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REVIEWS < THE YOWIE: In Search of Australia's creature may have hypnotic and interdimen- Bigfoot sional capabilities. They also include a by Tony Healy and Paul Cropper chapter on "Littlefoot", the junjudee, a one- Strange Nation, Sydney, Australia, 2006 metre-tall, hairy ape-man speculated to be a ISBN 978-0-646-46964-5 (320pp tpb) separate species from the yowie (see article Available: Australia—Mackay's Books, tel ™ this edition). For a sneak peak, visit the (02) 9876 6332, email mackays@net- , authors' website http://www. yowiefile.com. space.net.au; UK, USA—Amazon.com ris incredible that the prolific sightings of ASBESTOS HOUSE: The Secret yowies by Aborigines and European set- History of James Hardie Industries tlers have resulted in no skeletal or fossil by Gideon Haigh evidence that would utterly prove their exis- Scribe, Carlton Nth, Vic, Australia, 2006 tence. The yowie, a hairy ape-man of huge —_ ISBN 1-920769-62-5 (442pp tpb) stature (3-4 metres) that inhabits remote Available: www.scribepub.com.au mountainous and forested regions of A carian joumalist Gideon Haigh has Australia, has similarities with the North written a sobering history of asbestos American Sasquatch and the Himalayan yeti —_ products producer James Hardie Industries which also have eluded science. Ltd (established in Sydney in 1888), and the In their fascinating book The Yowie (with suffering endured by thousands of people foreword by US cryptozoologist Loren who were involved in the production and Coleman), Tony Healy and Paul Cropper use of its products. Not only does Haigh keep an open mind about the existence of present a picture of the evolution of this elusive creature. They have interviewed Australia's industrialisation and the paternal- istic attitudes of many early entrepreneurs, TH= Youl= he discusses the unfolding of medical under- fy Search of Aunirodia's Bight standing of asbestos-related diseases. eS It wasn't until the 1920s that studies in the = rid UK and US proved how damaging asbestos fibres are to the lungs. The Australian health authorities introduced safety guide- lines, but that didn't mean these were enforced. The company, knowing by then of the dangers of asbestos, met only minimal safety requirements. At some Hardie and subsidiary factories, the air was so thick with the dust that workers couldn't breathe through their masks after five minutes. Hardie's management had to ensure supply . . of its raw material, and despite several disas- 120 eyewitnesses and present compelling —_—_trous operations in the previous decades testimony from these and other cases in their decided in 1947 to establish a blue asbestos over 280 files, along with maps, sketches, mine at Wittenoom in Western Australia, photos of footprints and plaster casts of today a ghost town. Not only a bad econom- prints, colonial archival material and tl e ic choice, it was a shocker for the locals’ only known photo of the head of a yowie health. Yet Australia embraced the cheap with glowing red eyes (reproduced in b&w). building material while thousands were con- This photo was taken by anthropology grad- — qemned to death. JHIL stopped using uate and schoolteacher Neil Frost, who, asbestos in 1987, but asbestos disease can along with family and neighbours, has seen take decades to emerge. Survivors are still the creature on many occasions in the last waiting for compensation payouts, stymied the. decades around his home on the edge of in 2001 when Hardie severed itself from lia- the rugged Blue ountains usane bilities to victims, set up a compensation Healy and Cropper, who ve been stu ying fund that could not cover all the claims, and the yowie phenomenon since the mid-1970s transferred its operations to Amsterdam. (and wrote about it in their 1994 book Out of Now Hardie's directors are facing fines and the Shadows), document evidence from the perhaps criminal charges " Aborigines, from early colonial records and Haigh includes interviews with sufferers. from sightings reports up to the present day, Hardie and industry executives, financial , including from reliable witnesses such as wa im rangers, surveyors, zoologists and SAS and legal insiders as well as extracts of court Bers, YOrs, s! : proceedings, company records and founding members. They summarise the evidence, family papers in this hard-to-put-down including the yowie's bad stench and the fear exposé with ramifications for corporate invoked in humans and domesticated ani- social and environmental responsibility mals, and they speculate on whether the everywhere. A sad and cautionary tale. creature may have hypnotic and interdimen- sional capabilities. They also include a chapter on "Littlefoot", the junjudee, a one- metre-tall, hairy ape-man speculated to be a separate species from the yowie (see article in this edition). For a sneak peak, visit the authors' website http://www.yowiefile.com. 72 * NEXUS APRIL — MAY 2007 www.nexusmagazine.com