Biography Wikipedia
Wikipedia:
Yowie is the term for an unidentified hominid reputed to lurk in the Australian wilderness. It is an Australian cryptid similar to the Himalayan Yeti and the North American Bigfoot.
The origins of the yowie (also "Yowie-Whowie" and yahoo) may lie in a mythological character in native Australian Aboriginal folklore. This creature's characteristics and legend are sometimes interchangeable with those of the bunyip. According to some writers, reports of yowie-type creatures are common in the legends and stories of Australian Aboriginal tribes, particularly those of the eastern states of Australia.
Origins of the term
The origin of the term "yowie" in the context of unidentified hominids is unclear. Some nineteenth century writers suggested that it simply arose through the aforementioned Aboriginal legends. Robert Holden recounts several stories that support this from the nineteenth century, including this European account from 1842;
Another story, collected from an Aboriginal source, seems to confirm the creature as a part of the Dreamtime.
On the other hand, Jonathan Swift's yahoos from Gulliver's Travels, and European traditions of hairy wild men, are also cited as a possible source.
Nineteenth Century eyewitness accounts
In the 1870s, accounts of ‘Indigenous Apes’ appeared in the Australian Town and Country Journal. The earliest account in November 1876 asked readers; “Who has not heard, from the earliest settlement of the colony, the blacks speaking of some unearthly animal or inhuman creature ... namely the Yahoo-Devil Devil, or hairy man of the wood ...”
In an article entitled “Australian Apes” appearing six years later, a Mr. H. J. McCooey, claimed to have seen an "indigenous ape" on the south coast of New South Wales;
McCooey offered to capture an ape for the Australian Museum for £40. According to Robert Holden, a second outbreak of reported ape sightings appeared in 1912. The yowie appeared in Donald Friend's Hillendiana, a collection of writing about the goldfields near Hill End in New South Wales. Friend refers to the yowie as a species of bunyip. Robert Holden also cites the appearance of the yowie in a number of Australian tall stories in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Contemporary accounts
Yowie reports have continued to the present day with the trail of evidence following the pattern familiar to most unidentified hominids around the world – i.e., eyewitness accounts, mysterious footprints of hotly-disputed origin, and a lack of conclusive proof. Some recently reported yowie incidents claim that the death and mutilation of household pets, such as dogs, are the result of yowie attacks. Other people claim that the animals' deaths can be attributed to attacks by wild animals such as dingoes.
Rex Gilroy
Since the mid 1970s, paranormal enthusiast Rex Gilroy, a self-employed cryptozoologist, has attempted to popularize the Yowie. He claims to have collected over 3000 reports of them and proposed that they comprise a relict population of extinct ape or Homo species.
