Location: Northern, New South Wales
Event: Discussion from an Aboriginal P.O.V. (Point of View)
Date: 2000
Comment: We speak to various people with Aboriginal Heritage and find their stories fascinating
A discussion of aboriginal stories, and sightings, of "Hairy Men" with some young aboriginal men who live in Fingal and other areas.
K: The old people can communicate with them, the old people send them messages and things. They talk a lot about the "Little fulla's", but the "Hairy Men" are bigger, and just like a separate tribe of people, just like the aboriginal tribes. The old people say they are more human than animals.
The aboriginal, we do not see ourselves far from nature or the land, hence "Hairy Man" is another type of animal, just like humans are animals. And just as human beings live in societies, they were seen in groups like tribes but they didn't really interact with the aborigines, generally they would run off into the deep scrub.
One or two, usually of the smaller ones has attacked some men on mission. There are two types of the smaller ones, one type, nice and take care of children, and injured people, and the others very aggressive and naughty. I remember at one time, they let off people's handbrakes, and cars started rolling down the hill. Really mischievous ones, always playing games. If you cross them, they get a bit snakey.
B: The area that my parents from in west NSW, mostly the smaller ones in that area.
K: In my encounter, the one thing that stood out, was the eyes, big brown eyes, but a blank expression on its face, I remember it so clearly, it looked straight at me. It had no expression whatsoever, it makes me think now that it may have been sick.
One of my cousin's, married a girl from Casino. Her grandmother had brought her up. They went to live in Newcastle. It was a few months before they contacted her grandmother. They were laying in bed one night, and they heard footprints running through the house. She reckons that her Grandmother used to talk to one, and she had sent it up to check up on them and to make sure that she was OK. The girl got up straight away and rang her grandmother, who said to her " So he got there did he? He was checking up on you" We're not sure if they travel through time, but they are spiritual.
B: My cousin when he was a young boy, he used to go away all day. He said he was playing with the hairy ones. We saw one, once sitting on a 10- gallon drum, just swinging his legs.
K: We are brought up with a spiritual awareness, half of our whole life is the spiritual side - even people who have only lived in the city are aware. The little ones are spiritual, but not the "Big Hairy Men" you can touch them, and smell them. You know when I was standing in front of that one, it didn't even register, until he looked up straight into my eyes, and that is when I froze. I grabbed E, we were all around him, and then he screamed, that was when we took off.
The old ones, always told us not to go down by the lagoon, as that is where the "Hairy Man" lives. It makes sense, they have plenty to live off, fish, shellfish and bush food, there's plenty of plants, and wallaby.
In the old days, they tell us of one "Hairy Man" who used to live in a cave down on the beach. When the people were going up in to the mountains to hunt for other food, they would leave all their fishing spears, and anything else they didn't need in the cave, and the Hairy Man would look after them until they came back. They used to talk to each other, should I say communicate, as I don't know what language they used.
When the white people came, and started building, there was an old shed, and the Hairy Man, shifted from the cave and into the shed. But he was still solitary most of the time.
K: My Dad and one of my uncles used to come home from Primary school every day for lunch. On one day, they were screaming and mucking around, and a "Hairy fulla" came out of the bush waving a stick at them. They must have annoyed him with their noise. They were hysterical by the time they got home, and they didn't want to go back to school. But my Grandma made them go back. My Dad's 50 now, so it would have been in the late 1950's early 60's.
R: There were three of us camping, we would have been 11 or 12, and there was something up in a tree, shaking the tree. We had a dog with us. The thing jumped down and ran behind the tree. The dog chased it. We heard a big thud. The dog came back with a broken shoulder. The thing would have been about my size, about a metre high sitting down. They vary in height, it wasn't a big "Hairy Man", maybe a young one, about 1.5 metres tall. Around here we don't have very tall ones.
In the west, we had a weir, made of rocks where we put the fish traps. One day, the water was very low, and we were jumping form rock to rock. For one I had almost a 2 metre jump, so I backed up a bit to get a run up, and leapt to the other side. When I got to the other side, I could feel something. There was a full moon, and it would have been about 8 o'clock. I could see it running across the road. I still had ? kilometre to walk home. It was about 2 foot tall.
A lot of the areas, like Fingal and that, all have their own stories - different missions - different stories.
On the South Coast, they have stories about them picking up dogs and throwing them.
I remember one story of my grandmother when she was little, and her mother and some of the other women, went down to the creek. They saw a mother and a baby "Hairy Man". When they saw the people, they moved out of the water and up into the bushes. I remember one of the last things my grandmother said to me. The more and more the white people take away the bush, the more they are going to see them, as they will have nowhere to go.
B: Remember in the early 90's and they pulled one out of the water? There were big floods, it was dead and had washed down from up the valley. They called the police. They came straight out. They put him in a van and took off. We never heard anything else about it.
Another story, I think it was in Coonabarabran, they caught one and put it in the cells. It was going crazy, screaming and all. Some Chinese man just walked into the cells, and let it out.
Last year we were driving along the road by the cemetery, the place where K had his experience, and this thing came flying out of the bush, and then BANG!!! The care went up in the air. I turned to look out the back window, and nothing was there. If we had hit a roo or a wallaby, it wouldn't have got up. The thing wasn't as high as the bonnet, but it was fast. It was like driving over a wombat or a boulder, but there aren't any wombats in this area and the road is flat. It didn't do any damage to the car.
Another day, my wife and I and the little ones were walking the baby in the pram, with the dogs with us. The dogs stopped dead in their tracks, and started growling. We could smell something. I sent my wife and kids back up the road, as I heard branches cracking as something came toward the road through the bush. But it stopped, and didn't come out of the bush. All our experiences happen in the same area, like he is just warning us not to stay in his space too long.
Bunyips
At home, we call them the "Devil Dog". Another name is the "Water Dog". We had one in the start of the Darling River, a black thing in the river.
We've seen it, one of Dad's mates was sitting on the bank talking to one of his neighbours, and this thing dropped out of a tree straight into the water.
Another time, this thing was on the bank, a black thing, they jumped in the Landcruiser, and started driving toward it with the lights on and beeping the horn to try to scare it. It didn't move. Then all of a sudden, it just slithered in to the water.
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