Not all vampires rise with the moon and dwell in dark castles. Some wait in the heat of the Australian wilderness. Like the monster Yara-ma-yha-who from Aboriginal folklore, found under the Australian Fig Trees.
In the mythic landscapes of Aboriginal Australian storytelling a devouring creature lurks from the Dreamtime cosmology. The Yara-ma-yha-who belongs to no crypt, no ruined castle, and no midnight hunt. It dwells instead in branches heavy with leaves.
Read More: Check out all ghostly stories from Australia
According to recorded versions of the legend, particularly those preserved by David Unaipon, the Yara-ma-yha-who is a vampiric being from southeastern Aboriginal traditions, notable not only for its grotesque appearance but for the bizarre, cyclical horror of its feeding.
The Thing in the Tree
The Yara-ma-yha-who is often described as a small, red, frog-like humanoid creature, with an enormous head, a wide toothless mouth, and sucker-like appendages on its hands and feet. Its body is unnatural from the outset, evoking something both childlike, absurd and deeply menacing.
Its preferred habitat is the fig tree. The weary traveler, escaping heat beneath its branches, unknowingly places themselves directly beneath danger. It drains blood using the suckers on its fingers and toes, attaching itself to the body in a manner more parasitic than predatory.
After partially draining its victim, however, the Yara-ma-yha-who does something even stranger. Rather than simply kill, it swallows the person whole. It then drinks water, falls asleep, and later regurgitates the victim. The prey emerges alive, but altered, described as shorter and redder than before. This process repeats over successive encounters until the victim becomes shorter and shorter, eventually transformed into another Yara-ma-yha-who. Some say after the third time.
It is active during the day, not at night. According to legend, one possible means of surviving an encounter is to play dead until sunset, exploiting the creature’s daytime habits.
Child Warning and Cultural Function
Like many folkloric beings, the Yara-ma-yha-who likely served practical as well as spiritual purposes. Recorded traditions suggest the story may have been used to warn children against wandering, misbehavior, or resting in dangerous places alone.
Scholars and commentators have proposed various speculative inspirations for the Yara-ma-yha-who. Could it perhaps have come with Malay settlers telling about the tarsier primate from Southeast Asia? Or is it perhaps a story spinning on the Thylacoleo carnifex, a carnivorous marsupial that dropped onto its prey from the tree tops.
And somewhere, in the oldest corners of story, where sunlight burns and fig branches sway without wind, there remains the possibility that not every red thing in the leaves is fruit.
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Not all vampires rise with the moon and dwell in dark castles. Some wait in the heat of the Australian wilderness. Like the monster Yara-ma-yha-who from Aboriginal folklore, found under the Australian Fig Trees.
References:
The Child-Eating Bloodsucker of Aboriginal Australian Nightmares
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