Yara-Ma-Yha-Who

Region: Australia & Oceania
Location:Eastern Australia (primarily Aboriginal traditions of New South Wales rainforest regions)

The Yara-ma-yha-who is a small, red, frog-like being that lives in fig trees and drops onto unsuspecting travelers. In lore, it is child-sized, with a massive head, toothless mouth, and suction-cup fingers and toes. Instead of biting, it drains victims of strength through these suction cups, swallowing them whole afterward. After a period of rest, the creature regurgitates the victim — now slightly shorter, redder, and more like the Yara-ma-yha-who itself. The process repeats until the person is transformed into another of its kind.
  Unlike many mythic beings of Australia, the Yara-ma-yha-who is not a spirit tied to sacred law or Dreaming cosmology. Instead, it’s a cautionary being — a forest creature used in storytelling to keep children from wandering too deep into dense rainforest, where getting lost, falling from trees, or encountering dangerous wildlife was a real threat. The Yara-ma-yha-who prefers lazy or careless travelers, and in this sense it reinforces social values of alertness, responsibility, and respect for environment.
  The lore contains humor as well as fear. Elders sometimes describe the creature as clumsy or easily tricked. Those who know its habits can avoid it by lying still until it falls asleep, then escaping quietly. The Yara-ma-yha-who persists today as one of the most unique mythic beings from Australia — an imaginative, unsettling figure that blends cautionary teaching with dark whimsy.

World
Koina
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kaixabu
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The spark is human. The polish is digital.

 

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