away from camp for fear they might encounter the creature.

‘‘We called them medicine men and they were big and hairy and their feet were backwards,’’ Mr Perry said.

‘‘We were told they were dangerous and we were scared of them.

‘‘We were told they roamed the land at night; it was a way of teaching the children to stay at the camp.’’

http://home.yowieoca...m/Paracon_2014/

_____________

When Doherty spoke about the Yowie at an earlier spiritual/paranormal meeting many of the stories he related were supposedly from Aboriginal communites. Even the guy who accused me of being sent by the science community to ridicule quoted an Aboriginal woman who supposedly claimed that a Yowie once ran through her camp taking a young child...

When Finding Bigfoot did an episode on the Australian Yowie, 3 of the 5 cases featured witnesses who were indigenous (the other ones were Opit and Doherty)...

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Sorry to jump in here, I am not NW. However, I can tell you that not even the term "Yowie" is indigenous. That was made up by a white man named Rex Gilroy who reports on paranormal everything's in Australia, in the early 70's for the newspapers and it stuck. The same man also claimed ancient people, UFO's giant lizards, Aussie Nessies, you name it, if it exists, he will "find" you an Australian version. More of a plagiarist than anything else.

I'm not online every day so feel free to jump in to keep the conversation ticking over...

Mr. P. J. Gresser, who took a great interest in the aborigines of the Blue Mountains and Bathurst area, wrote in 1964 that the Mulgoa and Burragorang people referred to the hairy giants as yowies. [Tony Healy and Paul Cropper,Out of the Shadows: Mystery Animals of Australia, Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney 1994, p. 116.]

Blue Mountains is Gilroy's stomping ground so he might well have heard the the term on the grapevine. Although he did not make it up himself, Gilroy certainly popularised the term (and concept) "Yowie" in the newspapers in 1975 and when he appeared for the first time on daytime TV in 1976 with George Gray who was a sincere witness but didn't know that he was the victim of a prank (frontier-type humour - more common than most would think). There were others searching for the Yowie at that time besides Gilroy but I have yet to find anything about them - would love to know what their thoughts are today...

Gilroy's first letter to the newspapers on the subject was in 1973 after Napier's Bigfoot book received coverage and he didn't use the term "Yowie": reports of ape-like humanoid creatures are not confined to the Americas and Asia: Australia also has its “abominable snowman”. Aborigines speak of the Tjangara, a man-like beast over 7ft tall who carries a large stone club, killing and eating anyone it meets.

http://home.yowieoca...inable_Snowmen/

The earliest references to indigenous usage of the word "yowie" are:

1911: This 'Yow-i' is a general affirmative, but by various inflections of speech can be made to express other meaning.

1914: a tale featuring a wicked all-powerful sorcerer by the name of "Yowie".

1926: Yowie = place of echoes (in reference to Yowie Bay - no Yowies there or is that what they want us to think?)

1931: When a man died his yowie or soul (as distinguished from the dowie or dream spirit, which wandered far afield while the owner slept), haunted the place where he died or was buried. A camp was always immediately shifted after a death, for the dead man's ghost was greatly feared, and might work harm on the tribe.

1933: Yowie - a Dreamtime spirit of death

http://home.yowieoca...wie_References/

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I thought it was rather interesting that they thought he was sent "from the scientific community"

Seems to be a mob they do not want to tangle with. No prize for guessing as to why though.

These people really think they are so important that the scientific community would be sending out spies to discredit them? Paranoid much?

He not they. It was one older guy from the audience - not of the Yowie-research crowd. Might have been one of Opit's New-Age/spiritualist associates...

Most Yowie-researchers are in my demographic: white, male, Australian-born, 30-55 (children of the 70s and 80s), financially stable, educated (completed year 12 to post-grad qualifications), from reasonably stable and loving families. The ones from the previous generation (children of the 50s and 60s) like Opit are a different breed altogether. Fewer in number, they are like white-witchdoctors in their claims of secret knowledge and thereby exert an enormous amount of influence over the younger ones. You can kinda see how critical lines of questioning are weeded from the sub-culture...

I think what Night Walker is doing is cool, but is there a real point to it? Is Mr Doherty going to change his mind, or stop selling his snake oil, based on NWs working with him?

Is Mr Doherty going to allow dissenting views to be published, or spoken, at his conferences perhaps?

What's the point? I think the Yowie is cool and I think legend-tripping is awesome fun. I think that Yowie-research is legend-tripping and that is super-awesome - the art of conjuring up a Yowie experience. Engrossment within a fictional story is an amazing experience that can, in some strange way, make you feel more alive than ever. It literally is a trip, dude. I want to see if I can be a white-witchdoctor too but in my own way - I just don't feel comfortable the whole belief-thing...

I'd like to think that Doherty is genuinely interested in getting to the truth. The print for that dubious footprint cast was found when they took Opit out to "Yowie Island" (alleged habituation site) just as they stepped out of the car. They also were supposed to have found many more along the walking trails that same day. Someone put them there just for Opit to find and find them he did (Opit, despite his qualifications, is not the questioning-type). "Yowie Island" is supposed to be a remote and largely inaccessible location somewhere to the north of Brisbane but it is neither remote (heaps of people go there for a wide variety of recreations) nor inaccessible (my regular 2-wheel drive gets there fine - you could even walk there from a major road in about an hour). So if I were to publish the location every man and his dog would be laying down big foot prints there - it's just what people do (Bigfoot brings out the Trickster in folk). But by keeping the location secret, it stands to reason that whoever planted the fake tracks had been there with the group to search for Yowies before (ie knows where they usually park and walk). That narrows the track-maker down to someone within his "team". I am aware of several dubious characters within the local Yowie-research scene and have previously warned Doherty of their proximity to his research but that resulted in the butting of heads. No-one likes to think ill of their friends...

And Doherty is not "selling snake oil" - it would seem that he spends (loses) as much money on this hobby as mostly everyone else (including me). He has some experience with TV media and there is nothing wrong with aiming to be a reality TV star like the Finding Bigfoot team. Seeking to get paid for doing what you love (ie your hobby) is an admirable goal - who wouldn't do it? Beats working for a living...

Opit, however, already does quite well from his status as a crypto-celebrity:

Explore the Yowie Trail with Australia's most renowned Cryptozoologist Gary Opit (as seen on The Animal Planet's TV show "Finding Bigfoot"). This tour explores the habitat and localities where remarkable yowie encounters occurred. You will hear stories of the encounters, see pictures and get to hold a cast of a yowie footprint. You will see spectacular views over the huge Mount Warning volcanic caldera, the Pacific Ocean and a 100 metre high waterfall will amaze. (Yowie sightings not guaranteed).

Duration: 11:00-18:00

$260pp twin share

http://www.visionwal...ages.html#yowie

As for allowing dissenting views at Yowie conferences - well, it's a fringe topic of interest so it's just me dissenting at the moment (unless Psyche decides to turn up) and it was all well and good on this occasion. The mainstream interest in the Yowie is just not there. I counted 15 people (including the speakers) at the seminar in a room that could hold 3 times that many. Three left half-way through despite Opit declaring optimistically in his introduction that he is "announcing the discovery of a new species of gorilla-like animal generally known as the Yowie." Not even anyone from the press was there. Go figure...

Edited by Night Walker
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NW, did I remember seeing or do you have any figures for the number of Australians who believe in the "Yowie" (as a modern bigfoot cousin)? Could you post or repost please.

Australia is a big place. Is the Yowie limited to a geographic area or everywhere like in the United States-- I'm referring to both modern sightings and separately to traditional legends. Or where it had once been limited geographically has Yowie expanded its range?

Edited by QuiteContrary
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NW, I know what I would ask, because of my own curiosity and suspicions, no matter how ridiculous it may sound.

Despite their reputations, lectures, books, blogs, or evidence they've shown you:

I would ask these men and women, face to face, alone and up-close and personal "Do you believe Yowie (give brief description/definition) walks Australia today as a zoologically sound animal?"

And look them in the eye, and watch their body language as they reply. Looking past their laughing or chuckling or sneering.

Would their total response not simply their reply (words) be of interest? We skeptics want to catch them or sway them or convince them with facts and science and common sense.

But when talking to a believer or cryptid evangelist with a 20- or 30-year reputation, we get nowhere. Have we? Are the same known players still the same players. But, maybe their head has already decided. They know. But their heart? Not so much?

Who knows maybe one will answer and admit "No, but it sure is a lot of fun." As you've pointed out the fun, NW.

Maybe that is where we come together. In the spirit of the hunt. When we challenge their stories and evidence and "science" and history, that ruins the fun. It changes the rules of their game. It isn't fair.

They already know. Let them play monster and maybe they might admit to knowing, if not outright then by their eyes and body language.

And I will keep playing my part of the game as monster ball buster. Cause it's fun too!

Edited by QuiteContrary
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...also, when British Settlers came here, there are reports of pygmy tribes being totally exterminated...

The only story that may well hold truth is that of the original pygmies. Maybe an indigenous pygmy, we will never know because few records of them remain. But even they have more supporting information than the Yowie, which is not even a traditional term, but coined in the 70's by Rex Gilroy.

The australian pygmies - the barrines - were definately real and some of their genetic legacy still lives on today.

BirdsellPygmy3.jpg

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I'm not online every day so feel free to jump in to keep the conversation ticking over...

Mr. P. J. Gresser, who took a great interest in the aborigines of the Blue Mountains and Bathurst area, wrote in 1964 that the Mulgoa and Burragorang people referred to the hairy giants as yowies. [Tony Healy and Paul Cropper,Out of the Shadows: Mystery Animals of Australia, Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney 1994, p. 116.]

Blue Mountains is Gilroy's stomping ground so he might well have heard the the term on the grapevine. Although he did not make it up himself, Gilroy certainly popularised the term (and concept) "Yowie" in the newspapers in 1975 and when he appeared for the first time on daytime TV in 1976 with George Gray who was a sincere witness but didn't know that he was the victim of a prank (frontier-type humour - more common than most would think). There were others searching for the Yowie at that time besides Gilroy but I have yet to find anything about them - would love to know what their thoughts are today...

Gilroy's first letter to the newspapers on the subject was in 1973 after Napier's Bigfoot book received coverage and he didn't use the term "Yowie": reports of ape-like humanoid creatures are not confined to the Americas and Asia: Australia also has its “abominable snowman”. Aborigines speak of the Tjangara, a man-like beast over 7ft tall who carries a large stone club, killing and eating anyone it meets.

http://home.yowieoca...inable_Snowmen/

The earliest references to indigenous usage of the word "yowie" are:

1911: This 'Yow-i' is a general affirmative, but by various inflections of speech can be made to express other meaning.

1914: a tale featuring a wicked all-powerful sorcerer by the name of "Yowie".

1926: Yowie = place of echoes (in reference to Yowie Bay - no Yowies there or is that what they want us to think?)

1931: When a man died his yowie or soul (as distinguished from the dowie or dream spirit, which wandered far afield while the owner slept), haunted the place where he died or was buried. A camp was always immediately shifted after a death, for the dead man's ghost was greatly feared, and might work harm on the tribe.

1933: Yowie - a Dreamtime spirit of death

http://home.yowieoca...wie_References/

Thanks, that was indeed my intention, It's a good subject and deserves to stay alive.

I have heard of those terms, but I never considered them to encompass the modern "Yowie" that we have come to know and love. The descriptions you provide there show they are not the same thing and one would suspect many differing references with the territorial boundaries that over 600 groups of people provide, but I feel perhaps your suggestion of Rex being "around the traps" is accurate there, with Rex harassing the Indigenous and following the story of the Yowie, it is easy to see how he could turn all those similar terms into one all encompassing one when he "popularised" all of the terms. Reminds me a bit of Roger Patterson and his pursuit of Sandersons work. As with the descriptions you have above there, some were not even confirmed by locals and all are designed to instill fear into younger people and keep them from danger.

I remember my mother putting the fear of God into us as children when living in Penrith very young, she saw Rex's headline of the Blue Mountain Yowie and took it a bit too literally. She entirely believed that being in the paper, it was news, and therefore accurate, and we had to be on the alert for huge hairy mountain men. That would have been mid 70's and I assume it would be the one you refer to up there.

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The australian pygmies - the barrines - were definately real and some of their genetic legacy still lives on today.

BirdsellPygmy3.jpg

A lot of those claims reside in doubt at the moment, as the claim got blown out a little when some started claiming that Pygmy People where the first settlers. As I said, the evidence is extremely strong toward their existence, but the details are rather fuzzy. Many stories exist about their demise. There are rumours some still reside in the top end, but I have only seen people make that claim, nothing more to date.

As fascinating as they be, I cannot help still looking just above Australia at the Ebu Gogo Legend. Could the pygmies be related to them?

Some locals say they still exist.

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It sounds a bit convenient. That every single Pygmy would die and still have such few records of them. I honestly doubt that every single one would opt to go to a mission. Sadly, we have a very dubious past that is rather quiet on grander scales. We have the dark track record of Early settlers wiping out the Tasmanian Indigenous entirely, and between 1824 and 1908 White settlers and Native Mounted Police in Queensland, according to Raymond Evans, killed more than 10,000 Indigenous, who were regarded as vermin and sometimes even hunted for sport. The List of Indigenous Massacresis long and embarrassing. I could see another genocide being covered up before considering every single pygmy went to a mission and simply died leaving no photo's records or anything.

Sweet :D :D

Never say no to boobies. They could initiate World Peace.

European colonials all over were hard on indigenous primitives, and a whole tribe perishing at a mission, even in the kindest of circumstances is not as unlikely as it might first appear.http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/345
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NW, did I remember seeing or do you have any figures for the number of Australians who believe in the "Yowie" (as a modern bigfoot cousin)? Could you post or repost please.

I don't recall having any numbers on that - sorry... Might be a memory error from either one of us...

Australia is a big place. Is the Yowie limited to a geographic area or everywhere like in the United States-- I'm referring to both modern sightings and separately to traditional legends. Or where it had once been limited geographically has Yowie expanded its range?

I don't have definitive data on that at the moment but it would be worth looking into. Prior to the 1920s, articles on the Yahoo/Hairy-Man/Australian-Ape were almost solely confined to NSW, ACT, and Victoria. Further claims are almost non-existent for the next 50 years until the popularisation of Bigfoot in 1972 and the Yowie three years later - then over the next 10 years or so years Yowie claims spread into Queensland, Western Australia, and Tasmania. By the late 1990s the Yowie was also being reported in the Northern Territory but no longer in Tasmania...

Interest in the Yowie had declined as the 1980s progressed. In the early 1990s there were only 2 or 3 reported sightings and zero Yowie-researchers (other than Rex Gilroy but he was largely focused on other projects that psyche mentioned) but by the end of the decade Yowie sightings were numerous and so were Yowie-researchers. The number of Yowie-claims and Yowie-researchers seemed to decline slightly as the new millennium progressed but has recently received a boost in the last few years due to the influence of Finding Bigfoot...

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