Yahoo Creek An Australian Mystery

Yahoo Creek An Australian Mystery

Yahoo Creek An Australian Mystery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yahoo Creek An Australian Mystery

Tohby Riddle

A & U Children’s, 2019

32pp., hbk., RRP $A29.99

9781760631451

From time immemorial the stories passed through the generations of all cultures have included tales of creatures that appear to be a mixture of human and ape, large and hairy and always elusive. 

Throughout the first century or so of Australian settlement by Europeans, the pages of colonial newspapers were haunted by reports of a bewildering phenomenon: the mysterious yahoo or hairy man …

But what was it? 

Yahoo Creek breathes life into this little-known piece of Australian history – which, by many accounts, is a history still in the making. Using many newspaper extracts dating back to the early 1800s  both within the pages and on the endpapers, words by Ngiyampaa Elder Peter Williams who shares the perspective of the Aboriginal peoples who have been seeing these creatures for millennia, and his own haunting images using a palette of inky blues to add to the mood and the mystery, Tohby Riddle explores the ongoing mystery of yahoo encounters. 

Also known as a yowie, this is a book that sucks you in to read all the reports and begin to wonder whether this really is an imaginary creature – it achieves its purpose of beginning conversations about history, storytelling and truth.  

Intriguing, absorbing and utterly mystifying!

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