

is said to be that of an enormous starfish." The Challicum bunyip, an outline image of a bunyip carved by Aboriginal people into the bank of Fiery Creek, near Ararat, Victoria, was first recorded by The Australasian newspaper in 1851. George French Angus may have collected a description of a bunyip in his account of a "water spirit" from the Moorundi people of the Murray River before 1847, stating it is "much dreaded by them . Physical descriptions of bunyips vary widely. The bunyip has been described as amphibious, almost entirely aquatic and there are no reports of the creature being sighted on land, inhabiting lakes, rivers, swamps, lagoons, billabongs, creeks, waterholes, sometimes "particular waterholes in the riverbeds". Characteristics Bunyip (1935), by Gerald Markham Lewis, from the National Library of Australia digital collections, demonstrates the variety in descriptions of the legendary creature. In his 2001 book, writer Robert Holden identified at least nine regional variations of the creature known as the bunyip across Aboriginal Australia. The bunyip is part of traditional Aboriginal beliefs and stories throughout Australia, while its name varies according to tribal nomenclature.

It was used by James Ives to describe "a large black animal like a seal, with a terrible voice which creates terror among the blacks". The word bahnyip first appeared in the Sydney Gazette in 1812. Some modern sources allude to a linguistic connection between the bunyip and Bunjil, "a mythic 'Great Man' who made the mountains, rivers, man, and all the animals". This contemporary translation may not accurately represent the role of the bunyip in pre-contact Aboriginal mythology or its possible origins before written accounts were made. The word bunyip is usually translated by Aboriginal Australians today as "devil" or "evil spirit". The origin of the word bunyip has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of the Aboriginal people of Victoria, in South-Eastern Australia. The bunyip is a creature from the aboriginal mythology of southeastern Australia, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes. Illustration of a Bunyip by J. Macfarlane (1890) For Australian musical theatre, see Bunyip (musical). For the 1959 trimaran sailboat, see Bunyip 20.

For the Gawler newspaper, see The Bunyip. For the town in Australia, see Bunyip, Victoria. This article is about a creature in Australian Aboriginal folklore.
