Post by QuirkyBestiary on Jul 1, 2018 20:24:23 GMT
Dhinnabarrada in Myth
The Dhinnabarrada are one of those odd mythical creatures that I would have thought 'oh cool' about if they hadn't shown up in the modern day as well, which puts them in the cryptozoology category as well as the Oceanian category. Anyhoo - They originally come from the stories of the Kamilaroi peoples of Australia, and were described as having the bodies of humans but the legs and feet of emus. Very little information is known about them due to the not-exactly-abundant nature of sources, but we can gather that they would never move anywhere alone, and would always be in at least small groups. They sustained themselves on grubs and fashioned boomerangs out of the wood found on the gidyer tree.
Dhinnabarrada in Modern Paranormal Lore
In 2014, a soon-to-be witness took their three daughters and dog to a set of cabins in Nannup (in the Great Southern region of Western Australia). They were only staying for one night and were planning on visiting the caves on their way back up to Perth the next day. They shared a room with two bunk beds, and the dog slept on the floor between the beds. The witness remembers feeling a 'strange tingling energy' covering their body as they were falling asleep, but apparently they were too tired for it to rouse their curiousity.
At some time that night, the witness woke up and went to their window, strangely calm as if they were in a trance state - but they insist that they were certainly awake.
What they saw outside the window would stay with them for a long time. There were apparently three slender beings with what looked to be emu heads approaching the window. Their bodies were human-like but covered in the same blackish plumage you'd expect to see on an emu's neck. The closest one of the 'emu folk' was already at the witness's window and was attempting to climb in - at which point the witness remembers 'calmly but firmly' denying the creatures access to their house.
The emu men insisted on entering the house (the witness also states that their communication 'may have been telepathic'). In a turn of events very similar to other paranormal incidents such as alien abduction, the witness claims that they don't remember anything after the emu men insisted on entering the house.
The next day, the witness walked around to the outside of the same window, but could not 'inspect' it because it was too high off the ground - leading them to estimate that the strange entities would have stood at about 7ft tall.
At the end of their story, the witness adds that the fact that the dog didn't react to the emu incursion is unlike her, seeing as - and I quote - 'she's a great guard dog'. It didn't make sense to the witness that the beings were coming through the window which was guarded by a fly screen when it seemed likely that they could simply pass through said screen anyway. That was the witness's assumption, not mine.
The witness's own calmness in this scenario also puzzled them, seeing as they would expect themselves to be freaking out if they were in a normal waking state in that same situation. The witness ends their story by saying that they would like to pass the experience off as a nightmare, but that it was too real - and that they would not be taking their family back to that area.
My Dhinnabarrada Dilemma
This post could fit in so many of our different categories here on the forum. Should this go into cryptozoology because of the modern sighting detailed within it? But surely cryptozoology is designed to deal with actual biological organisms, and these telepathic birdmen don't strike me as the sort of thing that would normally exist. I've decided to put this story in the modern folklore category purely because of its superficial similarity to alien abduction tales and other paranormal events, but I also wanted this to be in the category for denizens of Oceania because of its close ties to Australian folklore. I'm fairly new to this whole Proboards thing, so forgive my general klutziness.
Sources:
Giants, Monsters, and Dragons by Carol Rose
Kamilaroi and Assimilation by Fred Woodgate
www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2017/07/the-emu-people.html
The Dhinnabarrada are one of those odd mythical creatures that I would have thought 'oh cool' about if they hadn't shown up in the modern day as well, which puts them in the cryptozoology category as well as the Oceanian category. Anyhoo - They originally come from the stories of the Kamilaroi peoples of Australia, and were described as having the bodies of humans but the legs and feet of emus. Very little information is known about them due to the not-exactly-abundant nature of sources, but we can gather that they would never move anywhere alone, and would always be in at least small groups. They sustained themselves on grubs and fashioned boomerangs out of the wood found on the gidyer tree.
Dhinnabarrada in Modern Paranormal Lore
In 2014, a soon-to-be witness took their three daughters and dog to a set of cabins in Nannup (in the Great Southern region of Western Australia). They were only staying for one night and were planning on visiting the caves on their way back up to Perth the next day. They shared a room with two bunk beds, and the dog slept on the floor between the beds. The witness remembers feeling a 'strange tingling energy' covering their body as they were falling asleep, but apparently they were too tired for it to rouse their curiousity.
At some time that night, the witness woke up and went to their window, strangely calm as if they were in a trance state - but they insist that they were certainly awake.
What they saw outside the window would stay with them for a long time. There were apparently three slender beings with what looked to be emu heads approaching the window. Their bodies were human-like but covered in the same blackish plumage you'd expect to see on an emu's neck. The closest one of the 'emu folk' was already at the witness's window and was attempting to climb in - at which point the witness remembers 'calmly but firmly' denying the creatures access to their house.
The emu men insisted on entering the house (the witness also states that their communication 'may have been telepathic'). In a turn of events very similar to other paranormal incidents such as alien abduction, the witness claims that they don't remember anything after the emu men insisted on entering the house.
The next day, the witness walked around to the outside of the same window, but could not 'inspect' it because it was too high off the ground - leading them to estimate that the strange entities would have stood at about 7ft tall.
At the end of their story, the witness adds that the fact that the dog didn't react to the emu incursion is unlike her, seeing as - and I quote - 'she's a great guard dog'. It didn't make sense to the witness that the beings were coming through the window which was guarded by a fly screen when it seemed likely that they could simply pass through said screen anyway. That was the witness's assumption, not mine.
The witness's own calmness in this scenario also puzzled them, seeing as they would expect themselves to be freaking out if they were in a normal waking state in that same situation. The witness ends their story by saying that they would like to pass the experience off as a nightmare, but that it was too real - and that they would not be taking their family back to that area.
My Dhinnabarrada Dilemma
This post could fit in so many of our different categories here on the forum. Should this go into cryptozoology because of the modern sighting detailed within it? But surely cryptozoology is designed to deal with actual biological organisms, and these telepathic birdmen don't strike me as the sort of thing that would normally exist. I've decided to put this story in the modern folklore category purely because of its superficial similarity to alien abduction tales and other paranormal events, but I also wanted this to be in the category for denizens of Oceania because of its close ties to Australian folklore. I'm fairly new to this whole Proboards thing, so forgive my general klutziness.
Sources:
Giants, Monsters, and Dragons by Carol Rose
Kamilaroi and Assimilation by Fred Woodgate
www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2017/07/the-emu-people.html
