Sorry, a Pig dog is a large heavy broad shouldered dog bred to hunt and kill feral pigs. They are trained to kill by locking on the neck or over the face to kill their prey and a fair few have become feral out the bush. The Thylacine thing is that whilst they are extinct officially people think there are sightings all the time and a lot of stories about them being released onto the mainland in the 19th century. Much like stories of US service men releasing Pumas in the Grampians mountains in the second world war, the acclimatization society releasing big cats in the bush for hunting in the 19th century and, of course circus escapees. In any case the thing was a diverse range of phenomena being grouped together in a moral panic against supposed Satanic ritual abuse in the 80s that was linked to D&D, metal music, child care centres and anti-immigration sentiment against other things. The only real point with the animals is people coming across an odd looking corpse in the bush or in farmland that was taken up in the 80s as evidence of ritual abuse and today as Big Cats and the like. People looking for culturally appropriate explanations to hang their anxieties on and phenomena that’s not easily understood without a bit of research. We had some copycat killings round Geelong in the early 90s but they were also linked to a panic against Wiccans and it got a bit politically messy, as these things do, then died out into the back ground of moral panics.
Best
David
From: car-pga@googlegroups.com [mailto:car-pga@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Paul Cardwell
Sent: Saturday, 7 August 2010 2:41 PM
To: car-pga@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [car-pga] Chick, M&M, etc.
It is great to get a "mute" (from mutation) account from Oz. I would almost be willing to accept the problems to bring thylacines back from extinction. "Pig dog" might be a bit Strine for most of us, I assume a semi-feral dog distinct from a dingo, but a translation might help.
In North America, the phenomenon has been observed with the scavenger generally being a badger, weasel (usually skunk), or initially a member of the crow family (raven, crow, or jay). They seem to get there even before the insects. There were a few authenticated cases of human involvement toward the end of the mute panic, but all were ruled copycat (the result of the panic, not cause) and also involved animals already dead.
Back when Robert Hicks was with the Virginia Department of Criminal Services, he was to investigate Pat Pulling's claims. As a result, we had quite a bit of cooperative work on the subject. However, that ended with his repudiation of all her claims and his reassignment to more mundane tasks.
We have Waldron's paper in our archives, where it was most useful back when - and may be again.
From: David <davidnjasmine@optusnet.com.au>
To: car-pga@googlegroups.com
Sent: Fri, August 6, 2010 6:28:38 PM
Subject: RE: [car-pga] Chick, M&M, etc.
I wrote a paper on this stuff a while ago for the journal of Religion and Popular culture. I lived through it, with my father being a minister and so getting a lot of flack for my hobby at the time at school, and thought it would be an interesting side project. It was a systemic project to attack D&D but it was a sideshow, I think, to a general malaise of Satanic Ritual Abuse panics used by hard line right wing Christian organizations anxious about secularism and the like. Incidently where I live in Ballarat Australia has had a rash of dead stock and Kangaroos of the kind which were attributed to Satanists and ritual sacrifice in the 1980s. ie broken neck testicles removed, body clit open and heart, liver and kidneys gone. This time the interpretation is Big Cats or secretly having Thylacines in the mainland wilderness. I was researching the myths of Big Cats and Thylacines and a local Aboriginal elder reckons that it when you get a stray pig dog kill an animal and then foxes come in to eat the most nutrient rich bits followed by bugs. Then people try to explain what is several animals working on a carcass together as one bizarre incident. Another one was animals with bored out rectums which they claimed was Satanists doing sex rituals. They have found now that ants are coming in and going for the softest bits and so bore out the nether regions creating the appearance of a gaping anus etc on a roo or sheep. Still the rumours fly about and the anti-D&D thing is part of a broader pattern of Christo-centric panic. Hicks’ book “In pursuit of Satan: American Police and the Occult” is a great read on the SRA panic of the 80s and makes some discussion of the D&D business. There was also a chapter on it in the Skeptics society publication “Why People Believe Weird Things”.
My paper is here
http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art9-roleplaying.html
Best
David
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