Yowies, Yahoos, and the like

Ok, I have been doing some reading on this creature...the Australian version of Bigfoot to some degree, but didn't find any threads here on ATS.

The Yowies (and a bunch of other names) are said to be giant man-ape hominids that were documented for a great many years. Apparently the Aboriginal people believe this creature to be harmful and it appears in many legends.

In old Pleistocene river gravels near Bathurst, N.S.W. huge stone artifacts-clubs, pounders, adzes, chisels, knives and hand-axes-all of tremendous weight, lie scattered over a wide area. A fossicker searching the Winburndale River north of Bathurst discovered a large quartzitised fossil human molar tooth, far too big for any normal modern human. A similar molar of chert fossilisation was also recovered from ancient deposits near Dubbo, N.S.W. Prospectors working in the Bathurst district over 40 years ago frequently reported coming across large human footprints in shoals of red jasper.

Some of these have been rediscovered over the years and give every appearance of being of great antiquity. The point raised by these discoveries is that there once existed on the Australian continent giant tool-making hominids who preceeded the aborigines (Austroloids)by many thousands of years. For, it is certain that the aborigines were never the first inhabitants of this continent. Even they admit in their ancient folklore that this land was inhabited by many races of man, as well as giants, long before them.

www.internetezy.com.au...

I guess I find it interesting that "little people" were a complete myth, other than pygmies, until the recent discover of tiny hominids on a island in that hemisphere. The people (and some animals) on the island adapted to the environment (less food and space) by evolving smaller.

Yet, when one has the idea of the reverse happening and hominids growing gigantic due to their environment...it is a myth (save for what is told in legends). The Aboriginal people have legends of wars with giant hominids, pygmy folk and other, normal human-sized primitives. We don't tend to find fossil evidence, but is it like the little people...we just haven't found it yet?

It was the age of the 'megafauna'. Giant kangaroo species ranging in heights of from 3 to 4 metres shared the plains with more than one species of Giant Emu. One of these, Dromornis stirtoni, reached 3 m or more in height, weighing more than 500 kg. Roaming among them was the largest 'mega-marsupial' of all, diprotodon optatum, nearly 3 m long by 2 m tall at the shoulder.

www.theaustralianyowieresearchcenter.com...

Anyway, I find the whole issue quite interesting. Funny I never heard about this (that I remember) until recently. Shame on you Australian members.

[edit on 24-5-2005 by ZeddicusZulZorander]

[edit on 24-5-2005 by ZeddicusZulZorander]

Yeah, I changed the title to conform to some of those threads that blame everything on one person AND seem to go on forever, even though they are complete nonsense.


I just don't get it...

Anyways, anyone? Comment? Info? Bueller? Bueller?

My theory is that Bush didn't actually create them directly, but in fact some Democrats mutated into these creatures after losing to him in elections. Just a theory...

[edit on 5/24/2005 by djohnsto77]

And a picture taken of the creature!



Take that you debunkers!

Ok, well then how about this?



Ok, not a Yowie but this is supposed to be a footprint:

Howdy folks...

Zed, haven't read much on the Yowies, but there are some Kentucky legends/folktales of the Yahoo (Yeahoh)...

One comes form the John Mack Faragher's biography of Daniel Boone, Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (Faragher 1992)...

In which he claims that D Boone told "tall tales" of having shot a 10 ft tall hairy giant he called a 'Yahoo', which could be an interpretation of 'Yeahoh'...

The Aboriginal people have legends of wars with giant hominids, pygmy folk

The Native American Indians also have tales of having wars with them also...

Originally posted by Jedi_Master
One comes form the John Mack Faragher's biography of Daniel Boone, Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (Faragher 1992)...

In which he claims that D Boone told "tall tales" of having shot a 10 ft tall hairy giant he called a 'Yahoo', which could be an interpretation of 'Yeahoh'...

Hmmmm, now that is pretty interesting about Boone.

As for the legends, that is true...I forgot about that. I wonder if that is a universal legend type thing. If so, then the same must be true for ufos and the like.

I found this with regard to the Boone story:

Trotti notes that in John Mack Faragher's biography of Daniel Boone, Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (Faragher 1992), Faragher claims Boone told "tall tales" about "killing a ten-foot, hairy giant he called a 'Yahoo.'" Of course, the Yahoos were large, hairy,
man-like creatures described in Jonathan Swift's classic of satire and irony Gulliver's Travels (see the chapter "A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms"). It was further noted by Trotti that Faragher details Boone's familiarity with Gulliver's Travels. In fact, Faragher states the book was
one of Boone's favorites and that Boone frequently carried the book with him into the woods. These facts fueled Trotti's speculation that the Bigfoot legend actually arose from Boone's retelling of the Swiftian saga as part of his own exploits throughout the American frontier in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

www.bigfootencounters.com...

Seems very plausable.

I don't know about universial legends, but...could be...

The BF pic you posted, if I'm not mistaken is from the Ray Wallace collection, who is known for his hoaxes...

But who knows maybe that one he took was real ...

Excellent post Zedd, I will have to research this further. Many cultures have folklore of giants.

I am more interested in the physical evidence that you described, of the over-sized clubs and such. I would really like a chance to explore some of the areas where they were found.

I find the mega-fauna creatures to be almost as fascinating as the dinosaurs. There were many interesting and huge mammals and birds alive, including my favorite the teratorns. (My spelling may be off on that one)

If there were so many large animals, it is not much of a stretch to wonder if there were super-sized hominids living in those days as well, even if only in small, isolated pockets.

I was just reading an article recently that disputes the claims by some that early human beings wiped out most of the mega-fauna.

Originally posted by Jedi_Master
I don't know about universial legends, but...could be...

The BF pic you posted, if I'm not mistaken is from the Ray Wallace collection, who is known for his hoaxes...

But who knows maybe that one he took was real

...

You'll find that the picture is of one Rex 'the yowie man' Gilroy.
Rex has done a heck of a lot of work on the research of yowies and large humanoids, and is responsible for the NAME 'yowie' (prior to which, they were called 'yahoos' or 'hairy men'). He had a research facility and museum going in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney for some time.

Unfortunately, while Rex has done a lot to advance the idea and bring it to the public eye, much of what he says must be taken with a very large grain of salt. I had the opportunity to meet him a few years ago and go out with him to a 'site'. This involved bringing some chalk and a folding tape measure. After that, things stopped being scientific. Rex looked at a rock that had been carved by some local kids a few years previously and stated with great authority that because of the lichen growing over it the carving was from 'an ancient civilisation of Australians, the language of which only I have been able to decipher' and that it was 'oh, about 40,000 years old'. We then went on to find various faint cracks and fissures in a rock face which he stated was 'ancient script' and coloured in with chalk to form various patterns. The notion of weathering didn't seem to have struck him, nor did the fact that some of the 'writing' covered very oddly shaped rocks on all sides. He then went on to 'translate' some of this and photograph the rest for his next book. Even the symbols which I (as a bit of a test and because I was feeling frustrated with the whole business) made up. Example: I found a vague curve in the rock and turned it into a modern valentine's heart. He filled it in with a smiley face and pronounced it 'mu-oot-a-ka, the ancient god of love'.

My wonder at working with the legendary yowie-hunter began to fade at this point somewhat.

He also claims to have found an Egyptian pyramid between Brisbane and Gympie (er, yeah, no-one else would have noticed it, huh?) and a variety of ever-more crack-brained ideas that don't hold any water whatsoever. I feel it's a terrible shame when one of your idols falls in such a manner, especially one that is known by many. The media has a field day with this guy because on one hand he is respected, but stick around him for ten minutes or so and you'll find something he says that will have the TV audiences rolling in the aisles with laughter and saying 'ha! those crazy cryptozoologists!'. As a matter of fact, Rex has no formal schooling in archaeology, zoology, or anthropology. Areas he claims to be an expert in.

In short: The yowie DOES exist. I've seen one with my own eyes, in bushland in a national park, with no other humans around for a hundred kilometers (so the 'theoretical guy in a gorilla suit' would have been sweltering in the hot aussie sun for some time before I came along). Rex HAS been instrumental in getting the crypto-fauna of Australia thrust into the public eye again and again (in the early days things he said have often been proven correct later). It's his later unscientific methods and ridiculous pronouncements that muddy the waters and throw a shadow of doubt upon nearly everything else that he has said. It's a terrible shame and something I lament.

If anyone wants to get something that addresses the possible existance of many of Australia's crypto-fauna, I STRONGLY recommend the book 'out of the shadows' by Tony Healy and Paul Cropper (ISBN 0330274996). It's the only one that I have found that stands up to scientific scrutiny, and it's my guidebook for whenever I go looking for strange occurrences in the Australian bush.