Woggabaliri

[Rob]

Alright, who's been messing around with wikipedia?

Woggabaliri was invented by the Australian Sports Commission in 2007 as part of their social agenda to entice aspiring Aboriginal sports players away from Australian Rules Football in favour of soccer and international sports. It has thus been fraudulently misrepresented as a traditional Indigenous game. Despite no conclusive record of the game's existence prior to 2007, the Australian Sports Commission has represented it to be the subject of an engraving "never let the ball hit the ground" based on William Blandowski's observations in 1857 of camp life near Merbein, Victoria.

 

[Dimenhydrinate]

They did a great job of inventing it in 2007 when they'd already invented it in 2000.

 

[Barkly St End]

This is the wiki talk page of the bloke who originally wrote the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WLRoss

He certainly seems sincere enough and has a good reputation in the wiki community.

A few people have questioned it, and he reckons that he did find a 1904 Wiradjuri dictionary that showed Woggabaliri existed as a word and does mean "to play".

Of course that still doesn't rule out someone taking the piss out of the historian who wrote the book.

Someone points out that there are many inconsistencies in the story, like Queensland claiming the game, when Wiradjuri is a central NSW language, and the famous etching actually being a scene from victoria, not to mention that there is nothing on this game except for this bloke who wrote the book on behalf of the ASC.

 

[nofitzroynoafl]

I think you will find many Soccer fans are somewhat sceptical of this, but the life and times of the person that we base our society on has only one book as a reference.
But a lot of you are making reference to the ASC using Woggabaliri to try and get aboriginal kids to play soccer instead of Australian Rules. I find this strange as the 'A' in ASC actually stands for Australia, so wouldn't it be one of their core responsibilties to get Australian sports people to play sports where they can actually represent Australia? Such as soccer and the Olympics.

 

[.Shotties.]

I think you will find many Soccer fans are somewhat sceptical of this, but the life and times of the person that we base our society on has only one book as a reference.

Who might that be?

 

[Clay Davis]

Who might that be?

Hitler.

 

[Dimenhydrinate]

It's all part of a govt plot to go back in time, insert soccer references into books in 1904, and then take down the AFL.

 

[Barkly St End]

I think you will find many Soccer fans are somewhat sceptical of this, but the life and times of the person that we base our society on has only one book as a reference.
But a lot of you are making reference to the ASC using Woggabaliri to try and get aboriginal kids to play soccer instead of Australian Rules. I find this strange as the 'A' in ASC actually stands for Australia, so wouldn't it be one of their core responsibilties to get Australian sports people to play sports where they can actually represent Australia? Such as soccer and the Olympics.

I'm worried about the ASC, a Government agency, putting up a bull shit story on their website.

Further to that, the Government backed world cup bid has a reference to a game that probably doesn't exist, and mentions it as proof of the cultural heritage of soccer in this country. The Government backed bid may contain a false claim, a manufactured narrative that is meant to impress the people that are to vote for the hosting rights of the World cup.

If this is all a hoax, then that's two very embarassing references for the Government, and I suspect certain members of the opposition would be keen to know about it all.

Lastly, there is a concern that this story appears to have appropriated the language previously used to describe "marn grook", and even a picture from Victoria.

Honestly, all the bits and pieces make it stink to high heaven.

 

[Barkly St End]

It's all part of a govt plot to go back in time, insert soccer references into books in 1904, and then take down the AFL.

There's a verb that means "to play", and?

It actually helps with the hoax.

One can imagine the uni professor visiting some communities in central NSW, and a few larrikins take a lend of him with this story of "Woggabaliri", it's quite funny, and kudos to the larrikins for making up a good one, but it still looks like a hoax, and the government agencies have been a bit to quick and eager to swallow it.

 

[Chaz Pendlebury]

But a lot of you are making reference to the ASC using Woggabaliri to try and get aboriginal kids to play soccer instead of Australian Rules. I find this strange as the 'A' in ASC actually stands for Australia, so wouldn't it be one of their core responsibilties to get Australian sports people to play sports where they can actually represent Australia? Such as soccer and the Olympics.

Wow, they have sent their best logician over....I...I...I see now, the A in ASC stands for Australia ergo they have every right to fabricate history and get Australians to play foreign games rather than our national game!

 

[Barkly St End]

Somone has just put up another note on that blokes wiki page.

The word "woggabaliri" is not a wiradjuri word, it's a ngunawal word, the wiradjuri word for "play" is "wagigi". There's an link to an online dictionary and checked it out for myself.

So there's another hole in this story.

 

[BORK]

Excellent thread OP and some excellent contributions. Shows how effectively investigations can be done as a team. I feel the pisstake theory is spot on.

 

[BORK]

your right chaz -- this is a spoof but it accidentally spills the beans on this conspiracy

http://vulgar.com.au/libero/001/200years.html

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"The doubters are also disproved by the evidence of Aboriginal football in Blandowski’s painting [below] from 1857 that clearly shows Aboriginal men playing a form of keepy-uppy in which ball juggling with the feet is the predominant aspect. The presence of nets being held aloft in the background also suggests the players were warming up for a game while the groundsmen set up the field of play."[/FONT]​

Isnt this guy referring to an alleged picture of Marn Grook as proof of Woggabaliri. Its a pity comments were not allowed on this article.​

 

[SwampCreature]

Who might that be?

Jesus Christ, this one's a bit slow

 

[Testekill]

Somone has just put up another note on that blokes wiki page.

The word "woggabaliri" is not a wiradjuri word, it's a ngunawal word, the wiradjuri word for "play" is "wagigi". There's an link to an online dictionary and checked it out for myself.

So there's another hole in this story.

Most interesting. There isn't very much overlap between any of the aboriginal dialect so perhaps it's a mere coincidence.


Or they're bullshitting.

 

[.Shotties.]

Jesus Christ, this one's a bit slow

I gathered who he was talking about but the "we base our society on" threw me.

 

[lusheslewis]

Top thread!

Where is this Ken Edwards bloke? Hiding probably.

 

[stefoid]

Obviously anyone can edit a Wiki site, but has this been mentioned already? (long thread)

"Another game played by the Wiradjuri is Gullibaliri. Someone fabricates a game and sees how many fools will swallow it without digestion. Others demonstrate that it is clearly a fraud. The last person to "wake up" to the fraud is the winner."

Is that a big footy addition?

 

[Barkly St End]

Well I got my hands on Ken Edwards' book, Choopadoo : Games from the Dreamtime.
I must say I am throughly underwhelmed.

I also noticed that the format of the book, the way the games are laid out seems to have been copied by the ASC - see here for reference

http://www.ausport.gov.au/participa...es_and_activities/individual_games/ball_games

Open up any PDF and it appears and reads like the book

Also in the book there is no mention of Marn-grook - make of that what you will

Hawker
I'm just remembering that you actually got your hands on the book.

Firstly, it is weird that there would be zero mention of marn grook, and also, that he would not have used as references the many eye-witness accounts of such games from Victoria from the 1840s to the 1860s.

On the question of Woggabaliri - does he have anything more to say on it apart from what we can read on the ausport site? Who he spoke to? How they were even aware that such a game existed? Any eye-witness accounts providing corroborating evidence? Anything???

 

[Giants FC]

Probably at home bemoaning his lack of vertabrae, tickling his clitoros with a feather!

Come on Kenny boy...come and defend yourself - you are being accused of fabricating aboriginal history here!

The rumour mill in academia must be slower than in footy. He may not know yet.
But sooner or later, Dr Edwards would surely find out that there is an allegation that he is fabricating Aboriginal history and come on to defend his reputation.

 

[Hawkers]

On the question of Woggabaliri - does he have anything more to say on it apart from what we can read on the ausport site? Who he spoke to? How they were even aware that such a game existed? Any eye-witness accounts providing corroborating evidence? Anything???

BSE,
The book reads pretty much the same as the website.
It has a heading for Background, Players, Basic Rules, Variations, Suggestions amongst others.
The PDF on the ASC's website if anything is a more wordy, cleaned up version of the book

The only thing that isn't mentioned on the PDF is a heading called Comment.
It says that a similar game was played by the Djinghali people of Central Australia. The ball was made of grass, tied tightly and covered in beeswax.
The ball was kicked in the air and kept away from another team, the team that could keep it in the air, away from the other team won. It also says and I'll quote
"Once the ball was kicked off players could not use their hands."

He doesn't give a name to this game though

In relation to his references I've mentioned them before in a previous post. He mentions that some of the games come from one source and others from multiple and that almost all the sources of information for writing the book were mentioned in the references (the references I posted earlier)

There are no other mentions of sources of infomation.

It seems that the ASC liked the look of his book and decided to run with it.

 

[Hawkers]

The rumour mill in academia must be slower than in footy. He may not know yet.
But sooner or later, Dr Edwards would surely find out that there is an allegation that he is fabricating Aboriginal history and come on to defend his reputation.

Perhaps someone can ask him.

I assume he is still in Queensland. Google him and find out

 

[Hawkers]

Duplicate post

 

[Chaz Pendlebury]

The dude has now taken the picture of Marn Grook down from the Wiki page - after first defending it on his own Wiki User Page

looks like we are circling in on Ken Edwards....

Has anyone forwarded this to a journo who might have the guts to persue it?

 

[Barkly St End]

Nup- picture's back up - clearly this picture has nothing to do with this supposed game, so I'm unsure why it has to be put up - we will need to be vigilant and remove it.