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In 1994 Australia Post issued a highly popular
series of four postage stamps which featured different images of the bunyip.
Aboriginal artist Toogarr Morrison
depicted his bunyit as part human and part spirit, and it
is the guardian of the waterholes in the south-west of Western Australia
which is Morrisons home territory. This bunyit has a flat
tail which is used to strike the water and lure passers-by to their
doom.
David Lancashire drew on a traditional European
depiction of the monster in art. He saw his bunyip as something akin to the
medieval gargoyle.
Marg Towt depicted what is perhaps the most plausible-looking
creature of all in the series. It is based on the reports of settlers last century
whose strange experiences in the Australian bush convinced many that bunyips
really existed.
Ron Brooks illustration adapted
from the 1973 childrens picture book The Bunyip of Berkeleys
Creek, is now a classic image
known to over two generations of young Australians. His amiable
and endearing bunyip peers into a mirror asking: What am I?
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