Another type of Australian 'little people' are the Gowowas (Gow-ow-ars). They are up to three feet tall, and are not considered very friendly, they love creating miscief, and are avoided by people who know about them. They inhabit the scrub and bushland of Australia, and have been known to have killed humans in their time. There was a white stockman, on his horse, hearding cattle. A group of gowowas approached him, and resembling small and very hairy men (but not like the dulagarl, see below) he became frightened, and started whipping them with his stock whip. The gowowas became angered, pulled him from his horse and killed him. But generally, the gowowas aren't malicious, if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone also.

Another rather frightening spirit is the Whowie , also called Wowie and Wahwee. This creature takes on the form of a strange hybrid creature with a great frog or lizard's head, six insect legs, a scaled body and the tail of a snake. It is nearly 30 feet long and can cause floods, rain and drought. The whowie lives in deep caves during the day, venturing forth only at night. Possesing an insatiable appetite, fortunately the whowie's taste is for livestock and usually not humans.

A similarly named, though quite differnt creature is the yowie, which in Aboriginal stories, is a hairy man, or "Dulagarl" {doo-lah-garl), in other words, big foot. They stand 7 feet tall, and are far stronger than any man. They have huge padded feet, which make no noise as they walk or run. Although resembling big foot, there are a few differences, they have no neck, and so cannot turn their head to look behind them. They are covered in Shaggy matted fur, unlike the Gowowas, who, although hairy, are not shaggy. Dulagarl adore the smell of cooked fish, and one account was told of some men who were returning from fishing, and were rowing down a river towards home, when they saw a Yowie running along the bank, after their boat, clearly wishing to taste their fish. He made no noise, even though running at a steady pace, over scrub and dead leaves and sticks.

In more recent times, there was a report in our area of a gold miner, who, in the gold rush days had a shack, as many people did, on "Mount Dromadary" (named by Captain James Cook). The mountain is commonly known as "Gulaga" by the local Aborigines. One day, they found the miner in his shack, with his head ripped from his body. Now, as butal as the scene was, it was clear that the killing could not have been accomplished by a man, as humans don't have the strength that would have been required.

In another story from recent times, a farmer one night heard his cattle making a terrible noise, bellowing and so on, but he decided to wait until the morning to investigate, as it was late at night. In the morning he found 20 of the cattle in the same state as the old gold miner. The grass had no footprints, and no tracks from vehicles.

-Thanks to Naomi for info on the Yowie and little people.

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