Jonathan Swift [1667-1745] in his book, “Gulliver’s Travels” [1726], described Australia long before the voyage of Captain James Cook RN [1770], with information which could only have come from ancient Chinese writings on the mysterious southern continent. He also described a primitive hairy race that inhabited that land as the Yahoos.

Jonathan Swift
Photo courtesy of the British Information Service, London UK.

The Yowie Mystery - Living Fossils from the Dreamtime.

Copyright © 2007 by Rex Gilroy
All rights reserved
First Edition

Rex and Heather Gilroy are recognised internationally as Australia’s foremost relict hominid researchers. This book celebrates Rex Gilroy’s 50 years as the ‘father’ of Yowie research. Rex and Heather are also recognised internationally as one of the world’s foremost husband and wife research teams in the field of ‘Unexplained’ mysteries.

These daring and outspoken researchers are no friends of the Australian hard-core, narrow-minded scientific establishment, who would prefer that books of the kind produced by the Gilroys were prevented from publication.

When not carrying out field work, Rex and his wife Heather [a Registered Nurse/Midwife by profession] are at home writing books, surrounded by their huge reference library of books on all manner of scientific subjects. Besides their many and varied researches, Rex and Heather Gilroy are also involved in community service work as members of the Rotary Club of Katoomba.

Dead Horse Gap, near Thredbo. This wild region of the Snowy Mountains has been a “hairy man” locale since the first years of 19th century settlement hereabouts.

During June 1999 a stockman was riding his horse through wild scrub overlooking the road near where this photo was taken, when he spotted a number of “huge man-like footprints” in a mud patch.

Dead Horse Gap
Photo copyright © Rex Gilroy 2007

Excerpts from - "The Yowie Mystery" - Living Fossils from the Dreamtime.
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CHAPTER TWO
DREAMTIME TALES OF THE HAIRY PEOPLE

We have seen how our early European settlers were made aware of the ‘hairy man’ in all his incarnations by the Aborigines they befriended. Let us now study the ancient tribal traditions of these mysterious hominids of Dreamtime Australia. The myths and legends of the early tribespeople concerning the ‘hairy man’ were recorded over a wide area of the Australian mainland as well as Tasmania by early anthropologists and other researchers. These once again as with the early European sighting claims and close encounters, fall into three categories, namely beings of average human height, pygmy and giant-size.

The best known ‘hairy man’ was undoubtedly that which existed throughout the eastern Australian mountain ranges. They were known by many names depending upon the numerous dialects spoken by the Aborigines, but all translated to the same meaning – “hairy man”. This same being exists elsewhere in Australia under many more names, all meaning the same thing.

These Yowies were described as standing, in the case of males, at up to 2m, even 2.6m in height at times. They were often strong, muscular-looking beings, with long head hair with hairy chests, but otherwise they would have looked no more hairy than average modern European males today. The females were smaller, at around 1.5m in height, with even less hair than the males but for their long head hair. They were lighter built, with long pendulous breasts in the case of older females who had had children. The heads of these beings were distinct from those of the Aborigines, being long and narrow in shape [ie doliocephalic], with low foreheads and thick, projecting brow ridges.

If, as seems likely, that this ancient description of the Yowie is correct [and Aboriginal knowledge of past species of Ice-Age times has been proved to be quite accurate], then the general appearance of the primitive beings recalls Homo erectus, as will be further demonstrated. According to the Aborigines, the sounds emitted by these hairy people varied from grunts to a crude speech, and they signalled one another with loud cries, or else among hunters when in sight of their prey, with silent gestures.

That Homo erectus was capable of speech is a subject to which we shall return. These ‘hairy people’ were not called so because they were covered in hair, as I have already stated, but because they wore marsupial hide cloaks crudely sewn together, the hair of these being responsible for the supposed ‘hairy’ appearance of the Yowies. Our Aboriginal people are adamant that the ‘hairy people’ made fire by friction, using the same methods as the Aborigines. They manufactured crude stone, wood and bone tools; killing animals for food as well as feeding upon nuts, berries, roots and other vegetable food.

They were hunter-gatherers like the Aborigines, constantly on the move from one location to the next following the food chain. In the short time that they would occupy a rock shelter they were ‘territorial’ in the sense that they might chase away others of their kind. However, and the Aborigines were adamant about this point, the ‘hairy people’ never erected ‘territorial markers’, such as placing broken tree limbs or stakes against tree trunks etc to ‘mark out’ their ‘territory’! The Yowies roamed the forests and open plains in the old days, either as single individuals in search of food, or in pairs of males, a male and female or in family groups of adult males and females with children.

Sometimes two or three families might band together but the tribal concept as such did not exist. Aboriginal accounts often refer to a single individual, ie the hairy Man; the Hairy Woman; the Doolagharl; the Pankalanka etc when in reality they were referring to an entire population. Thus, when the tribespeople of western Victoria in the old days told early European settlers about the Ngaut-Ngaut, The blood-sucking hairy man who was said to kill and eat any Aborigines and whites who strayed into his domain, they were speaking of a race, a population, and Ngaut-Ngaut beings were said to roam the countryside in search of their prey.

They were of average human height and also known as Dyirri-Dyirritch to the Swan Hill district tribespeople, who told Europeans that these cannibals preyed upon Aborigines throughout the Murray River district of New South Wales/Victoria. They said that the Dyirri-Dyirritch would dig a deep trench in which he placed an upright spear, and then camouflage the top with bracken. Any Aborigines falling in would be impaled on the spear, after which Dyirri-Dyirritch would roast and eat his victim.

Rex Gilroy
Australian Yowie Research Centre,
Katoomba, NSW
Monday 25th June 2007

Australian Yowie Research Index | Entire Web site © Rex & Heather Gilroy | URU Publications ® ™ Rex & Heather Gilroy. All Rights Reserved

Excerpts from - "The Yowie Mystery" - Living Fossils from the Dreamtime.
| Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9 | Ch 10 | Ch 11 | Ch 12 | Ch 13 | Ch 14 | Ch 15 | Ch 16 | Ch 17 | Ch 18 |
Mysterious Australia | Entire Web site © Rex & Heather Gilroy | URU Publications ® ™ Rex & Heather Gilroy. All Rights Reserved

Australian Yowie Research Centre Est...1976 by Rex Gilroy for the sole purpose of Scientific Study of the Australian Hairy - man
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