Product Code Database
The Yowie is one of several names for an folklore entity that is reputed to live in the Outback. The creature has origins in Aboriginal oral history.
Descriptions of the Yowie's behavior vary; some accounts depict the Yowie as timid and reclusive, while others suggest it can be violent or aggressive.
Some researchers suggest that the term arose through Aboriginal legends of the "Yahoo". Nineteenth century European accounts describe the creature and deem it the Yahoo, specifically the entry of Robert Holden, who described it saying "The natives of Australia... believe in... the Yahoo.", cited in
Another story about the terms origins come from an Aboriginal source. One account from Old Bungaree, a Gunedah elder, stating that the Yahoo was an ancient race that once inhabited Australia. He describes conflicts between Yahoos and Aboriginal people in an event called Dreamtime, claiming that the latter usually overpowered them, although the Yahoo is said to be a fast runner.
Additionally, some scholars propose that the Yowie legend may have been influenced by European folklore. Possible sources for this claim include:
By the 1850s, accounts of "indigenous apes" appeared in the Australian Town and Country Journal. The earliest account in November 1876 asked readers "Who has not heard, from the earliest settlement of the colony, the blacks speaking of some unearthly animal or inhuman creature... namely the Yahoo-Devil Devil, or hairy man of the wood?", cited in
In 1882, amateur naturalist Henry James McCooey claimed to have seen an "indigenous ape" on the New South Wales south coast, between Batemans Bay and Ulladulla. He described the creature as tailless, covered in long black hair, with reddish fur around the throat and chest. He estimated its height at nearly five feet tall when standing upright and noted that its small, restless eyes were partially obscured by matted hair. McCooey claimed to have thrown a stone at the creature, prompting it to flee., cited in
McCooey offered to capture an ape for the Australian Museum for a reward £40. According to researcher Robert Holden, a second outbreak of reported ape sightings appeared in 1912.
The Yowie also appeared in Australian folklore and literature, including Donald Friend's Hillendiana, a collection of writings about the goldfields near Hill End, New South Wales, where it was described as species of bunyip. Holden also cites the appearance of the Yowie's presence in a number of Australian tall stories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
One such case involved "Top End Yowie investigator" Andrew McGinn who claimed the death and mutilation of a pet dog near Darwin could have been the result of an attack by the mythological Yowie.
In the mid-1970s, the Queanbeyan Festival Board and 2CA offered a AU$200,000 reward for the capture and presentation of a Yowie. The reward remains unclaimed.
Rex Gilroy believed that the Yowie is related to the North American Bigfoot. Along with his partner Heather Gilroy, he spent fifty years amassing his Yowie collection.
Rex Gilroy died in April 2023.
He also writes a regular column in Australian newspapers The Canberra Times and The Sydney Morning Herald. In 2004, Tim the Yowie Man won a legal case against Cadbury, a popular British confectionery company. Cadbury had claimed that his moniker was too similar to their range of Yowie confectionery.
In his research, Joyner suggests that the contemporary concept of the Yowie may have emerged from a misunderstanding or conflation with earlier "yahoo" reports. He posits that the Yowie was relatively unknown before the mid-1970s and that its rise in popular culture could be linked to misinterpretations of historical accounts.
Origins of the term
The exact origin of the name "Yowie" in reference to Australian hominid legends is uncertain. The term was documented in 1875 among the Gamilaraay people by Rev. William Ridley in Kámilarói and Other Australian Languages, where "Yō-wī" was described as a spirit that roams the earth at night.
Historical sightings
Early reports (19th century)
A 1987 column in The Sydney Morning Herald, columnist Margaret Jones suggest that the first reported Yowie sighting in Australian occurred as early as 1795.
20 and 21st century sightings
Modern reports of the Yowie continue, often associated with cryptozoology investigations.
Regional sightings
Northern Territory
In the late 1990s, several reports of Yowie sightings emerged in the area around Acacia Hills.
New South Wales
Accounts of Yowie sightings in New South Wales include:
Queensland
The Springbrook region in south-east Queensland has had more Yowie reports than anywhere else in Australia.
Australian Capital Territory
Prominent Yowie researchers and enthusiasts
Rex Gilroy
Since the mid-1970s, paranormal enthusiast and self-described cryptozoologist Rex Gilroy attempted to popularize the Yowie legend. He claimed to have collected over 3,000 reports of Yowie encounters and theorized that they represented a relict population of extinct apes or early Homo species.
Tim the Yowie Man
Tim the Yowie Man is a published author who claims to have seen a Yowie in the Brindabella Ranges in 1994. Since then, Tim the Yowie Man has investigated Yowie sightings and other paranormal phenomena.
Gary Opit
ABC Local Radio wildlife programmer and environmental scientist.
Skepticism and alternate theories
Graham Joyner's perspective
Australian historian Graham Joyner has extensively researched the " yahoo", also referred to as the hairy man, Australian ape, or Australian gorilla, which was a subject of various reports in the nineteenth century. Joyner compiled these accounts in his 1977 publication, The Hairy Man of South Eastern Australia, aiming to shed light on this phenomenon.
In popular culture
See also
Notes
External links
|
|
