Origin

The aborigines' told the nineteenth-century European settlers stories of large malevolent beasts, which the settlers first called the Yahoo. There are 2 stories to the name - the first is that it is a corruption of youree, described as a legitimate native term for the hairy man-monster, and the second is that the European settlers chose the name themselves after the sub-numab race in Swift’s  “Gulliver's Travels”. 

During the 1970s, the term "Yowie" supplanted “Yahoo," for reasons that remain as mysterious as the creature. It has been suggested the Australian accent could easily contort the aboriginal "youree" into "Yowie."

Folklore

An aborigine folk tale explains that when their people first migrated to Australia thousands of years ago, they encountered on the new continent a savage race of ape-men. The aborigines' ancestors went to war against the ape-men, and in the end the humans triumphed, thanks to their ability to make weapons.

Is it possible this tale might contain some truth? And could it be that a few survivors of these early primates survived into recent times? 

Place   

The Yowie has been reported primarily in New South Wales, the Gold Coast of Queensland and in the wild bush country of the Moehau Range.

In New Zealand, the North Auckland area and the West Coast are its favorite playground.

Description

The Yowie is similar to Bigfoot with a height of six to seven feet tall and covered in a coat of thick black or brown fur. They are generally bipedal but have been seen running on all four legs at times. 

Sightings   

The first recorded sighting of a Yahoo by a European came in 1881, when an Australian newspaper reported that several witnesses had seen a large baboon-like animal that stood taller than a man.

In 1894, another individual claimed to come face to face with a "wild man or gorilla" in New South Wales bush. A 1903 newspaper printed the testimony of a man who said he watched as aborigines killed a Yahoo, which he said looked "like a black man, but covered all over with gray hair."

In 1912, George Summerell was riding on horseback between Bombala and Bemboka when he saw a strange creature on all fours drinking from a creek. The animal rose up on its hind feet to a height of seven feet and looked at Summerell. Then it disregarded the horseman, finished its drink, and peacefully walked away into nearby woods. The following day, Summerell's friend Sydney Wheeler Jephcott rushed to the scene of the sighting and discovered an abundance of handprints and footprints. Jephcott described the footprints as humanlike but huge, and having only four toes per foot. He said he made plaster casts of the tracks and turned them in to a local university, but there is no record of a scientific analysis being rendered.

In 1971, a Royal Australian Air Force helicopter carrying a crew of surveyors landed atop Sentinel Mountain, a remote and inaccessible peak. Much to their surprise, the team discovered fresh footprints in mud, much larger than human footprints, in a place where no known biped could possibly be present. Yowie sightings continued steadily throughout the '70s. In 1976, backpackers in New South Wales reported seeing a five-foot female Yowie whose fur stank to high heaven. Also in New South Wales, Betty Gee reported seeing a giant creature covered with black fur outside her home in 1977. Shortly thereafter, her fence was knocked down and large footprints surrounded the scene. A man in the Gold Coast city of Springbrook said that a"big black hairy man-thing" appeared before him while he while chopping wood in 1978. "It just stared at me and I stared back," he said. "I was so numb, I couldn't even raise the axe I had in my hand."