The Gawler Humbug Society

The Gawler Humbug Society emerged during the 1860's, its rules and bylaws include:

"The object of this Association is the open advocacy of Humbug, in contradistinction to its secret practice in most other Societies...The Society shall be presided over by three officers, the chief of whom shall be entitled Arch Flamm, the second Bouncible Bam, and the third Surprising Sham....That any member guilty of puppyism, hawhawing, murdering the Queen's English, or any conduct unbecoming a gentleman, be summarily expelled from the Society, and as a mark of contempe be elected a member of Parliament on the first vacancy occurring."

As noted earlier the Bunyip was founded as the Chronicle of the Society, the choice of this name is of interest, being as follows:-

"Why the Bunyip? Because the Bunyip is the true type of Australian Humbug! Go where you will in Australia, the poor benighted blackfellow, if he wishes to astonish you with unheard of marvels, or strike you with supreme terror, raises before you the shadow of the mysterious Bunyip - ever near - ever promising to appear - but ever eluding sight and grasp (ed note like Vapourware!) - true type of Humbug."

Or a more likely derivative of the name-
"It (Bunyip) is used by the aboriginals to describe an amphibious animal, the existence of which they implicitly believe in, but which is regarded by the white man as something rather mystical. Probably it may be the old Bogey of the Blackfellow. The paleface considers it as a sort of land sea serpent. The only probable explanation that can be attached to the native superstition is that at some time or other a species of the alligator, or American cayman, may have inhabited some of the inland swamps, and as ignorance is very imaginative been magnified into something very dreadful as the bunyip."

© The Bunyip

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Last modified on: Wednesday, January 19