Cheeroonear

A dog-faced man. He and his six hunting dogs were the scourge of Nullarbor plain. Cheeroonear was tall and heavily built, with the arms and legs of a man, but his head and ears were those of a dog. A loose bag like that of a pelican hang from mouth and chin. His arms were unnaturally long.

Once he was witnessed drinking water, and he told the onlookers that he would return to kill them, because it was foretold that if he was seen by men and women he would die. When one night Cheeronear went to their camp, he sent his dogs ahead to start the killing, but the Winjarning brothers dispatched them all, and cut off their tails. When Cheeronear came up see what had happened to his dogs, the women and children pretended to wail in fear, and six warriors whisked the tails of the dogs, so that the dog-man believed his dogs were hunting human quarry. As he raced along, the Winjarning brothers emerged and beat him to death with their clubs. Cheeronear's wife appeared silently and when the reached her husband's body, the nearest warriors fell on her and cut her in half. From the upper part emerged a boy, but before the men could reach him he changed into a reptile and escaped. Although Cheeronear and his wife were dead, the devil that came from her body is still alive in the bush.

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