Bunyip

The bunyip is a creature from the aboriginal mythology of southeastern Australia, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes.

The origin of the word bunyip has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of the Aboriginal people of Victoria, in South-Eastern Australia.

[5] This contemporary translation may not accurately represent the role of the bunyip in pre-contact Aboriginal mythology or its possible origins before written accounts were made.

George French Angus may have collected a description of a bunyip in his account of a "water spirit" from the Moorundi people of the Murray River before 1847, stating it is "much dreaded by them ...

[17] Robert Brough Smyth's Aborigines of Victoria (1878) devoted ten pages to the bunyip, but concluded "in truth little is known among the blacks respecting its form, covering or habits; they appear to have been in such dread of it as to have been unable to take note of its characteristics".

[18] Eugénie Louise McNeil recalled from her childhood memory in the 1890s that the bunyip supposedly had a snout like an owl ("a mopoke"), and was probably a nocturnal creature by her estimation.

According to reports, these bunyips have round heads resembling a bulldog, prominent ears, no tail, and whiskers like a seal or otter.

Bunyips, according to Aboriginal mythology, can swim swiftly with fins or flippers, have a loud, roaring call, and feed on crayfish, though some legends portray them as bloodthirsty predators of humans, particularly women and children.

"[25] In a 2017 Australian Birdlife article, Karl Brandt suggested Aboriginal encounters with the southern cassowary inspired the myth.

[26] According to the first written description of the bunyip from 1845,[27] the creature laid pale blue eggs of immense size, possessed deadly claws, powerful hind legs, a brightly coloured chest, and an emu-like head, characteristics shared with the Australian cassowary.

[6] During the early settlement of Australia by Europeans, the notion became commonly held that the bunyip was an unknown animal that awaited discovery.

The account noted a story of an Aboriginal woman being killed by a bunyip and the "most direct evidence of all" – that of a man named Mumbowran "who showed several deep wounds on his breast made by the claws of the animal".

It has a head resembling an emu, with a long bill, at the extremity of which is a transverse projection on each side, with serrated edges like the bone of the stingray.

When in the water it swims like a frog, and when on shore it walks on its hind legs with its head erect, in which position it measures twelve or thirteen feet in height.

[38] In March of that year, "a bunyip or an immense Platibus" (Platypus) was sighted "sunning himself on the placid bosom of the Yarra, just opposite the Custom House" in Melbourne.

[39] Another early written account is attributed to escaped convict William Buckley in his 1852 biography of thirty years living with the Wathaurong people.

"[40] Buckley also claimed the creature was common in the Barwon River and cites an example he heard of an Aboriginal woman being killed by one.

Mr. Stocqueler saw no less than six of these curious animals at different times; his boat was within thirty feet of one near M'Guire's punt on the Goulburn, and he fired at the Bunyip, but did not succeed in capturing him.

The animals moved against the current, at the rate of about seven miles an hour, and Mr. Stockqueler states that he could have approached close to the specimens he observed, had he not been deterred by the stories of the natives concerning the power and fury of the bunyip, and by the fact that his gun had only a single barrel, and his boat was of a very frail description.

Stocqueler, an artist, and his mother are on an expedition down the Murray, for the purpose of making some faithful sketches of the views on this fine stream, as well as of the creatures frequenting it.

[2][19] In the early 1990s, Prime Minister Paul Keating used this term to describe members of the conservative Liberal Party of Australia opposition.

One of the earliest known is a story in Andrew Lang's The Brown Fairy Book (1904), adapted from a tale collected and published in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute in 1899.