Saturday, November 3, 2018

The Aboriginal Killing of a 'hairy man' at the Yass and Murrumbidgee Rivers


The depicted image is of a 1790 woodcut from Sydney Cove.

There are a lot of reports with Australian Gorillas, yahoos, hairy men and yowies located on the National Library's Trove search engine and I have mentioned a few of them from the local area on this blog over the last 8 years. Of all the local reports one stood out more than all the others. It was a small addendum to a longer clipping quoting an early Canberra Settler by the name of George Graham Webb who relates his encounter along with his brother whilst mustering cattle at Uriarra..

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31095093

Almost as an afterthought he relates the reminiscence of another early settler, Henry Williams, who tells the story of the killing of a grey ‘hairy man’ near the junction of the Yass and Murrumbidgee Rivers..


This image in so little words has stuck with me since I read it. Was, what we might call today a, yowie killed by a group of Aboriginals near the time of European settlement? "It was like a black man, but covered in grey hair."

I think that is somewhat odd..
-
Labels: ,

1 comment:

  1. JasonJuly 21, 2021 at 7:08 AM

    The Henry Williams page in http://www.ngambri.org/ENV_Heritage%20Book_FA_2.pdf describes this too.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

History lost through lack of funding

  The following ABC article laments the possible loss of many historical audio visual records that are waiting for digitising into modern fo...

  • THE BRINDABELLA GOLD FIELDS
    If anyone is looking for a place to do a little gold prospecting might I suggest the mighty Goodradigbee in the Brindabella Valley. I'll...
  • Common Brushtail Possum Skull
    Found by my son whilst hiking in the Brindabellas was this small skull. What I thought was interesting was the remaining canine evident. At...
  • HILL STATION HOMESTEAD
    Located in the Canberra industrial suburb of Hume is Hill Station Homestead. The main homestead building of Hill station dates back to cir...
  • CANBERRA'S CAVES
    A little known fact is that Canberra is built on the top of numerous limestone caves... In 1821 Charles Throsby (1777 - 1828) (bio here ) ...
  • The Aboriginal Killing of a 'hairy man' at the Yass and Murrumbidgee Rivers
    The depicted image is of a 1790 woodcut from Sydney Cove. There are a lot of reports with Australian Gorillas, yahoos, hairy men and ...
  • History lost through lack of funding
      The following ABC article laments the possible loss of many historical audio visual records that are waiting for digitising into modern fo...
  • MOUNT TENNENT SCAR
    I stopped today to take a few pictures of the 'scar' on Mount Tennent ( Or Mount Tennant if your thinking about the bushranger ) I ...