Database: Sightings & Evidence 1920-1929

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Near Mt Royal 1920's

An interesting encounter of man and Beast

It was near Mt Royal one day, during the 1920's, that a bushman was riding about in search of cattle. As he rounded the lower end of a long, steep ridge extending up into higher country, he met a creature whose appearance stunned him for several minutes. The creature stood about 1.6 m tall but was tremendously wide and heavily-built, with an enormous chest, shoulders and long heavily-muscled arms reaching to below its knees, with hands far, far larger than any ordinary man's.

It had a huge head somewhat bullet-shaped, with half-monkey, half-human facial features, and it had long coarse-looking black hair covering its head and much of the body. As the bushmen steadied his horse while trying to comprehend the 'manimal' before him, it stood gazing at him with large, jet black (but not unfriendly) eyes. The horse displayed considerable fear, refusing to go any closer than the 10 m or so that presently seperated the bushman from the weird creature.

He addressed the hairy 'manimal' several times but 'he' made no sound, then after about tem minutes, turned around and moved off at a slow, shambling walk up along the far side of the ridge. It had only walked about 30 m when it stopped, turned around and to the rider's astonishment, began waving one huge hairy hand at him, as though inviting him to follow. The man's curiosity was aroused, so he began to follow at the same time reassuring his mount.

The 'manimal' appeared pleased that he was following, and would walk a short distance, then look back, wait until the rider was close, then move forward again, along a shelf formation running parallel with the ridge. The bushman followed the hairy manbeast for about three quarters of a kilometre, before he noticed that the shelf was becoming narrower, and it also became apparent that, where the shelf went around a sharp bend at the foot of a high, steep cliff, he would be unable to turn his horse around and which also prevented him from seeing what lay beyond.

Then when he was about 40 m from the bend, the weird creature broke into a shuffling, shambling run, vanished around the bend for a short time, then reappeared. Seeing that the man had stopped following it, the 'manimal' began beckoning to him even more enthusiastically than before. The man debated a while what he should do, at the same time keeping a wary eye on the creature and listening for any sounds that might suggest the presence of other similar animals nearby.

From where he was he could still back his horse around and make a quick getaway, whereas up ahead this was impossible. He remained there for about ten minutes, pondering what he should do. His curiosity told him to continue, and he might have, had his three cattle dogs been with him, for he would have left his horse and gone on foot; but his only defense if attacked was his heavy stockwhip (with which he felt he could hand out some punishment to any assailant). Even so, what if there was a whole mob of these creatures waiting for him around the bend.

Common sense won out and he turned his horse around and rode off slowly, looking behind him at the same time, to see what the 'manimal' would do next. When it realised he was leaving, the creature began following at a shambling, shuffling pace, at the same time beckoning him frantically to come back, and emitting a series of cries and grunts, as if pleading "Come back, Come back, I wont hurt you..."

The creature followed him for about half a kilometre beyond where the bushman had first encountered it. His last sight of the 'manimal' was of it gazing after him, with a sad, disappointed look on its face. The bushman never saw the creature again, even though he often returned to the scene alone, or with other men he sometimes took along. His tale of the 'Wild Man of Mt Royal' often met with ridicule.

However, local Aborigines used to warn the first European settlers of the district, to beware of hairy, human-like creatures of upwards 2.6 m height, who often emerged from a certain rocky gorge in search of meat-animal or human..

Upper Mulgrave River 1920's

Group of Birranbindins

During the 1920's an Aboriginal boy 'Kevin' was kidnapped as a baby by a group of Birranbindins on the upper Mulgrave River who raised him as if he were one their own. In his first 15 years no white man saw them, although they watched police and blacktrackers and others who entered their domain from the cover of the surrounding jungle. One day the boy stumbled upon an Aboriginal farmhand fencing in a remote area who spoke to him in Yidigii, and convinced him to leave the bush for civilisation, after which he was able to relate his story, and the daily life of the little forest folk.

For example, he related a distinctive cultural feature of these forest dwellers; the art of roasting the poisonous alkaloids from many of the seeds and nuts of the rainforest, then crushing them up and sifting the powdered remains so they can be eaten. Large piles of nutshells betray Birranbindin pygmy camp sites in the Qld jungles, and stone piles, believed to be their graves, which occur in many locations of these vast rainforests.

'Kevin' easily identified many of these sites for researchers over the years, and revealed much of the migratory patterns of the Birranbindin. He showed how they hunted birds at night along the Mulgrave River, and how they plucked every tiny feather from their kills, which they made into balls for easier transport. Kevin revealed that most of their feeding and hunting habits were nocturnal, although they used digging sticks in their search for vegetable foods by day.

Adelong Mid 1920's

Hairy Men

We now turn to the area covering the Australian Capital territory [ACT] and Southern Highlands, inland from the south coast, bounded to the south by the Australian Alps and to the north by the Burragorang Valley and southern Sydney region. It is a vast 'hairy man' habitat, especially the Brindabella Range bordering the western side of the ACT, beyond which lies the northern end of the Kosciusko National Park, Tumbarumba, Batlow, Tumut, Adelong and Gundegai, all rich in old prospector's tales of 'hairy men' seen in the mountains.

Even in the mid-1920's, my father, Mr WF [Bill] Gilroy, as a young gold miner, heard stories among the old prospectors at Adelong, of groups of 'hairy people' - males, females and their young - seen roaming through the mountains.

Gulf of Carpentaria 1920's

7 ft tall kalkadoon People

During the 1920's a tribe of up to 7ft tall [about 2.1m] Kalkadoon people was discovered living on the Gulf of Carpenteria coast of Arnhem Land. These overly tall Aborigines fished with nets and used water craft. They caught sea turtles and stingrays and hunted for game in the coastal scrub. Unfortunately for them, contact with Europeans soon brought attempts to 'civilise' them, and also diseases from which they eventually died out. These Kalkadoons resemble modern-day Aborigines but for their height.

Occasional sighting claims of giant-size Aborigines of 2.6m height have persisted for generations of white settlement in many parts of Australia's far north. If the Kalkadoons still survive today, there cannot be many left. This is partly due, claim the modern Aborigines, to the many wars that their forefathers fought with these people in ages past, for the domination of the land.

They say that, in the long-ago Dreamtime, the Kalkadoons were far more numerous; their territory extending roughly from around Broome and the desert basin in Western Australia into the Northern Territory's 'Red Centre', across into northern Qld. As I have said, other giant-size Aboriginal races were believed to wander other widely-scattered parts of Australia. I have heard Aboriginal tales of a larger-than-normal size Aboriginal race having roamed central western NSW, with others having inhabited Dreamtime Victoria and South Australia.

With at least two exceptions to be discussed presently, all appear to have resembled the modern Aboriginal people but for height and muscular build. The origins of these oversized Australoids remains a mystery, but as with their other, non-Aboriginal giant tool-making hominid and Yowie-type neighbours, it would appear that more than one race of giant Aboriginal people once shared this land.


Cardwell Range 1923

Cardwell Giant

The Cardwell Range, rising high above the coastal flats inland beyond the Tully River, begins inland from Cardwell township and extends northward up to Tully Falls National Park. A wild, rainforest-covered mountainous area, it is, say the Aborigines the home of the "Cardwell Giant".

Back in 1923, a large work gang was laying tracks on the railway line through to Cardwell. On a number of occasions they would emerge from their tents of a morning to find that during the night 'someone' had disturbed camp cooking utensils, upset tables and work gear, and left huge manlike footprints about the area. Word soon spread of the Cardwell Giant, which Aborigines of the district said was only one of the many hairy manlike beings that inhabited the surrounding forests. Workmen soon took to carrying guns while working on isolated sections of track.

One weekend the men left their camp to have a break in town some distance away. When they returned on the Monday morning they were dismayed to find their tents all torn down and equipment scattered and smashed. Huge footprints in the surrounding soil told them that the Cardwell Giant did not appreciate their presence in 'his' domain!.


West of Dubbo1924

2.6 m high Manbeast

One day in 1924, a Mr David Squires was kangaroo shooting in an area of open to thickly timbered country west of Dubbo. Having shot one big 'roo' on this particular afternoon, he was in the process of skinning it when, suddenly he became aware that he was not alone. Glancing up he was shocked to see, standing 10 metres away beside a tree, and with one huge hand resting upon it, a two legged male creature a good 2.6 m in height. At first he thought it must be someone who had "gone wild when he was younger", but the hominid's height soon dispelled that notion.

The manbeast appeared to be in splendid physical condition, and was covered with a thick coating of bluish-grey, coarse-looking curly hair about 8cm long. The body, arms, legs, hands and feet were in proportion to its height, as were the neck and head. Recovering his senses, Mr Squires slowly reached for his rifle, checked that it was loaded and the magazine full, and placing it beside him resumed skinning the 'roo'.

"I finished that job with one eye while the other was watching the Big Bloke", he said later. The creature had so far made no move nor sound, and continued watching Mr Squires for the next 10 minutes, staring inquisitively at him with large, grey-blue eyes, which he noticed, were set in facial features half-human, half-apelike. Then reaching up the tree trunk as far as it could, it scratched it in several places, before turning and walking slowly off into the scrub.

"I was tempted to drop it with the rifle just to see it I, or someone else could tell what it actually was; but I refrained from doing so, when I recalled how easily it could have killed me without a chance to defend myself", he told friends later. The next day, together with police, black trackers and other bushmen, he returned to the scene to try and track it.

Yet although the men searched an area of a couple of kilometres of the surrounding bushland, they found nothing, mainly because heavy rain the previous night had completely erased any signs of the mystery manbeast. When measured with a carpenter's tape, the distance from ground level to the top of the highest scratches made in the tree trunk by the creature, was a full 4.3 metres!


Tully 1925

Coo-e-e-es

Mr. Bates, first heard of the Yowies about 1905, while a child growing up at Caroda, which lies between Narrabri and Bingara.

Yet as he grew older Mr Bates became sceptical of the 'hairy man' tales of his childhood. That was, until one evening in 1925, when he met a man at Glendon near Singleton.

After learning that Mr Bates was a member of an old Pioneer family in that district, he asked him if he had ever heard of the 'Coories' [pronounced Coo-e-e-es] that once lived out in the scrub behind Minimbah Station during the pioneer days.

The man stated that his family had not only heard about, but also seen some of these strange creatures during the later part of the 19th century.

The Coories, he said, stood around 2.6 m tall, the males being very strong, muscular brutes, with deeply set eyes, and curly body hair; that on their heads being about 8 cm in length.