What is Australia’s bunyip?

Aboriginals used “bunyip” to describe a mythical creature, a “devil” or “evil spirit’. The word is from the Wergaia or Wemba-Wemba language of southeastern Aboriginals. A large beast, the bunyip haunts swamps, creeks, and billabongs.

Some modern researchers have suggested that the word comes from “Bunjil”, the name for a mythical “Great Man” credited with creating the Australian landscape and creatures. After contact with Europeans, the great Bunjil may have been transformed into the evil spirit, bunyip. A large, monstrous, black amphibian is called a “banib” in the Boonwurrung language.

Because of the language disparity, bunyip also became a synonym of “impostor” or “pretender” in the 1850s. From it arose the term “bunyip aristocracy”.

The banib was the source of the name of the Bunyip River, which empties into the Western Port Bay in the state of Victoria, which also has a town named Bunyip. An early children’s television program in Philadelphia, Pennsylvaina, featured a friendly puppet, “Bertie the Bunyip”. “Alexander Bunyip” appeared in a series of books and on “Alexander Bunyip’s Billabong”, an Australian children’s TV show. A 2015 film, “Bunyip”, tells of hikers who meet a monstrous bunyip.