Mrs. Charles Meredith, Notes and Sketches of New South Wales during a Residence in the Colony from 1839 to 1844 (London, 1844) p.5.
I never could make out anything of their [the aborigines] religious ideas, or even if they had a comprehension of a bebeficent supreme being; but they have an evil spirit, which causes them great terror whom they call "Yahoo", or "Devil-Devil": he lives in the tops of the steepest and rockiest mountains, which are totally inaccessible to all human beings...
The name Devil-Devil is of course borrowed from our vocabulary, and the doubling of the phrase denotes how terrible or intense a devil he is; that of a Yahoo, being used to express a bad spirit, or "Bugaboo, was common also with the aborigines of Van Diemen's land, and is as likely to be a coincidence with, as a loan from Dean Swift............
© Copyright AYR
Australian Yowie Research - Data Base
www.yowiehunters.com