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away over the rocks. Mr Arden gave chase but soon lost sight of | A magical spirit the light-fingered Lilliputian. Henry Buchanan, a Kumbaingeri man of Nambucca Heads, Remarkable as they most certainly are, Mr Methven's and Mr NSW, said the junjudee has a material form—at least sometimes— Arden's stories seem straightforward reports of encounters with but is also a kind of magical elf/benevolent spirit. In 1976 he told some sort of apparently real, if extremely rare, animal or hominid. Macleay Argus correspondent Sue Horton:’ "The hairy man is just However, many—if not most—junjudee stories are (to the a little mite, like a little monk [monkey]. If you catch them, they "Western" mind, at least) not quite so down to Earth. are as good as the Lord. They do things for you." He claimed that they emerged from holes at Middle Head and that he had seen one Hairy creatures with occult knowledge there, but had been unable to cry out. "I couldn't make a sound," Frank Povah, a researcher, lecturer and writer of mixed he said. On being asked about the feasibility of trapping one, Mr Aboriginal and European ancestry, collected many stories about Buchanan said: "You can't catch him. No... He's a spirit, but he's the little hairy men and included them in his alive thing, too. As soon as you catch him, he fascinating book You Kids, Count Your goes into your blood and his spirit goes into Shadows’ Most of the tales were told by you. He's with you all the time. Any people Wiradjuri people, whose country covers about get sick...like might be dying, they...send for 87,000 square kilometres of central New you...and you say, ‘Listen, I want you to go to South Wales. Several of the stories contain this place’ and this [little] fellow knows where rather magical details, but while Frank sees the . to go. He...fixes it up. They call him 'the little little hairy men as "indigenous fairies ... [the] Testimony about the brown jack'." Aboriginal equivalent...of white Australian ' A After such a mind-bogglingly strange but folklore", he is open to the possibility that they creatures behaviour apparently sincerely told story, it would not be also have some kind of objective reality. His also contained minor surprising if many readers now feel that the informants provided fairly uniform li junjudee phenomenon should be written off as descriptions of the little beings, which they anoma les. a colourful, widespread, Aboriginal myth. But knew by various names, commonly yuurii: They were said to be if it is only a myth, how do we account for the "A little man about so high—a metre, say. Small, real small... Covered in hair with long nails and big teeth... Yuuriwinaa means hairy woman...about three feet [in height], a bit more. Real airy...teeth like a greyhound, big fangs..." A minority of informants said that males sometimes sported long beards, ut foul body odour was often mentioned: "real stinkin", "real smelly". They lived in mountain caves, in holes in the ground and in the gidji scrub. Like numerous sightings by non-Aborigines? quite harmless, but, paradoxically, most people seemed to be afraid of them. "It took off in a hell of a hurry..." In mid-1997, while driving along the Mount Lindsay Highway in northern NSW, Mark Pope of Bexhill, NSW, encountered what may well have been a junjudee:* "It was just on daybreak; I still had the headlights on. I was heading down to Tooloom, heading south. There's a State Forest there; it has massive white gums in it... [came around a corner...there was a Henry Methven, the Wiradjuri said the combination of my headlights and little men had feet that were quite human- enough [natural] light to see—just. There ike; but whereas he had seen five-toed tracks, they insisted the was something on the other side of the road. ..this thing looked like creatures had only four. Testimony about the creatures' behaviour _it had just crossed the road before I'd got there. It was about to go also contained minor anomalies. They were said to be quite into bushes on the other side, which was up a slight embankment. armless, but, paradoxically, most people seemed to be afraid of And it looked for all the world like it had heard me, stopped, them. Some parents used tales of the little men to scare children looked over its shoulder, and was looking to see what I was doing. away from dangerous locations, but others "always used to say to "If Thad to say it looked like anything, I'd say a chimpanzee. As the kids, ‘Don't be frightened of them". to whether it was a chimp, I'd say no, but something in the same One remarkable attribute seemed to place the little creatures line; I can't quite say what... As much as I could tell, it was firmly in the realm of fairy lore: they could speak, although they covered in hair. It was quite dark; dark brown or black. Its face...I would normally converse only with old, initiated, "clever men" in _ can't remember it very clearly, except that it seemed fairly flat. It "the lingo" (the Wiradjuri language). At least some Wiradjuri wasn't very big: about the height of a guidepost [about three feet believed the "little fellers" possessed considerable occult or one metre]... When it decided to move, it took off in a hell of a nowledge, "same as the high initiated people". Aborigines in hurry and used arms, legs and everything to claw its way up the some other parts of the country have similar beliefs. bank—and then it was gone." In 2002, an Aboriginal elder from the NSW south coast told In early October 1979, as they were driving west on the Wide naturalist Gary Opit of tribal lore that emphasised the junjudees' Bay Highway just before dusk, Mr and Mrs Roy Locke of supernatural nature and also their connection with children. He = Theodore, Queensland, saw a one-metre-tall hairy animal standing said that an ancient initiation ceremony involved children beside the road about 20 kilometres northeast of Murgon. Mrs smearing their bodies with blood and ochre and then bathing in Locke told the South Burnett Times that the creature had broad waterholes near Mumbulla Mountain. His people believed the shoulders and stood looking at them as they drove past. The little hairy men were then spontaneously created out of the blood Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve is only six kilometres south of and ochre as it flowed down the Murrah River. The elderhad seen | Murgon. When told of the Lockes' experience, Les Stewart, the little creatures himself. chairman of Cherbourg's Aboriginal Council, said: "There is a away over the rocks. Mr Arden gave chase but soon lost sight of the light-fingered Lilliputian. Remarkable as they most certainly are, Mr Methven's and Mr Arden's stories seem straightforward reports of encounters with some sort of apparently real, if extremely rare, animal or hominid. However, many—if not most—junjudee stories are (to the "Western" mind, at least) not quite so down to Earth. Testimony about the creatures’ behaviour anomalies. They were said to be quite harmless, but, paradoxically, most people seemed to be afraid of them. APRIL — MAY 2007 NEXUS +59 also contained minor www.nexusmagazine.com