Cunmerries

I have been reading the excellent Fair Dinkum by Douglas Lockwood, a selection of true tales from his time up in the Northern Territories of Australia. It covers the war, the local Aborigines (pretty positive spin on them, which is always good to read.) and the miners with a handful of ghost stories and such thrown in.

However there is one story from page 68 that will be of some interest to those who like cryptozoology and the various beasts that hide from men.

The scene is this, various Aboriginals are settled round a campfire talking about stories with Douglas settling out of the wind. I quote directly as it does deserve to be wider known.

"I bin remember that time..." said the Left-Hand Boomerang Man. His voice was a song, a deep-throated purr... "that time I was working with that drover, Matt. We were taking a mob into The Isa when it happened."

"What happened?" some one asked.

"The cunmerries came over."

"The cunmerries? What are they?" one of the half castes asked. I noticed the other were silent and still, but as wide-eyed as children hearing for the first time about a fearsome bogey-man.

"It's a properly cheeky feller," Left-Hand said. "It's a big bird, about three times bigger'n that horse I was ridin'" 

"A bird, you say. Can he fly?"

"Yeah, he can fly all right," Agilyara said. "He's got wings wider'n that tree, and he can fly faster'n a galloping horse. He's got big hands like a crocodile with only four fingers, and red eyes, like that charcoal."

He pointed into the campfire and every eye, including mine, followed his. I was fascinated and considerably chilled by his recitation about something none of us understood.

"Have you seen these cunmerries?" I asked. I had wanted to remain on the outskirts to see and hear without being seen, but sheer driving curiosity had drawn me in.

"Oh, yeah, I've seen him, all right," Left-Hand said. "I seen him one moonlight night with Matt- not far from here."

Instinctively, we all drew closer to the fire.

"What was he like?" I asked, as credulous as any piccaninny. 

"My horse started to snort and shake and then he wanted to run," Agilyara said. "I was on night watch. Then the mob of cattle I'm tailin' got up and they're runnin' straightaway. Stampedin'. I yelled to Matt and went after them flat out. My horse ran faster that night than I've ever known a horse to run. He was bad scared. Then I heard a 'swish' over my head and I could see this big shadow with glarin' eyes flyin' on to the cattle. I seen him come down over the mob and pick up a bullock in his hands and fly away with him. The cattle all cried out, a kind of terrible cry that I never heard cattle make before."

We all stared into the fire, frozen.

"Matt came up then," Agilyara said. "He heard me yell and he was cursin' because he had to get out'a bed, and he wanted to know why the cattle was runnin'. So I told him. But he called me a black somethin' and said I was drunk and had been asleep on watch. He wouldn't believe me. He was properly wild and he sent another boy out to watch with me. The cattle didn't lie down again all that night and we had trouble holdin' 'em. My horse was still shakin' under me when daylight came."

"Is that the end of the story?"

"No," Agilyara said. "That bullock the cunmerrie took was right on the outside of the mob. They had been runnin' through soft ground, so next mornin' we followed the tracks. That one's tracks... they just stopped there... they didn't go anywhere.. the tracks just finished while he was still runnin'. Old Matt didn't understand that so he counted the heads... There was one missin', and after that he wasn't wild with me any more. But he didn't say nothin'."

Just what this cunmerrie was, real animal or entirely something of myth and legend. I thought it would be much better, if I shared it with you and let you make up your own minds about it.