Mythical Beasts

Bunyip (Aboriginal mythology)

The bunyip or kianpraty is a large mythical creature from Aboriginal mythology, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes. The origin of the word bunyip has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba language of Aboriginal people of South-Eastern Australia. However, the bunyip appears to have formed part of traditional Aboriginal beliefs and stories throughout Australia, although its name varied according to tribal nomenclature. Various written accounts of bunyips were made by Europeans in the early and mid nineteenth century, as settlement spread across Australia.

Meaning

The word bunyip is usually translated by Aboriginal Australians today as "devil" or " evil spirit". However, this translation may not accurately represent the role of the bunyip in Aboriginal mythology or its possible origins before written accounts were made. Some modern sources allude to a linguistic connection between the bunyip and Bunjil, "a mythic 'Great Man' who made the mountains and rivers and man and all the animals." The word bunyip may not have appeared in print in English until the mid 1840s.
By the 1850s, bunyip had also become a "synonym for imposter, pretender, humbug and the like" in the broader Australian community. The term bunyip aristocracy was first coined in 1853 to descibe Australians aspiring to be aristocrats. In the early 1990s it was famously used by Prime Minister Paul Keating to describe members of the conservative Liberal Party of Australia opposition.
The word bunyip can be still found in a number of Australian contexts including placenames such as the Bunyip River (which flows into Westernport Bay in southern Victoria) and the town of Bunyip, Victoria.

Characteristics

Descriptions of bunyips vary widely. George French Angus may have collected a description of a bunyip in his account of a "water spirit" from the Moorundi people of the Murray River before 1847, stating it is "much dreaded by them... It inhabits the Murray; but...they have some difficulty describing it. Its most usual form...is said to be that of an enormous starfish" Robert Brough Smyth's Aborigines of Victoria of 1878 devoted ten pages to the bunyip, but concluded "in truth little is known among the blacks respecting its form, covering or habits; they appear to have been in such dread of it as to have been unable to take note of its characteristics." However, common features in many nineteenth century newspaper accounts include a dog-like face, dark fur, a horse-like tail, flippers, and walrus-like tusks or horns or a duck like bill.
The "Challicum bunyip", an outline image of a bunyip carved by Aborigines into the bank of Fiery Creek, near Ararat, Victoria, was first recorded by The Australasian newspaper in 1851. According to the report, the bunyip had been speared after killing an Aboriginal man. Antiquarian Reynell Johns claimed that until the mid-1850s, Aboriginal people made a "habit of visiting the place annually and retracing the outlines of the figure [of the bunyip] which is about 11 paces long and 4 paces in extreme breadth."

Debate over origins of the bunyip

Non Aboriginal Australians have made various attempts to understand and explain the origins of the bunyip as a physical entity over the past 150 years.
Writing in 1933, Charles Fenner suggested it was likely the "actual origin of the bunyip myth lies in the fact that from time to time seals have made their way up the ...Murray and Darling (Rivers)." He provided examples of seals found as far inland as Overland Corner, Loxton and Conargo and reminded readers "the smooth fur, prominent 'apricot' eyes and the bellowing cry are characteristic of the seal."
Another suggestion is that the bunyip may be a cultural memory of extinct Australian marsupials such as the Diprotodon or Palorchestes. This connection was first formally made by Dr. George Bennett of Australian Museum in 1871, but in the early 1990s palaeontologist Pat Vickers-Rich and geologist Neil Archbold also cautiously suggested that Aboriginal legends "perhaps had stemmed from an acquaintance with prehistoric bones or even living prehistoric animals themselves... When confronted with the remains of some of the now extinct Australian marsupials, Aborigines would often identify them as the bunyip."
Another connection to the bunyip is the shy Australasian Bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus). During the breeding season the male call of this marsh dwelling bird is a "low pitched boom," hence it is occasionally called the "bunyip bird."