In light of what we’ve learned about the Yowie legend’s mythical and legendary roots in ancient Aboriginal Australia, as well as the fossil and archaeological evidence available, it appears that the “hairy man” was/is of more than one race. This is supported by eyewitness accounts from early European settlers, as well as new evidence from around Australia gathered by the author.
All of these varieties of “hairy men” were referred to as “hairy men” by our Aboriginal ancestors, including the “big hairy men” and the “small hairy men,” both of which were found in Aboriginal traditions throughout Australia.
Many of the “little hairy people,” such as the Atherton Tableland ‘pygmy’ Aboriginals, were smallish forest dwellers, and it seems certain similar forms of these once inhabited [or still do] the mountainous forestlands further south, even to Tasmania – but others have been claimed to exist in Australia’s interior, including in Tasmania.
But what about the tiny, hairy ape-like creatures shown in Aboriginal art?
In the Aborigines’ view, they are not the children of the bigger animals of this sort; they are a distinct pygmy-size race of their own, having both herbivorous and omnivorous tool-making, and even fire-making forms.
Prior to discussing the modern-day evidence of bigger relict hominid and hominoid versions of the “hairy man,” this chapter will focus on the “small hairy people.”
Throughout my efforts to solve the mystery of the Yowie, I’ve had to navigate a maze of hominid and hominoid forms, often connecting a number of giant or smaller-size “hairy men” known by many different Aboriginal names scattered across vast distances of Australia under one single race or another. The term “hairy man” was applied by the Aborigines to all non-Aboriginal races with whom they shared this continent, whether they were ‘hairy’ or not.
I have collected over 3,000 case histories and other evidence over the course of over
I’m confident in the evidence I’ve put out.
I’ll be vindicated in the end.
In Queensland’s far north, there remains a riddle that has yet to be solved despite the region’s long history of European colonization.
The Birranbindins, a prehistoric stone-age people sometimes mistaken for the Yowie in ancient mythology and referred to as the “Junjdy” or “small hairy red men,” have a long history that includes both Aboriginal and European traditions.
To some extent, they represent one of Queensland’s few remaining populations of extinct pygmy tribes.
Little black-skinned hairy indigenous people who lived in the woods, little higher than one to three feet, ate wild plants and animals as well as any Aborigines they came across.
When the Aborigines had the chance, they would hunt down and murder Birranbindins with brutality.
As a result, they were pushed even farther into the mountains.
To tell the truth, the Birranbindins were a timid and fearful tribe that avoided the Aborigines at all costs.
A long time ago, scholars speculated that these small woodland dwellers were a distinct race that had arrived in Australia before the Aborigines, due to their round heads and crinkly black hair.
As a native people that have spent centuries subsisting on forest foods in a darkish woodland environment, these physical characteristics are normal.
The north Queensland pygmies are Australoid, not Negroid, and possibly descended from the old Tasmanian Aborigines, whose characteristics were similar to those of the north Queensland pygmies, but the latter were somewhat taller.
Even still, the Aborigines on the coast and in the interior of Australia did not consider these tiny Australoids to be their own species.
In reference to their fine body hair, which might sometimes be reddish in color, they were called as the ‘Jundjdy,’ or ‘small hairy red guys,’ linking them closely to the Yowies.
The ‘Junjdy’ traditions extend over the mountain ranges of far north Queensland, but they were also known in the Gulf area and Arnhem Land, as will be shown.
Tribal communities may be found in southern Queensland, far northern New South Wales, as well as the rough mountain area north of Sydney’s Blue Mountains west of the city.
Others will be encountered in Central Australia and Kanangra Boyd National Park, both south-west of Katoomba in the southern coastal mountain ranges, and farther down the coast in the southern coastal mountain ranges.
They were known as Junjdy, Birranbindin, and Yidigii by coastal Aborigines 125 years ago, when European immigrants first learned about them from the coastal Aborigines.
After just a few attacks, the Birranbindins had become a nuisance, stealing food and slaughtering livestock from isolated farms.
Retaliation by the settlers and a plea for police protection quickly followed.
Atherton’s first policeman Constable Hansen was sent to provide rations to the indigenous Aborigines of the Herbert River district, west of Ingham, QLD, in order to reduce the number of foraging raids on settlers’ crops.