Yowie: Bridging the Believer-Skeptic Divide

[psyche101]

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

Indeed, as mentioned, the Tasmanian Indigenous were wiped out altogether. I have read stories of British exterminating the pygmies, but often Natives see Pygmies as lesser and hunt them for sport and slavery, the little guys in Africa are getting a terrible time. Quite possibly a combination of settlement and Indigenous pressure to compete once Settlers took the best lands.

Edited September 5, 2014 by psyche101

[Night Walker]

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!

I'm not a big fan of reading too much into body language. There is already enough ambiguity within cryptozoology as it is without adding even more. To me they all very convincing until they bring out their evidence...

Example: the following account seems sincere in its re-telling, does it not?:

Examine the actual circumstances and the evidence of this claim and a very different picture emerges...

Within the sub-culture, not believing in the Yowie means not believing someone's personal claim which is the same as calling them a "liar" - and them's fightin' words. Because Yowie-research is a social hobby, I don't think any will admit to not believing in the Yowie but I reckon that the confidence in that belief varies according to the social settings - what may be only "possible" in conventional-circles often becomes "100% absolutely!" in paranormal-circles. Similarly, individual accounts and the language used to describe them are also prone to vary depending on the audience. What get's documented (ie written in stone) may only be a particular version of the account and not necessarily the most accurate one...

[Q-C]

I'm not a big fan of reading too much into body language. There is already enough ambiguity within cryptozoology as it is without adding even more. To me they all very convincing until they bring out their evidence...

Example: the following account seems sincere in its re-telling, does it not?:

Examine the actual circumstances and the evidence of this claim and a very different picture emerges...

Within the sub-culture, not believing in the Yowie means not believing someone's personal claim which is the same as calling them a "liar" - and them's fightin' words. Because Yowie-research is a social hobby, I don't think any will admit to not believing in the Yowie but I reckon that the confidence in that belief varies according to the social settings - what may be only "possible" in conventional-circles often becomes "100% absolutely!" in paranormal-circles. Similarly, individual accounts and the language used to describe them are also prone to vary depending on the audience. What get's documented (ie written in stone) may only be a particular version of the account and not necessarily the most accurate one...

I agree that the setting would most definitely matter in revealing any transparency of uncertainty: Youtube, the local news, a Yowie* convention, a Yowie* Hunters group meeting, etc. Not much chance there.

And so would the person you ask matter. For example, it's hard to hammer through a newbie zealot's mindset and spoil their excitement/lessen their belief. But at that point, they haven't spent 20-years ineffectually trying to prove to the world they exist or deprived of their own sighting.

For me I don't think it is something I would avoid asking under the right circumstances. We may learn this is a bridge...the fun and excitement of the hunt: Hunting Yowies* and hunting Yowie* hunters. And nothing at all to do with whether a corporeal creature will be made manifest.

Imo, I think there is much more to this cryptid phenomenon on both sides than science or belief, and that is what we have in common.

*or in my case Bigfoot

Edited September 5, 2014 by QuiteContrary

[Q-C]

Changing in post above

"nothing at all to do with whether a corporeal creature will be made manifest."

to

"less than we will admit to ourselves or others... or less than we realize... to do with whether a corporeal creature will be made manifest

Edited September 5, 2014 by QuiteContrary

[Night Walker]

After two years of work, out came the results in July, published in the prestigious Proceedings of the Royal Society B (“B” for biological sciences).

The hairs were from raccoons, horses, bears, cows, wolves — not some unknown mammal.

But try shaking the belief of Bigfoot believers. Not going to happen.

Their stories are of having seen one, heard one, had one surreptitiously move things around their campsite while they slept. They know it lives.

...

Embrace the Bigfoot.

Says Professor Sykes, who has gotten to know the creature’s believers:

“It’s almost like a religious conversion when they think they’ve seen one. They’re absolutely sure what it was. Then they either keep quiet for fear of being made fools, or they spend the rest of their lives trying to prove what they saw.”

http://seattletimes....atchmanxml.html

All that it would take to change a skeptic's opinion on the Yowie is a reasonable standard of evidence - right? But what would it take to change a believer's opinion on the Yowie? Particularly if that belief is based on one or more Yowie-experiences? Is it possible to reason with those who "know" but still have nothing to show?

Bigfoot-believers - please feel free to explain what it would take for you, personally, to change your opinion on the subject - I want to understand...

And how important is the spiritual side of Bigfoot-belief?

All opinions welcome...

[Bluenose Bulwark]

Anywhere you have a large tract of non-accessible or unexplored land there is always the chance of an unknown creature existing. Doesn't take much for 1 or 2 to be curious and blunder into humans, thus creating a new cryptid, or updates on where they are.

I kind of doubt bigfoot is in Australia. Dollars to donuts the stories were passed down from the original Aboriginal settlers about giant men, which were ancient even then.

But you never can tell.

[Night Walker]

Dollars to donuts the stories were passed down from the original Aboriginal settlers about giant men, which were ancient even then.

Documented evidence actually suggests the opposite - ie that stories of giant hairy men in far flung lands came from the British themselves:

1802 -

1790 -

I have also found a precursor to this story in a broadside published around ninety years earlier (1701) and held in the collection of the National Library of Scotland. This unillustrated broadside also describes the capture of a 16 foot tall hairy wild man by getting him drunk (as in the SLNSW version) and brought to Harwich on the Tempest. His owner, one Thomas Goodman, expects to make “no small gain” because his beast is, “the greatest giant that ever was seen or heard of in any age”.

http://www.nla.gov.a...n-of-botany-bay

Whereas the earliest Aboriginal account (2nd-hand) is only from 1827 and offers no description (no "giant", no "hairy", and no "man"):

Potoyan strolls about after dark seeking for his prey, but is afraid to approach a fire, which serves as a protection against him; therefore they are neither fond of travelling after dark, nor of sleeping without a fire beside them. The Sydney blacks make a large fire, and sleep around it; but in the interior they coil themselves singly round one which you might put in the crown of your hat.

Potoyan is provoked, however, if you swing a fiery stick round!" Don't, don't!" the timid ones will say, "Devil—devil come!" his usual mode of announcing his approach being by a low continuous whistle, like a gentle breeze singing through the branches of a tree...

http://home.yowieocalypse.com/Reports_of_the_Wild_Hairy_Man/

Stories and folklore passed by word-of-mouth tend to change over time - perhaps the British giant hairy man (Yahoo) became incorporated within indigenous traditions...

Edited September 14, 2014 by Night Walker

[Night Walker]

Documented evidence actually suggests the opposite - ie that stories of giant hairy men in far flung lands came from the British themselves:

...

Whereas the earliest Aboriginal account (2nd-hand) is only from 1827 and offers no description (no "giant", no "hairy", and no "man"):

...

Stories and folklore passed by word-of-mouth tend to change over time - perhaps the British giant hairy man (Yahoo) became incorporated within indigenous traditions...

I get the feeling that this hypothesis will not go down too well with Yowie-proponents... Thoughts?

Anyway, latest Yowie news:

Yowies: 'they're out there I've spoken with them'

Mr Duffy says he was camped in the bush, north-east of Gympie late one night, when "a very large male approached me".

"I got a fright and so did he," he said.

The creature seemed human but larger and spoke in a language he thinks might be Latin.

"He was quickly able to learn a few words in English and we spoke for about two hours," the Kybong resident said.

"They're very intelligent."

But he says they are in danger.

...

"The EPA won't respond to my calls."

...

"Yowies are clearly 'the missing link' that scientists have looked for decades. I believe they are the greatest discovery in the history of natural science.

http://www.gympietim...nsland/2393323/

[Night Walker]

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.

I found an indigenous reference to the Yahoo from Tasmania in 1844 but, again, it refers to a spirit rather than an actual creature:

…

Although they appear to treat their children kindly when they can in some measure help themselves, yet infanticide is frequent among the women, who often dislike the trouble of taking care of their babies, and destroy them immediately after birth, saying that "Yahoo," or "Devil-devil," took them. One woman, whom Mr. Meredith saw a day or two after the birth of her baby, on being asked where it was, replied with perfect nonchalance, "I believe Dingo patta !" — She believed the dog had eaten it ! Numbers of the hapless little beings are no doubt disposed of by their unnatural mothers in a similar manner.

I never could make out anything of their religious ideas, or even if they had a comprehension of a beneficent Supreme Being ; but they have an evil spirit, which causes them great terror, whom they call “Yahoo," or "Devil-devil :" he lives in the tops of the steepest and rockiest mountains, which are totally inaccessible to all human beings, and comes down at night to seize and run away with men, women, or children, whom he eats up, children being his favourite food ; and this superstition is used doubtless as a cloak to many a horrid and revolting crime committed by the wretched and unnatural mothers, who nearly always, when their infants disappear, say "Yahoo" took them. They never can tell which way he goes by his tracks, because he has the power of turning his feet in any direction he pleases, but usually wears them heels first, or, as they express it, “Mundoey that-a-way, cobbra that-a-way" (feet going one way, and head or face pointing the other). The name Devil-devil is of course borrowed from our vocabulary, and the doubling of the phrase denotes how terrible or intense a devil he is ; that of Yahoo, being used to express a bad spirit...

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

The indigenous population of Tasmania was in serious decline at the time and completely decimated shortly after:

Before British colonisation in 1803, there were an estimated 3,000–15,000 Parlevar (Aboriginal Tasmanians)...

By 1833, George Augustus Robinson, sponsored by Lieutenant Governor George Arthur, had persuaded the approximately 200 surviving Aboriginal Tasmanians to surrender themselves with assurances that they would be protected, provided for and eventually have their lands returned to them. These 'assurances' were in fact lies - promises made to the survivors that played on their desperate hopes for reunification with lost family and community members. The assurances were given by Robinson solely to remove the Aboriginal people from mainland Van Diemen's Land. The survivors were moved to Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island, where diseases continued to reduce their numbers even further. In 1847, the last 47 living inhabitants of Wybalenna were transferred to Oyster Cove, south of Hobart. Two individuals, Truganini (1812–1876) and Fanny Cochrane Smith (1834–1905), are separately considered to have been the last people solely of Tasmanian descent.

http://en.wikipedia....inal_Tasmanians

[Q-C]

I get the feeling that this hypothesis will not go down too well with Yowie-proponents... Thoughts?

Anyway, latest Yowie news:

Yowies: 'they're out there I've spoken with them'

Mr Duffy says he was camped in the bush, north-east of Gympie late one night, when "a very large male approached me".

"I got a fright and so did he," he said.

The creature seemed human but larger and spoke in a language he thinks might be Latin.

"He was quickly able to learn a few words in English and we spoke for about two hours," the Kybong resident said.

"They're very intelligent."

But he says they are in danger.

...

"The EPA won't respond to my calls."

...

"Yowies are clearly 'the missing link' that scientists have looked for decades. I believe they are the greatest discovery in the history of natural science.

http://www.gympietim...nsland/2393323/

"Latin"? So Yowie is a Renaissance Monster like his American Cousin.

Not unexpected.

But still cool.

Edited September 29, 2014 by QuiteContrary

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Bloody foreign cryptids, coming over here and stealing all our local monsters jobs.

[Night Walker]

"Latin"? So Yowie is a Renaissance Monster like his American Cousin.

[Night Walker]

Bloody foreign cryptids, coming over here and stealing all our local monsters jobs.

[Q-C]

Let me get my Big Friend to translate that for me. We talk often, usually during the week though. He's often busy on the weekends rubbing tents and getting his photo taken .

[Stardrive]

To bridge the divide it's my opinion each side of the divide would have to give up the notion they are 100% correct. If not, then you're dead in the water.

[Night Walker]

To bridge the divide it's my opinion each side of the divide would have to give up the notion they are 100% correct. If not, then you're dead in the water.

I would agree - however it'd take objective evidence to reverse my opinion on the subject but opinion on the other side seems to be based more on subjective experiences rather than objective evidence. That is, many "know" the Yowie exists because they've "experienced" it on multiple occasions (even though their own evidence doesn't support that conclusion).

What would it take for you to reverse your opinion on Bigfoot, SD? Is that even possible?

[Stardrive]

Well they're either holding something back (which is doubtful) or they just have an over-active imagination if all they have is flimsy evidence and a woo experience to back up thier assertion. You know as well as I do that in this hobby there will always be those "dammit i should have done this or that" moments.

I'm just a skeptic. I can't say I know for a fact one way or the other. As far as someone whom is absolutley convinced goes... I have no idea.

Btw, I've been meaning to ask you about some pics you posted in the "bigfoot encampment" thread. Were those pics you took? Do you have a place on your website where you post pics of things you find while out in the bush?

[s33ker]

There is a place called Donnelley's Castle in Stanthorpe which was the hide-out for a bush ranger called Captain Thunderbolt and supposably a ancient Yowie camp site. There is a large picture on the rocks there that someone drew of a yowie, it's a beautiful place with walk ways through granite valleys and sharp turns where anything could be hiding, and a view for miles around once you get high enough. The picture looks like a child did it, but there is also a place called Painted Rocks near Mt Isa that has aboriginal art high up on a rock face of a strange person like thing, it's quite difficult to get to but well worth the drive.

I have been to these sites, not because I'm a Yowie hunter or anything, just come across them in my travels and am wondering if you have seen them.

[back to earth]

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

There are many types of

Aboriginal Australians (you thought I was going to say Yowies didnt you ) , cultures, languages, belief systems. Around my way they say there are 3 types

... of Yowie (gotya!) a big one, a little one, a real one ( the hairy man) a spirit one ... blah ... blah ...

They are okay.

Its Rex Gilroy ya gotta watch out for ! .... http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/tall-yowie-tales-keep-on-coming/1978823/

His book is interesting ... I mean amusing ... he has lots of photos in it ... his wife, a car accident and dead bodies he found ... yep, tree stumps (but only to show the comparative size of a Yowie that isnt in the picture ... but if he was, he would be bigger then this stump ... about this big : ( turn to pic of a chalk outline in his driveway of a Yowie with him and his wife, Rex and Mrs Gilroy on a picnic where Yowies have been sighted , a place where a yowie was seen - but isnt now ...

Had enough ? or can I interest you in attending a workshop ?

Oh yeah, Rex is an expert at finding extinct giant hominid fossils and their stone tools (in Australia ... yep, we are still in Australia)

"Thats just a flat river rock."

"No, its a stone tool, its just so old its warn down."

"Looks like a river rock ?"

"Who let you in here anyway ... work for the government do you ? "

Edited September 29, 2014 by back to earth

[back to earth]

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.

Really? I am a bit surprised ... from a Queenslander no less. I have met a QLD 'pygmy aboriginal' and he was most upset about the rumours of his peoples supposed extinction. He was the a drummer and percussionist in a band Called Earth Reggae. They dont have proportions like a dwarf or midget or African Pygmy. Just like a well proportioned much smaller body . This was common knowledge when I studied some anthropology at Sydney Uni - Tindall (and the others and their years of research) had yet to be hand wafted away by the new post-modernist 'experts' whose paradigms (partially designed to wind native land title cases) infested the current education system.

Here is Tindall with the people some say he 'mistook' as a variant type from the main aboriginal

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.

Its colder down here I grew up in the south part of Sydney. my playing ground was Yowie bay .

I spent a lot of time on the other side ( Royal National Park ) never saw a Yowie though.

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.

Ah Rex . We should put him up they with such greats as Ray Johnson ... the 'translator' of the Australian 'hieroglyphics' - I have actually met him and had a long yarm with him

I will look at these links later ... thanks ( Did you know that in the foyer of the Hobart Museum, where it has an intro to the Tasmanian Aboriginals exhibit, it says (or did when I was there) some thing like; 'The plight of the Tasmanian Aboriginals today lies in primarily convincing people that they are not extinct.' - O guess its all tied into political and legal definitions now.

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

[back to earth]

Documented evidence actually suggests the opposite - ie that stories of giant hairy men in far flung lands came from the British themselves:

1802 -

1790 -

I have also found a precursor to this story in a broadside published around ninety years earlier (1701) and held in the collection of the National Library of Scotland. This unillustrated broadside also describes the capture of a 16 foot tall hairy wild man by getting him drunk (as in the SLNSW version) and brought to Harwich on the Tempest. His owner, one Thomas Goodman, expects to make “no small gain” because his beast is, “the greatest giant that ever was seen or heard of in any age”.

http://www.nla.gov.a...n-of-botany-bay

Whereas the earliest Aboriginal account (2nd-hand) is only from 1827 and offers no description (no "giant", no "hairy", and no "man"):

Potoyan strolls about after dark seeking for his prey, but is afraid to approach a fire, which serves as a protection against him; therefore they are neither fond of travelling after dark, nor of sleeping without a fire beside them. The Sydney blacks make a large fire, and sleep around it; but in the interior they coil themselves singly round one which you might put in the crown of your hat.

Potoyan is provoked, however, if you swing a fiery stick round!" Don't, don't!" the timid ones will say, "Devil—devil come!" his usual mode of announcing his approach being by a low continuous whistle, like a gentle breeze singing through the branches of a tree...

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

Stories and folklore passed by word-of-mouth tend to change over time - perhaps the British giant hairy man (Yahoo) became incorporated within indigenous traditions...

'Hairy man' relates more to a 'Yowie', but 'Hairy men' relate more to a supposed group resident in the mid-north coast region of NSW that were driven out when the displaced Bundjalung migrated down from near Arnhem Land due to tribal displacements due to the sea level rising in the Arafura region. (Previously a near land bridge with New Guinea and the 'Negrito' type of Aboriginal that ended up in Tasmania.)

Sources; Uncle Link - Bundjalung elder - Malabuglmah NSW.

[back to earth]

I used to be from Cronulla

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

don't worry, we won't hold that against you - after all I'm from Caboolture!

[back to earth]

At least ya got good yoghurt.

[Stardrive]

What would it take for you to reverse your opinion on Bigfoot, SD? Is that even possible?

You asked a direct question here, so it deserves a direct answer.

It is possible to change my opinion, if the PGF was never shown. If I hadn't seen what looked like a person covered in hair lying face down on an interstate bridge overpass in the 80's. I would change my mind if Denisovan, Neanderthal, and some other ancient hominid dna, were not found in our genome. And for cripes sake can anyone do anything about these reports of them being seen? I'd change my mind if there were no historical (pre-PGF) accounts of a hairy wildman. I'd change my mind if there were no Native American pictographs of a hairy wildman.

Back to the question raised in the OP. The wording doesn't accurately describe what's really going on between yourself and the other parties concerned. What it sounds like to me is a knower-knower divide. If it could somehow be changed to.... skeptical proponent - skeptical doubter.... the divide would go from highly volatile to self-reconciling. What would it take for the both of you to go from knowers to skeptical proponent - skeptical doubter?