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thesoretoothsayer
Joined: 26 Apr 2017
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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I read that earlier. Considering researchers had previously found no link, it seems like a populist re writing of history to coincide with the Adam Goodes movie, but at the end of the day no one is going to die either way.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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thesoretoothsayer
Joined: 26 Apr 2017
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True, no one will die and the stories we tell ourselves as a community or nation often aren't quite true ( or true at all ).
To me it speaks to the arrogance of the AFL. They're happy to overrule experts in the field if it suits their agenda.
I'd also highlight Hosch's lines below.
Notice how they subtly set the precondition to dismiss anyone challenging the AFL's rewriting of history as a racist.
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...we now have a statement that acknowledges and accepts the link between Marngrook and Australian Rules Football.
.........
It's worth noting that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's history, perspectives and beliefs have always been and will always be contested or undermined by some people. There is nothing new about that.
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Oral histories are often embellished and distorted over centuries of re-telling.
The oral history of the Tiwi Islands recounts when the islands were cut off from the mainland by rising sea levels. The fact that the water rose is the only factual part of the story.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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thesoretoothsayer
Joined: 26 Apr 2017
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| Quote: | | Ms Hosch said the sharing of oral history by Aboriginal elders had changed the understanding of Marngrook within the AFL industry. |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Sounds like politicised revisionism to me. There is some reasonable conjecture that Wills was influenced by Marngrook – apparently he grew up around Aboriginal kids – but it seems much more likely that it was, at best, only one of many influences alongside pre–codified British football, and entirely possible that it wasn’t a factor at all.
Strange that Hosch would decline an interview with the ABC to clarify her position on this, but suits the AFL’s general avoidance of accountability.
(Edit: I just read the ABC article, and it says it better than I could – there’s no evidence that Wills ever even played or observed Marngrook, and every likelihood that he simply modified the existing form of British football that he’d been introduced to.)
Interestingly, this ABC article from a couple of years ago paints a somewhat different picture:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-13/historian-reveals-marngrook-influence-on-afl/8439748
| Quote: | Writer Jim Poulter told the ABC's Mike Sexton in 2008 that it should be no surprise that Wills did not publicly state the Indigenous influence on his game, such was the racism and distrust towards Indigenous people at the time.
"If Tom Wills had said, 'Hey, we should have a game of our own, more like the football that black fellas play', it would have killed it stone dead before it was even born," he said.
Professor Hocking said the AFL had made an appalling omission of Marngrook in the book, and did not consider Ms Hibbins' piece to be an "appropriate one".
"I think it too easily dismisses this as even an influence and it is undoubtedly one of several," she said.
"There's no doubt it formed an influential part in Tom Wills' skills and his subsequent skills in rugby, and has influenced the way he reconfigured the game of rugby, when he and others established football." |
Perhaps we’ll never really know either way, and the appropriate response is to neither categorically deny the Marngrook influence (as per Hibbins) or treat it as gospel (as per Hosch), but to accept that it’s unclear. People don’t like uncertainty, but sometimes it’s all we have to work with.
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
We can't possibly know for sure, either way.
We do know Wills grew up around local Aboriginals and could speak some of their language and knew their customs.
We also know he went to school in Rugby in England. Catching the ball is also called a mark in union.
So he created a game like rugby but a 360 degree version with no offside rule, maybe like Marngrook but also like Gaelic football which had already been around for a long time before Wills went to England.
While the modern game may compare favourably to Marngrook with constant motion, it wasn't always that way.
Here's some of the earliest recorded footage, the 1909 VFL final.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILE0_pqmHVo
On the other hand, some supporting testimony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY8snUkHA8A
My personal view, if acknowledging that Aussie rules (I can't stand calling the game AFL) may have drawn some influences from an Indigenous game in any way has a positive impact on even some Indigenous people, then go with it whether it's factual or not
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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thesoretoothsayer
Joined: 26 Apr 2017
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Did you just put a Carlton video up on Nicks?
Delete your account. |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
Hey, it's a video of Carlton losing a Grand final. 
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| stui magpie wrote: | We also know he went to school in Rugby in England. Catching the ball is also called a mark in union.
So he created a game like rugby but a 360 degree version with no offside rule, maybe like Marngrook but also like Gaelic football which had already been around for a long time before Wills went to England. |
That’s not actually true, to my knowledge – while forms of football have been played for centuries, Gaelic football as we know it now was only codified in the 1880s – and Rugby and soccer only split around the 1860s, I think. It’s easy to forget that our game is as old as any football code. But the “mark” in Rugby Union does seem too similar to be a coincidence.
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Gaelic may have only been codified in 1887 but variants were played for centuries prior. Considering Wills spent time in Ireland after leaving school before returning to Australia, the odds are high he was exposed to some form of the game.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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