The Bunyip is a creature from the mythology of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, said to haunt swamps, billabongs, creeks, and waterholes. Described as a threatening water spirit that devours those who approach the water at night, it embodies the real dangers of Australian wetlands.
Bunyip
Bunyip
6 min read
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Figure in Australian Aboriginal mythology, transmitted orally for millennia before the Common Era
- Reputed to inhabit swamps, billabongs, creeks, and stagnant waterholes across the Australian continent
- Described very variably by region: dark fur, tusks, horse tail or fins, terrifying cry
- In the 19th century, European settlers adopted the term, and fossil bones (diprotodon) were sometimes attributed to the Bunyip around 1840–1850
- The word “bunyip” has entered Australian English to mean an impostor or illusory thing
Works & Achievements
Corpus of Aboriginal stories depicting the bunyip as both guardian and danger of waterholes, passed down orally.
Memoir that spread Buckley's account of the bunyip of Lake Modewarre to the colonial public.
Aboriginal geoglyph depicting a bunyip, one of the few material traces of the belief.
Ethnographic work that records beliefs about the bunyip in Victoria.
Political phrase that entered Australian English, sign of the bunyip's cultural entrenchment.
Classic children's picture book that reinvents the bunyip in search of its own identity.
Anecdotes
The word "bunyip" entered the English language around 1845; it comes from the Aboriginal languages of southeastern Australia, likely Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia, where it referred to a spirit or evil water being. It is one of the few Aboriginal words adopted very early by British settlers.
In 1846, a strange skull found on the banks of the Murrumbidgee was displayed at the Australian Museum in Sydney as a "bunyip skull." Crowds flocked to see it, but naturalists concluded it was the deformed skull of a calf or foal.
William Buckley, an escaped convict who lived about thirty years among the Wathaurong, claimed in his memoirs to have seen a bunyip several times in Lake Modewarre, without ever distinguishing its full body. The Aborigines, he said, deeply feared it and refused to eat it.
In 1853, orator Daniel Deniehy mocked the proposal to create a hereditary colonial nobility in New South Wales by speaking of a "bunyip aristocracy." The phrase has remained famous in Australia to describe a pretentious and ridiculous elite.
Near Fiery Creek in Victoria, the Aborigines had traced a large bunyip silhouette on the ground, called the "Challicum bunyip," which they maintained and was recorded by settlers around 1851. The drawing marked the spot where, according to tradition, a bunyip had been killed.
Primary Sources
The bones found are attributed by the natives to an animal they call Bunyip, a fearsome creature that inhabits deep waters and swamps.
In Lake Modewarre lived, they said, a strange and terrible being they called Bunyip; I saw it several times but never saw any part other than its back, covered with feathers or fur.
The Bunyip is described by the natives as a malevolent water spirit, haunting rivers and billabongs, and the disappearance of those who venture near water is attributed to its presence.
A skull presented as that of the Bunyip attracted a considerable crowd, until scientific examination identified it as a deformed young domestic animal.
Key Places
Body of water where William Buckley and the Wathaurong located a bunyip; one of the most cited places in the legend.
Site of the "Challicum bunyip," a ground figure marking the spot where a bunyip was allegedly killed.
Network of rivers, swamps, and billabongs in southeastern Australia, the geographical heart of bunyip stories.
Location of the 1847 exhibition of the "bunyip skull" that turned the creature into a colonial sensation.
Waterway where the enigmatic skull presented as belonging to a bunyip was found in 1846.
