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 FIFTEEN
AN OVERVIEW OF AUSTRALIAN RELICT HOMINIDS
Part Two

The rugged eastern mountain ranges of Queensland, extending from the Lamington Plateau and MacPherson Range of the south-eastern border country all the way up to Australia’s northernmost point, Cape York, still contain many vast regions of inaccessible forest country seldom, if ever visited by man.

It is from these imposing rainforest-covered peaks and deep valleys that eerie stories of mysterious hairy man-like giants and pygmy folk have been emerging since the earliest years of European settlement in the 19th century. And these traditions are by no means confined to the east coastal and far northern mountain ranges for even in modern times people are reporting encounters with primitive hominids in remote out-of-the-way regions of the Central Queensland interior.

To the old costal Aboriginal tribes and also those of the interior, the land was inhabited by a host of hairy manbeasts. In the far west of the state, Aborigines feared the Pankalanka people, the firemaking giants who delighted in roasting and eating Aborigines, while tribes from the gulf country to the Atherton-Cape York wilds lived in equal terror of the Turramulli manbeasts and the slightly smaller ‘neo-giant’ Imjim creatures.

Further south to the border ranges of the Lamington and MacPherson country the tribes believed the forests were inhabited by the ‘Wolumbin’ and ‘Widgee’ giants. To further confuse matters the Cape York Aboriginal people feared the ‘Wirri Wirri’, a dwarf race whose men had pointed beards and carried spears barbed with snakes fangs, one prick from which meant death. There were also the ‘Junjdy’, the “little hairy red men”.

Obviously four races are involved. The features of the Pankalanka people [average 2.6-3m in height] resemble the Bulloo, Goolagah and Jogungs known to the traditions of the Aboriginal people of western and eastern New South Wales; whereas the Turramulli resemble the Gigantopithecus-like Jimbra, the terrifying ape-like monsters of old Western Australian Aboriginal lore.

The Imjim of Far North Queensland and Widgee of the southern border country were a primitive race of Homo erectus features, whereas the little Wirri Wirri and Junjdy hominids were one and the same people, ie the Negrito Aborigines of the North Queensland rainforests. The ‘hairy people’ of the remote Queensland wilds were regarded as no mere myths by our early pioneer settlers, and tales told to them by Aborigines were taken quite seriously.

The authors have gathered a great many accounts from throughout Queensland dating back at least to the mid-19th century. From our findings there is no doubt that the bulk of reports come from the eastern mountain ranges and forested coastal areas, particularly in the far north. It is to the eastern wilds that we shall concentrate our attention as with the previous chapter.

The reader will have noticed by now that there were many different names for the ‘hairy people’ besides the word ‘Yowie’. This name was principally employed by the Aboriginal peoples of the New South Wales south coast region approximately as far as the Wollongong district, northwards to the Newcastle/Hunter and Taree districts and inland across the Blue Mountains into the central west.

Yet there were many other names Australia-wide and the reader can pursue this aspect at greater length in our book “Giants from the Dreamtime – The Yowie in Myth and Reality”. Names for the ‘hairy men and women’ varied with the different tribal dialects but all had the same basic meaning, ie “Hairy Man”. Apart from the tribal names used in the chapters concerned with past and present-day sightings and close encounter claims, this book is largely concerned with the origins of the Yowie, the fossil evidence revealing ‘his’ Homo erectus origins and other scientific aspects virtually missing from the literature of our plagiarist rivals dealt with in this book.

The name ‘Yowie’ is used by the media and has been ever since they ‘discovered’ it from my press interviews back in the early 1970s. I use the name for convenience only where necessary. One hears the name used commonly by eyewitnesses and whenever I am interviewing anyone who has an experience to report, I have never failed to relate a short history of these hominids to the eyewitness and wherever possible I tell them the local Aboriginal name of these beings.

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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