Location: Gayndah, Queensland
Event: Yowie Sightings (Aboriginal P.O.V.)
Date: Feb, 2000
Source: Fraser Coast Chronicle - Jim Martin
Gayndah district Aborigines say the strange creature seen by locals is a Jongari, or hairy man. Local Aborigine Sam Hill, of the Waka Waka (Aboriginal Spelling) tribe which has habituated the Gayndah area for eons, said yesterday the Jongari were a smaller race of people who used to live beside the Aborigines. They were about a metre high.
"When we saw it in the paper, every blackfellow in Gayndah knew what it was," Mr. Hill said. "They have always been here, always been in our culture, as far back as we can remember. The description in the papers was so close to how they are," he said.
"They live a tribal life and with their habitat changing they have moved away. Years ago when we lived near the Peanut Board my Auntie Janet was yelling out to my cousin Laurie away in the distance to come home. We thought it was him she was yelling at too, but he kept moving away. Then someone said Laurie was inside. It was a Jongari. And when they blew up the mountain near here to build the railway many years ago a lot of them ran out of the hills."
To further reinforce his claim Mr. Hill said his grandfather had a fight with one of them when he was ringbarking threes years ago. Mr. Hill said the creatures were called by different names by other tribes in different districts. Dinderi was one other name. "They're all over the place. One tribe lived near the Glasshouse Mountains and tools smaller than the average were found there," he said.
A chapter in the book 'Then and Now', and Aboriginal history of Gayndah, written by Jill Slack, is devoted to the Junjari, little people reputed to still live in the hills, water holes and dense bush areas of Gayndah and Eidsvold and closely associated with the Goondiels (Aboriginal Doctors who possess mysterious abilities, healer, defender and protector of his people).
Meanwhile Sirley Humphreys, the woman who says she say the creature on sand along the river several weeks ago, said she was dubious about a reward offer. "I wouldn't want to see anyone hurt it. It hasn't hurt anyone. Others in the town wanted to come down here with dogs and hunt it out and kill it."
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