Woggabaliri

[mustapha]

By the way, you are very incorrect about Chaz, he was not ante soccer and in fact is a Heart member.

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Where did I say that Chaz was anti soccer? He is definitely against the world cup bid (usually based on economic grounds) and there is nothing wrong with that. If someone guaranteed that the World Cup would make money I believe that Chaz would support the bid (I could be wrong but he could clarify). I don't believe that this is the case for many of the posters who spend time on the World Cup board.

Anyway, back to talking about the ancient sport of Woggabaliri.

 

[Barkly St End]

Anyway, back to talking about the ancient sport of Woggabaliri.

Being pro or anti WC bid is not at the heart of this.

The fact that ausport is exaggerating claims surrounding Woggabaliri, most probably to get extra taxpayer monies, is bad enough of itself.

If it had remained a curious story in an obscure book, it wouldn't have mattered.

But a government body is now using this curious story (with no references and no prior information) to pursue its own agenda - that's the despicable bit about it.

 

[greennick]

Read my opening post if you want to know why I am disgusted by this. And yes, I compare my research skills very favourably to Ken Edwards, a man who has discovered a host of games that uncannily resemble modern games. And he still hasn't emmerged to defend himself.

If he had any integrity he would scan all his "evidence" about the existence of this Woggabaliri, and let people more qualified than him (i.e. historians, socioligists, linguists etc) decide.

Dude, I don't think he will be googling himself and woggabaliri, looking for references to it on football websites (of any variety). If you really want to confront him on this, you need to send him a reasonable email and see what he says about it. If he doesn't respond to an email, then yeah, maybe you're on to something.

 

[don maligner]

The ASC if you are unaware, is a commonwealth tax payer funded agencythe legislated objectives are:


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an effective national sports system that offers improved participation in quality sports​

activities by Australians​

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> excellence in sports performances by Australians.​

Without excessively researching, the ASC doles out about $100 million a year to achieve these aims. You will notice if you look at their 2008/09 annual report that it has historically skews vast bulk of this to the second
objective. Additionally it appears to interpret the second as "success in olympic sports and soccer".​

So it sees itself as basically a mechanism for satiating jingoism and cultural cringe, providing little resources to the first objective that, I would think anyway, should be their primary objective.

Sorry Chaz, but I don't think it's accurate to say that ASC are ignoring the first objective by encouraging participation in sports like swimming or athletics for instance. It's just that some sports are achieving both objectives aren't they?

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[BORK]

I wonder if people here will be known as "Wog Truthers"?

Does anyone know of any indigenous persons backing the claim?

 

[Barkly St End]

I wonder if people here will be known as "Wog Truthers"?

Does anyone know of any indigenous persons backing the claim?

All roads lead back to Ken Edwards, even when various bodies have a reference to it (it quotes his book directly).

Put it this way people, I have a keen interest in European folk tales, and read the work of the earliest folklorists from the second half of the 19th century.

Even with enthusiastic amateurs, they provide background info on how they came upon the particular folktale, who told it to them, where they heard it from, maybe even where that person heard it from, what dialiect/language/vernacular was used, exact details of the locality (province, town, district, farming community) variations they have heard about it.

The more academic the folklorists involved, the more cross-referencing that you see, the bringing together of themes, discussion of origins, connections with other folk tales down the road or across Europe, or even further afield.

But here we have Ken Edwards, and just Ken Edwards. No background of who he spoke to, where he heard it, whether he corroborated the story, whether it's backed by other evidence - he couldn't even bother checking whether Woggabaliri is a fair dinkum Wiradjuri word or not (it's not, it's a Ngunawal word, according to a dictionary dating back to 1904).

On top of that, how did he determine the variations of the game? (all of which have a modern ring to them), once again, who did he talk to, did he have eye witness accounts? did he refer to them directly in his account of Woggabaliri?

In short, no.

 

[Chaz Pendlebury]

Sorry Chaz, but I don't think it's accurate to say that ASC are ignoring the first objective by encouraging participation in sports like swimming or athletics for instance. It's just that some sports are achieving both objectives aren't they?

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There are two issues - first the interpretation that "high performance" relates only to international sports and, more particularly, the more international the better (i.e soccer and olympics)

The second is that they have historically provided very little to particpation i.e. have been obsessed with winning olympic gold medals primarily. In stead they have provided millions each year to sailing and equestian, i.e. at the elite end of socially elite sports, and very little to broad based participation.

The problem is they have ignored broad based participation full stop, including in swimming and athletics. They have been mesmirised by the second objective and their jingoistic interpretation of it, to the point of seeing the institution that provides the greatest contribution to sports participation in the country - the AFL - as a threat and a competitor rather than their greatest asset in persuing their first objective

 

[BORK]

All roads lead back to Ken Edwards, even when various bodies have a reference to it (it quotes his book directly).

Put it this way people, I have a keen interest in European folk tales, and read the work of the earliest folklorists from the second half of the 19th century.

Even with enthusiastic amateurs, they provide background info on how they came upon the particular folktale, who told it to them, where they heard it from, maybe even where that person heard it from, what dialiect/language/vernacular was used, exact details of the locality (province, town, district, farming community) variations they have heard about it.

The more academic the folklorists involved, the more cross-referencing that you see, the bringing together of themes, discussion of origins, connections with other folk tales down the road or across Europe, or even further afield.

But here we have Ken Edwards, and just Ken Edwards. No background of who he spoke to, where he heard it, whether he corroborated the story, whether it's backed by other evidence - he couldn't even bother checking whether Woggabaliri is a fair dinkum Wiradjuri word or not (it's not, it's a Ngunawal word, according to a dictionary dating back to 1904).

On top of that, how did he determine the variations of the game? (all of which have a modern ring to them), once again, who did he talk to, did he have eye witness accounts? did he refer to them directly in his account of Woggabaliri?

In short, no.

I have posted the link to this thread on my account on a social networking site. I feel many should do the same to get word out about this seeming crock of sh1t.

Someone needs to collate all the holes in the story and all the questions that need to be asked into an email to Ken Edwards and post the original and response if any back on here.

 

[SwampCreature]

all the soccer forums are pissing themselves laughing at what is an obvious hoax.

can we get some links to this kind of thing please?

 

[juppy]

I've shared this link with someone who may be able to dig a bit deeper so will see what happens there. Incredibly offensive name and a lot of people taken for a ride if its made up.

 

[Barkly St End]

can we get some links to this kind of thing please?

On The Roar, on 442, on the MV forum, although I have to admit, a few have treated it quite seriously, and have tried to convince the others that it's all legit (by referring to all of the same links we have referred to, which, as we know, are all circular and derive from just one pen).

 

[Barkly St End]

BSE, I suspect that Ken Edwards has lifted the word directly from the same book you found it.

This is the most plausibile hypothesis to me now. Ken Edwards is at best a charlatan and at wost a fraud. The longer he takes to emerge to defend himself, providing either evidence or an admission of a lack there of, the more we must assume he is a fraud who is weasled away somewhere hoping this will blow over.

I don't know if there's a need for such harsh language. He's an academic specialising in human movement, but he's neither an historian or an expert in indigenous languages, and this book is not really written as an historical text, as we all now know.

My guess is that some wag has spun him this story of woggabaliri (actually knowing it's a real word meaning "play"), and fed him the rules of hackey sack, and he has lapped it up, and like all true academics, he hasn't cottoned on to the joke, and let's be honest, the hoax is an ingenious one and extremely funny (moreso given how many have been sucked in - all the way to the top levels of Government, afterall, the bid book was put together under the watchful eye of our PM).

Before we know it - it's on government websites and in our bid book for the WC! (and all the while, absolutely no one has bothered trying to verify it - not one single person).

When this ultimately gets exposed for the hoax that it obviously is, we will be right to question our authorities: how is it possible that they could have run with this for so long when it had all the hallmarks of a hoax? If we get exposed internationally for making up stories, we'd be right to grill the people who prepared the bid book (Government officials and the FFA): what the hell were you idiots thinking?? Didn't it occur to you to do a five minute check?

 

[Puddy]

At first I thought this was a joke, and I was right

 

[Chaz Pendlebury]

To be fair the FFA are hardly the worst offender in all this.

They could rightly have expected the ASC to have done due diligence in all this.

It is the ASC that should be worried. They have taken the research of a PE teacher who was claiming to have discovered that various indigenous tribes had played up to 70 hitherto undiscovered games which basically can be extrapolated into every modern game that exists, and used it without any apparent due diligence whatsoever.

I feel sorry for Ken Edwards a little bit. I feel he has been used by the ASC and their perverse agenda but he will take much of the heat. They elevated him to the status of "Guru of traditional indigenous games" when his charlatanry it should have been bleedingly obvious.

 

[Barkly St End]

To be fair the FFA are hardly the worst offender in all this.

They could rightly have expected the ASC to have done due diligence in all this.

It is the ASC that should be worried. They have taken the research of a PE teacher who was claiming to have discovered that various indigenous tribes had played up to 70 hitherto undiscovered games which basically can be extrapolated into every modern game that exists, and used it without any apparent due diligence whatsoever.

I feel sorry for Ken Edwards a little bit. I feel he has been used by the ASC and their perverse agenda but he will take much of the heat. They elevated him to the status of "Guru of traditional indigenous games" when his charlatanry it should have been bleedingly obvious.

I would agree that the ASC is the key culprit.

One could view Edwards' book as just a listing of some games, not intended as an historic treatise, and at that level, you can have a bit of smirk that he was taken in by this story, and we could have left it there.

The ASC has elevated it to something more important, even talking about the "oldest game" or similar gargabe, and have clearly done so with the intent of financial gain (from us, the taxpayer) - so yes, quite despicable.

We should expect more from our government instrumentalities.

 

[Chaz Pendlebury]

BSE, some of the language of used towards Ken Edwards may have been harsh, but he has puit himself in this position. There are a number of vitally important principles that appear to be compromised here and one shouldn't expect to get away with that with impunity. Remember, this man draws his income from the public purse.

If Ken Edwards can provide credible evidence that exonerates him from historical fabrication, I will be the first to provide a full apology. He apparently has copius amounts of unpublished evidence that supports the discovery of a host of indigenous games around which he has based his career for the last decade. Why can't he supply this information?

Its been 10 days since that article appeared in the Advertiser and this thread has been going all week. People have apparently sent him emails. He must be aware what is going on, no?

 

[Barkly St End]

BSE, some of the language of used towards Ken Edwards may have been harsh, but he has puit himself in this position. There are a number of vitally important principles that appear to be compromised here and one shouldn't expect to get away with that with impunity. Remember, this man draws his income from the public purse.

If Ken Edwards can provide credible evidence that exonerates him from historical fabrication, I will be the first to provide a full apology. He apparently has copius amounts of unpublished evidence that supports the discovery of a host of indigenous games around which he has based his career for the last decade. Why can't he supply this information?

Its been 10 days since that article appeared in the Advertiser and this thread has been going all week. People have apparently sent him emails. He must be aware what is going on, no?

I'm thinking that when he started doing all of this, it was just a bit of a side interest - it wasn't considered some sort of academic work (I'm just guessing) - and this Woggabaliri story has now taken on a life of its own - it's possible that he never imagined it happening, or that a Government body would push the envelop with it.

I'm sure he never imagined that his work would form the basis of a very bold claim put before the world, that we effectively invented soccer!

The key thing is that two Government bodies have accepted his little list of games unquestionably, but worse, have given it far more prominence and significance than Edwards ever claimed.

ps I think our starting point should be that Edwards didn't go into this with any intent, he has simply been taken for a ride, it's the government bodies that have elevated this far beyond it ever should have gone.

 

[jpdixon]

And it's beyond me why people keep referring to an etching made in Victoria as proof of a game supposedly played in cental NSW!

I'm not convinced by this Woggabaliri thing, mainly because it clearly wasn't recorded as serious historicalresearch, but I'm not sure why people keep going on about this as though the people playing the games cared about state borders. The place the etching is from is much closer to Wiradjuri than the places Marn Grook has been reported in. (Of course, the fact that the name is actually Ngannawal makes it more complicated, but it's certainly not about state borders.)

The real issue with this business isn't whether the game existed - of course people would have been playing ball games, probably more than one game in each location, and this is a pretty standard idea for a game. The point is that FIFA take any kicking game anywhere in the world, and call it an early form of soccer. There's not really anything in a touchy-feely sense - it really is just one form of the games that have been played throughout history - but it doesn't have anything to do with the history of the different modern codes in this country.

 

[belfast_bomber]

I always thought the marn grook thing was a little bit spurious. This seems to have been invented as a kind of spoof on it, and unfortunately some people have swallowed the bait whole.

It's not just Australia either. There's an awful lot of bullshit talked about Gaelic games here, same as the Italians with their mediaeval 'calcio' supposedly being an antecedent of the English association football. It's nationalism dressed up as sport.

 

[nofitzroynoafl]

I am a little puzzled as to why the seriousness and accusation of fraudulent behaviour on this topic. If Woggabiliri is a joke perpetrated by an indigenous person then it would not be the first time, see Moomba, and its name itself does raise skepticism.
I have read the posts in this thread and also had a look at the resources available on the ASC website and have done a little digging (as you all have) but I have come to completely different conclusion.
It appears to me that events have unfolded in a simple and innocent manner.
A person, Ken Edwards, for whatever reason decides to study and collate information on games that indigenous peoples played both prior to and after the arrival of white man, a study which appears to have been done a few years ago.
The Australian Sports Commission then uses that information to create games with aboriginal names and they then attach rules that are at best similar to the description set forth by Ken Edwards. But the games created by the ASC have purpose beyond the simplistic children’s games that are explained, such as the involvement of the community to help prepare and teach these games, the bringing together of the community and, for mine, the most important reason explained is that it gives non-aboriginal people a starting place or a connection to aboriginal culture, which can only be a good thing.
Then someone involved with the Australia 2022 World Cup bid decides to include it in the bid book, in what context or how prominently Woggabaliri is featured is unknown, to me at least as I have not seen the bid book. I would guess that most cultures over the centuries have had some form of kicking a spherical object around in play (be it a ball made of an animal’s stomach or the head of a felled opponent) so for Australia to somehow link this game to a “football’s coming home” type story would be ludicrous. I would hope that if Woggabiliri is used it would be in a jovial manner, similar to the quote made by Boris Johnson when he said “Wiff waff’s coming home”. I can guarantee that the bid for the World Cup in Australia in 2022 does not hinge on a tenuous link between Soccer and Woggabliri, don’t worry our bid has a lot more substance.
The ASC website lists many games that Ken Edwards has written about, but this thread only appears to be attacking one of those games and attacking the fact that another is not mentioned.
And what if one of the other games was used to try and lure a different World Cup to these shores? If the throwing and catching games were mentioned in a bid to host the Basketball World Cup or the Rugby Union World Cup would this thread exist? Or if the hitting with a stick games were in a bid for the Cricket World Cup?
I don’t see any malice or fraudulent behaviour in any of this, but that is just my opinion.

 

[Chaz Pendlebury]

No malice but there certainly appears to be fraud. The touch game is also ridiculous as are many more I'm sure.

You can't just make stuff up and pass it off as research.

 

[Perry Pie]

You can't just make stuff up and pass it off as research.

You can if you are:
a/ a consultant (only the paid ones)
b/ an academic (generally a lazy one)
c/ someone making a fraudulent case
d/ a comedian

evryone else is an idiot.

 

[Barkly St End]

nofitzroy

so you did a bit of digging around, great! Have you found anyone, anything, any source on Woggabaliri that does not start and end with Ken Edwards? Eye witness accounts? Letters, journals, or newspaper accounts from the 19th century? Any corroboration by anyone, just anyone, anyone, or is he the first to have thought about indigenous games? (hint: he's not, and he's neither an historian or an expert in idigenous languages)

You made one interesting comment: that he also looked at games played by indigenous people after the arrival of Europeans. Ah, now we are getting closer to the truth - perhaps he found a few blackfellas playing hackie sack and they fed him a line about woggabaliri? I guess you're right, what's the harm?

Well, when a government funded body starts passing of this spoof as the "oldest ball game played in Australia", and does so potentially to extract greater funds out of the taxpayer, well, it's not really acceptable.

And then if we use this con job to con the rest of the world about our ancient heritage in soccer to win a big prize, well, it's starting go well beyond an action we would deem acceptable.

According to the 'tiser: "We've included woggabaliri in our bid book to show that football is part of our national heritage,'' FFA media relations head Rod Allen said.

Also, you are being dishonest by making out that we are making this a marn grook vs Woggabaliri contest. None of us here are doing that. The key point is that we have the documented evidence that marn grook existed - but we have nothing on Woggabaliri - nothing - and government bodies are making something out of it for financial gain - that's the key point.

Otherwise, your description of what may have happened is very similar to mine a bit above your post - but I think he has been conned by one or two larrikins having a bit of a laugh.

ps your reference to state borders not existing pre-European settlement is a bit disingenuous. Major rivers like the Murray acted as natural borders between tribes and language groups. But the key point is that some are grabbing this etching as proof of a game that may or may not have existed in central NSW in the absence of any other evidence, once again for dubious purposes.

 

[Illinois Nazi]

Well, when a government funded body starts passing of this spoof as the "oldest ball game played in Australia", and does so potentially to extract greater funds out of the taxpayer, well, it's not really acceptable.

This is the bit I find interesting.

Leaving aside that Woggaaliri is probably made up anyway, what is the basis for determining that it is "older" than marn grook, hakisakiri or any other indigenous game?

It's like saying that Europeans encountered aboriginal groups around Sydney in 1788, but not around Perth until 1829, therefore the Sydney aboriginals have been there longer.

 

[ZabsBlues]

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.

I have never heard of these people. Djinghali sounds like an African tribe .