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Yara-ma-yha-who
Case 1.17

Yara-ma-yha-who

7:54
Yara-ma-yha-who
Legends of the Hidden Horde
0:00 7:54

Pack your vegemite sandwich and follow me into the land down under in Episode 17: Yara-ma-yha-who


In the ancient coastal woodlands of southeastern Australia, where the Murray River coils like a dreaming serpent through the Country of the Ngarrindjeri, the old ones still speak softly of the Yara-ma-yha-who. Not as mere fable for outsiders, but as living knowledge passed through firelight and kinship lines since the Dreaming, when ancestral spirits shaped the land and its unseen guardians. 


David Unaipon, the Ngarrindjeri writer and inventor who gathered these tales in the 1920s, recorded how the little red spirit-men dwell in the boughs of wild fig trees, waiting with patience older than memory. This is not invention, but a respectful weaving of those traditions into a shadowed tale—one that honors the oral histories of southeastern Aboriginal communities while acknowledging their place-based variations and sacred custodianship.


Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yara-ma-yha-who

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/yara-ma-yha-who

https://www.mup.com.au/books/legendary-tales-of-the-australian-aborigines-paperback-softback

https://www.pbs.org/video/yara-ma-yha-who-australias-regurgitating-blood-sucking-mo-ii7nmx/

https://beastsoflegend.com/bestiary/oceania-2/australian-aboriginal/land-spirits-guardians-and-tricksters/yara-ma-yha-who-of-the-fig-trees/

(for respectful notes on variations and custodianship)

https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/david-ngunaitponi-unaipon

(context on David Unaipon and cultural preservation)


Music from #Uppbeat

https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/hidden-signs

License code: P8ALEMPEJWOIXVMV