The Bunyip: Australia's Cryptid King

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

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The mythological creatures that fill today's horror literature and movies hail from faraway lands. Zombie tales originated in the Caribbean, while European folk tales gave us vampires and werewolves. But a vastly more terrifying creature lurks much closer to home: one that has haunted the dreams of Australian children and the imaginations of adults: the bunyip.

Bunyips are not at all funny, although recent children's books, plays and TV have made them seem that way. Rather, the bunyip is a fascinating emblem of cross-cultural contact in colonial Australia: an indigenous bogeyman that came to terrify European settlers.

The bunyip is that breath of cold air on the back of your neck in a closed room. It's that person staring at you in a crowded party, whose face you can't place. It's an anxious mystery that makes us doubt ourselves...which is why Australians have tried to laugh it off.

www.theage.com.au...

THE BUNYIP

The bunyip is a mythical creature that is native to Australia. It is also known as kianpraty. The Aborigine word “bunyip” translates into demon spirit. The Australian Aborigines believed in the Bunyip so thoroughly that it has been integrated as a part of their traditional ceremonies and stories.

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Love seeing these wonderful mythical creatures, would not surprise me if they were real millions of years ago, we have no way of knowing if they are not in the fossil record, archeology is finding and proving things existed that we thought were myth, we don't like to think there were monsters but if you look at todays animal kingdom there are many that are very strange looking.

reply to post by Aquarius1
Cool read!
The only bunyip I know of is on Rune Scape...

Seriously though, these things are incredible - and - the first time I heard they were something 'real' is today!

I especially liked this part:

While the bunyip was always large, amphibious and emitted a terrifying moan, no two accounts seem to agree about its physical appearance. In some descriptions it had a seal's flippers and sleek body; in others, scales or shaggy dark fur. It usually had tusks or horns, but its head could resemble a pig's, dog's, cow's or duck's.

link


Thanks! Learn something new every day

peace

reply to post by silo13


Thanks for posting, I was not familiar with the Rune Scape, I am also learning something new, interesting from the pictures how the Burnyip is interpreted, guess it's in the eye of the beholder.

The bunyip or kianpraty[1] is a large mythical creature from Aboriginal mythology, 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 Aboriginal people of South-Eastern Australia.[2][3][4] However, the bunyip appears to have formed part of traditional Aboriginal beliefs and stories throughout Australia, although its name varied according to tribal nomenclature.[5] In his 2001 book, writer Robert Holden identified at least nine regional variations for the creature known as the bunyip, across Aboriginal Australia.[4] Various written accounts of bunyips were made by Europeans in the early and mid nineteenth century, as settlement spread across Australia.

en.wikipedia.org...

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Another interpretation, now if I saw something like that it would definitely freak me out.