Umbrarium

The figure known in print as the Yara-ma-yha-who reaches English readers chiefly through David Unaipon's Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines, collected in the 1920s. That manuscript was appropriated and published in 1930 under W. Ramsay Smith's name as Myths and Legends of the Australian Aboriginals; only in 2001 was Unaipon's text repatriated under his name by Melbourne University Press. Any archive card must lead with that chain of custody.

In the published telling, the being is a little red frog-like person of the fig tree, waiting for a traveller, draining blood with suckers, swallowing and later regurgitating the person shorter and redder, until repeated contact turns them into one of its own. Secondary encyclopaedias call it southeastern Aboriginal mythology and a children's cautionary tale. Exact Nation attribution beyond Unaipon's collecting context is not safely invented here.

Predatory alignment fits the recorded action; Cryptid kind signals the thin public documentation rather than living ceremonial status. Reject Heuvelmans-style cryptozoology that derives the story from tarsiers or Thylacoleo — those are speculative imports, not Aboriginal authority. Do not stage realistic child victims in art; the cautionary frame can be named without illustrating harm to children.

Cross-reference Bunyip only as another Australian being often flattened by colonial print, not as kin. Prefer Unaipon and library repatriation sources over vampire encyclopaedias. If a later pass cannot find community-confirmed provenance, consider draft status or retirement.