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animal, which the natives call Bun-yip, of which | could never see any part except the back, which appeared to be covered with feathers of a dusky-grey colour. It seemed to be about the size of a full-grown calf, and sometimes larger. The creatures only appear when the weather is very calm and the water smooth. | could never learn from any of the natives that they had seen either the head or tail, so that | could not form a correct idea of their size, or what they were like. When alone | several times attempted to spear a Bun-yip; but had the natives seen me do so it would have caused great displeasure. And again, had | succeeded in killing, or even wounding one, my own life would probably have paid the forfeit; they considering the animal something supernatural." settler, E. S. Hall, who later became Coroner and founder of the Bank of New South Wales, stated that in November 1821 in Lake Bathurst, a small body of water surrounded by a much larger area of reed beds, he heard and saw an aquatic animal:’ "One fine morning in November 1821, | was walking by the side of the marsh which runs into Lake Bathurst, when my attention was attracted by a creature casting up the water and making a noise, in sound resembling a porpoise, but shorter and louder: the head only was out of the water. At the distance | stood it had the appearance of a bull-dog's head, but perfectly black; the head floated about as though the animal was recreating itself; it cut up the water behind, but the quantity thrown up evinced nei- ther strength nor bulk; it remained about five minutes, and then disappeared. | saw it at a greater distance afterwards, when it wore the same appearance." mgt rr rrr ee ee ees The Wergaia language people who inhabited the northwestern when it wore the same appearance." portion of Victoria, bounded by Dimboola, Lake Albacutya, Yanac and Warracknabeal, He went on to describe how his overseer knew of two different kinds of bunyip. One had shot one at daybreak after it rose from species they called a banib (pronounced the water and lay at full length, measurin “bunnip"), which resembled a wee black pig . Charles La Trobe, 1.5 metres jong. on the reeds and it then and lived in Lake Hindmarsh; while a second first Governor of the rolled over and disappeared. Other sightings Moomipaionse nek vee aelage | POrt Phillip district, i es ante fain and dark but with an elongated neck, and began receiving reports another good view of the animal in the sum- lived in Lake Albacutya.’ i i mer of the following year:* Charles La Trobe first Governor of the of large aquatic animals "In December last, Mr Forbes and | Port Phillip district, began receiving reports from settlers as they were bathing at the eastern end of the of large aquatic animals from settlers as they spread out over the lake, where an arm runs among the new frontier. spread out over the new frontier. From the descriptions of both Europeans and Aborigines, he also began to believe honeysuckles. As | was dressing, a creature, at a distance of about 130 or 150 yards [117 to 135 metres], that there were two species of bunyip. inti suddenly presented itself to my In 1847 he wrote of a northern and a From the descriptions view; it had risen out of the water southern species and managed to pro- of both Europeans and before | perceived it, and was which were subsequently lst? iad WOES) iace with therapy of@ Whale which were subsequently lost. . - However, further drawings of the began to believe that boat, as it appeared to me at the two species by Aboriginal artists have there were two species time. Its neck was long, appar- come down to us in Brough Smyth's of bunyi ently about three feet [0.9 metre] The Aborigines of Victoria (1878).* ip. out of the water, and about the One of these drawings was the work of an unnamed Murray River Aborigine in 1848 and depicts the pig-like banib. The other drawing was the work of Kurruk, under the direction of a tribal thickness of a man's thigh; the colour a jet black; the head was rather smaller in circumference than the neck and appeared sur- rounded by black flaps which elder of the people of Western Port, and depicts the second bunyip seemed to hang down, and gave it a most novel and strik- species, described as having a head and neck like an emu and ing appearance. The body was not to be seen; but, from known in their language as a too-roo-don. This type of bunyip the rippling of the water, | judged it to be longer than the was said to have four legs, each with three emu-like webbed toes, neck. After it had continued for 300 yards [274 ml], | though the drawing has only two emu-like legs. turned to ascertain if Mr Forbes had also seen it, and on looking again it had dived and was seen no more." CADIV CIALITIAICC IAI AIDCVAS CANLITLIAAIAL CO Charles La Trobe, first Governor of the Port Phillip district, began receiving reports of large aquatic animals from settlers as they spread out over the new frontier. From the descriptions of both Europeans and Aborigines, he also began to believe that there were two species of bunyip. EARLY SIGHTINGS IN NEW SOUTH WALES Further north in New South Wales, explorers and settlers were also reporting their sightings of large, unknown, aquatic animals. On 5 April 1818, explorers Hamilton Hume and James Meehan found skulls and bones on the edge of Lake Bathurst, 40 kilome- tres south of the present city of Goulburn, which they believed came from an animal that they thought may have been a native hippopotamus or perhaps a freshwater dugong. The Philosophical Society of Australasia offered to reimburse Hume for any expens- es incurred if he would return to the lake to obtain a specimen.° In a letter to the Sydney Gazette of 27 March 1823, a new Further sightings of this long-necked species were reported from New South Wales by the explorer William Hovell in his travels along the Murrumbidgee River. He was told by the differ- ent tribes of Aboriginal people he encountered of an aquatic ani- mal that they referred to as katenpai, kinepratia and tanatbah, according to their different tribal languages. Although their names for the animal were different, the descriptions were very similar. Each time it was described as being an aquatic animal with a body up to the size of a bullock, with an elongated neck and head resembling an emu, a mane that 60 = NEXUS www.nexusmagazine.com DECEMBER 2001 — JANUARY 2002