Book Review:The Yowie: In Search Of Australia's Bigfoot

The Yowie: In Search Of Australia's Bigfoot  by Tony Healey  and Paul Cropper, 

Anomalist Books,2006 (Foreword by Loren Coleman)

The idea of a bipedal ape 7-10 feet tall (sometimes smaller, on rare occasions, taller) is, of course, ridiculous- another version, perhaps, of the infamous Drop Bear, the mythical Australian creature used to frighten children and foreigners.  Yet from the present day to first settlement, and before that into antipodean antiquity, this ape has been reported by both indigenous inhabitants and newcomers.  It has been called the Yowie or Yahoo, an Australian answer to the Sasquatch, "Abominable" Snowman and dozens of other upright simians that haunt forests and deserts, the remote place of the World.

Tony Healy and Paul Cropper's 1994 book Out of the Shadows- Australia's Mystery Animals was a fairly detailed look at some of Australia's best known cryptids like the Bunyip, Thylacine and Marsupial Lion.  There was also a chapter on the Yowie, and this book is a far more detailed examination of this perplexing mystery.  Split into 7 chapters and 2 appendixes (one, "A Catalogue of Cases", running to about 100 pages, a third of the book) the book looks at sightings in both the Colonial and modern era, "hot spots" (places with a consistent history of sightings) and habituations, which have always struck me as too good to be true. But people like Neil Frost and Ian Price in the unnamed Blue Mountains town who along with a few other people have reported interaction with the creatures over a period of time, seem down-to-earth people with no obvious gain and probably more to lose by talking openly about it.  The authors also spend a bit of time on other Yowie researchers like Dean Harrison and Timtheyowieman- really!- and of course Rex Gilroy of whom one gets the impression has more enthusiasm than discernment.

There are closer looks at some of the enounters mentioned in the Case histories, and sightings by a couple of better known people- Bill O'Chee, now a National Party senator who along with about 20 other students from Southport School saw a Yowie in what is probably the best multiple witness sighting.  There is also Major Les Hiddens who while guiding some scientists through dense rainforest between Millaa Millaa and Cairns came across a sleeping mat made from vegetation- one of the scientists, Dr. John Campbell, commented that "If I was anywhere else but Australia, I would have to say that was a primate nest".  The book also looks at the Yowie in Indigenous Australian culture and folklore and again there is a long history of interaction with the creatures, including distant histories of fighting with them... memories of battles with Neanderthals?  It sounds unlikely, but the authors observe one indigenous tribe who have oral histories of volcanoes that have been extinct for thousands of years.  One chapter is dedicated to the Junjudee, a smaller hominid that Healey and Cropper are inclined to see as juvenile Yowies, but also acknowledge that indigenous people (those who talk about it) see the Junjudee and Yowie as distinct entities.  There is also a look at several places in the book at English names and origins of the term "Yowie" ("Yahoo" is almost certainly thanks to Jonathan Swift) as well as Australian places with suggestively simian names in both native and Western languages.

Still, as Ian Simmons comments in a recent book review in Fortean Times, "The plural of anecdote is not proof, it's anecdotes".  Physical evidence is not non-existent but it is rare, and the footprints in particular are more perplexing than illuminating- while there are "traditional" footprints similar to prints elsewhere in the world, there are also three toed and even two toed prints on record.  The authors offer a series of possible explanations at the end, from outright hoaxing to the "paranormal" (my least favourite suggestion, I have to admit- that makes a nonsense of serious scientific research) but they admit that all the suggestions have problems- the descriptions are generally historically consistent in terms of appearance and behaviour (and smell!!) but it is difficult to see how such creatures could remain hidden so long.  Ultimately, the choices are that the Yowies are  phantoms, real

creatures or complete myth, and by the end of this book we are no closer to an answer.  But this book is a fascinating and objective evaluation that at least demonstrates there is a real mystery to be solved, and one that belongs on any serious Fortean's bookshelf.

I really should start using this blog again - it's starting to get spam. Been an interesting couple of years since the last time I posted anything. I actually feel for the first time in a long time (if ever) that I have become more mature in my faith, which means less reactionary to things I disagree with, and actually desiring to learn the Bible rather than impress my own views on to the text. But then, I sometimes feel like I didn't reach adolescence till my 30's...

Of Sea Monsters and their existence...

Having once gotten in to trouble for mentioning offhand that I "believe" in Sea Monsters, a quote I never quite lived down (rather hard to argue the Fortean mindset of "equal opportunity" scepticism) I thought I'd share a comment I made on the Forteana list in reply to an article about the Loch Ness Monster as mythical being...

"I recently finished reading Michael Meurger's excellent Lake Monster Traditions, which should be required reading for any Lake Monster enthusiasts, and certainly is relevant to other areas of Cryptozoology and Forteana in general (especially UFOlogy and psychic phenomena). I think I intended to read this years ago after reading a ten star review from the ever-reliable Bob R in an old edition of FT. While Meurger never out-right denies the possiblity of a large unknown, he does demonstrate that most Lake Monster beliefs are primarily a mix of cultural perception and traditions, in the case of the Americas two traditions (IE original inhabitants and the Jesuit missionaries and other settlers). IE any sighting of natural or unsusual phenomena gets interpreted as being the monster. It's simply Occam's razor. Then again, after the discussions of the Akkorokamui on Cryptomundo and in Matt Bille's excellent blog, I reread last night Michel Reynal's comprehensive article on the Giant Octopus in Fortean Studies Volume 1, and certainly see no reason why the Japanese Akkorokamui can't be an enormously exaggerated Giant cephalopod."

Matt C

This is my first post. I'm rather erratic and slack with blogging, but hopefully I will improve. I am 42, live in Brisbane, Australia, and I am currently working (slowly) on an MA on Oscar Wilde. I thought in my first I'd lay out some broad definitions for the three phrases in my blog name- I should have added something about literature and other art, which I am also passionate about, but I think that would have made the name even more unwieldy. Anyway, here are some rough definitions which will no doubt get refined or expanded over the life of this blog;

Christian: Basic Christianity is a) a personal belief in God as revealed in the old and new testament b) a personal sense of sin, of alienation from God because of that sin and c) a personal belief in Jesus Christ as God made incarnate and perfect, and crucified (by both Jews and Gentiles!) as the sacrifice that makes any who believe this done personally for them acceptable to god.

I refuse to call the right in America the "Christian Right"- "Religious Right" is the only applicable label. Christianity is not a Fundamentalist belief, at least in the sense of the word today (the earliest Fundamentalists had a lot more brains, defending the Bible in terms of Fundamentals, not literalism) and sadly, the term "Evangelical" has also been stolen by the Religious Right to mean much the same thing. I suspect the original Evangelicals would have been appalled to see their beliefs coupled with the state. I can't speak for each individual, but I see the Religious Right today as the Pharisees of Jesus time, especially the so-called "Pro-Lifers" who oppose abortion but "protects ignorance by opposing family planning, sex education, and informed use of contraceptives, tactics that not only increase the likelihood of abortion, but tragedies like AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases." This was written by US historian Garry Wills (Wills: Bush's Fringe Government, NY Book Review, 2006:p56) about Jimmy Carter's new book Our Endangered Values, and he continues"The rigid system of the "pro-life" movement makes poverty harsher as well, with low minimum wages, opposition to maternity leave, and lack of health services and insurance." Carter himself demonstrates that American girls under this system of ignorance are 5 times more likely to have an unplanned pregnancy, 7 times more likely to have an abortion, than French girls, and 70 times more likely to contract std's as girls in Holland. It also seems ironic that "pro-lifers" seem mostly to support the war in Iraq and, increasingly, to attack Iran (at least some because of some delusional fantasy about the restoration of Israel, as promised in the Bible) though at last count the civilian body count in Iraq is somewhere between 74689 and 81394. The Pharisees were moralistic in the extreme, and it is they that Paul said "their feet are swift to shed blood... destruction and misery are in their ways, and they have not known the way of peace". (Romans 3) Some people have accused me in the past of being Anti-Christian, but I take no pleasure in wirting this. Dostoevsky's parable that stated that if Jesus returned to Earth as once did, he would be murdered by the religious leaders again is, sadly, as true today of Western "Christianity" as it was in his day. Jimmy Carter, who incidentally is anti-abortion himself, was the US's only obviously Christian President in living memory (IE who lived, rather than just professed it, to gain votes) and he was slandered and hounded from office by the same people who put Nixon and Bush into power. And it is a sad fact that (both positive and negative) media concentration on the Religious Right equate it in the eyes of non-Christians with "Christianity", although it is far removed from anything resembling New Testament Christianity. Some other things the media and religious types propagate Christianity as being- and it is not- are:


Patriotism God does not love the USA or any country more than another. It is a personal relationship, not a state or political one. The idea that God loves the USA, Australia or any other Western Nation is a Satanic lie that obscures the truth. Ditto for the "God, guns and guts" people, the New Testament in fact elevates self-sacrifice and humility and peace-making over triumphalism, violence and power as the mark of the Christian. Triumphalism and church power in state affairs is the mark of Anti-Christ.

A means to get rich The idea that "God wants you to be rich" is a clear distortion of the Bible, which actually insists that for many Christians, persecution, hardship and worse will be the reality, that peace and prosperity is not necessarily a sign of God's favour (though it may be). The "name it and claim it" "gospel" is, quite frankly, a lie.

Anti-Intellectual Although given the coverage of the Religious Right in the media you would be forgiven for thinking so. Years ago my pastor gave this advice to a non-Christian struggling with creation/evolution debate (which is a huge red herring anyway), "Never trust a church that that asks you to hand your brain in at the door". A belief in Christ is, perhaps, counter-intuitive, but it is as much an awakening of the mind as it is the heart. Christians have their Bible and their brain to lead them, and the best leaders of the Church down the ages- from Paul and Augustine, to Luther and Calvin, right through to Barth and Lewis (to pick a few almost at random!) were intellectuals, knowledgeable in both secular and Christian literature, and, I assume, the Bible in it's original language and context. The Bible itself drew from contemporary sources and literary forms, and it is important, certainly for anyone seeking to be a Christian leader, to be familiar with the original languages and historical context of both the Old and New Testament. And the best Christian colleges, at least in Australia, prefer their students to have degrees from real, state-recognised Universities.

As an introductory blog, this turned into something more complex and perhaps more vehement than I originally intended, so I won't even begin to embark on my definitions of Marxist (which should probably be better defined "leftist", but I can't change the blog name again, and anyway, not sure if ChristianLeftistFortean has the same ring!) and Forteana, a term (broadly speaking, examining anomolous phenomena intelligently from a neutral position, following the evidence objectively rather than allowing it to be interpreted through credulity or outright disbelief) probably not familiar to most people, and seen by categorised wrongly by some who do as new age or fringe science. Of course, all academic disciplines, from history and literary studies to science and anthropolgy should be approached the same way- evidence shaping belief, not belief shaping the interpretation of evidence.

Till next time...