A somewhat interesting article appeared in The Age recently about the Australian aborigines mythological bunyip. I don’t recall reading this specific theory before:
Australian Museum naturalist George Bennett was first to suggest formally (in 1871) that the bunyip might be an indigenous cultural memory of extinct Australian megafauna, passed down through oral tradition. By 1991, the authors of Vertebrate Palaeontology of Australasia were postulating that, "When confronted with the remains of some of the now extinct Australian marsupials, Aborigines would often identify them as the bunyip."
And in 1998, geologist Greg McNamara told Australian Geo-graphic magazine his theory that the remembered bunyip was actually a prehistoric turtle, Meiolania prisca, "a most impressive beast" up to two metres long with a metre-long, bony club tail and curved 25-centimetre horns.
They're both incorrect. The Bunyip was originally a fearsome beast in the waters of the Australian blogosphere, and Aboriginal myth and folklore has preserved his memory To This Very Day.
ReplyDeleteDreamtime stories tell us, one day, The Bunyip will rise again and, in those apocalyptic times, blogospherical heads will roll and the world will come to an end.