Issue 15. 6 October 2008 - UWA Staff - The University of Western ...

students win national games
If you haven’t heard the celebrations, you must have
a soundproof room: there was jubilation when
UWA’s Western Waagyls trounced the competition
in the National Indigenous Tertiary Education
Student Games. Their nearest rivals were teams
from Newcastle University (second) and Griffith
University (third).
Splashes of colour and movement brightened up a few wet
days on campus when more than 200 Indigenous students
from around Australia, all in their team uniforms, competed.
One of the most popular events was the ancient Noongar
game of fly which involves competitors taking only one running
step between sticks placed in the ground. The intervals
between the sticks get longer as the game progresses. Teams
consist of two men and two women.
Hosted by the Western Australian Students Aboriginal
Corporation and UWA’s School of Indigenous Studies, celebrating
its 20th anniversary this year, the games involved five
teams from all four WA universities and nine from interstate.
Over the three days of competition, the teams also vied in
netball, basketball, touch rugby and volley ball.
Jeromy Harvey from SIS said the games provided a special
chance to bring together Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
students from around the country to compete and to
exchange cultural knowledge and experience.
“The aim of the gathering is to promote unity, a healthy
lifestyle, positive interaction and friendly competition,”
Mr Harvey said.
Games coordinator Brendon Degois, also from SIS,
said there were thousands of traditional Indigenous games
which were being revived around the country.
They included “meetcha boma”, a kind of hockey played
in the Perth area with a red gum nut (“meetcha”) and a piece
of wood with a crooked root (“bandeegurt”); “koabangan”, a
hide-and-seek game enjoyed by children in North Queensland
where the item to be found within a time limit was traditionally
a goanna claw; and “buran”, an
accuracy game in which South
Queensland’s Jagara people
wielded right-handed
(“dunimgi”) and left-handed
(“watungi”) boomerangs to
strike an object.
From left to right: Some of UWA’s
Western Waagyls – Hayden
Woodley (18) of Roebourne,
orientation student; Luke Davies
(18) of Bellevue, orientation
student; Vinka Barunga (19) of
Derby, orientation student; and
Jordin Payne (18) of Esperance,
Law/Arts student.
Issues of a geopolitical context were
emerging and many advances and
changes were taking place, not only for
Malaysia but within the regional seas
and elsewhere. Establishing sovereign
rights over the natural resources within
prescribed jurisdictional zones was an
immediate priority for Malaysia, as well
as updating security on ships and in
ports, the protection of the marine
environment and sustainable
development of marine resources.
Using primary documents and other
data, Dr Forbes and his two assistants
embarked upon updating and
redrawing the 1998 atlas – a project
which would end up taking two years
to complete.
the Maritime Institute of Malaysia
(MIMA) published their own atlas of
Malaysia’s negotiated and potential
maritime limits, marine environment,
port infrastructure and the location
of the nation’s marine biotic and
mineral resources.
(l-r) 1998 Atlas Co-author Mohd Nizam Basiron, MIMA research
assistant Mansoure Shahryari and UWA Map Curator Dr Vivian Forbes
Their 1998 atlas was an
educational success, but shortly
after its publication the duo
realised a follow-up atlas was
indeed vital if MIMA was to
advance the frontier of maritime
knowledge.
The compilation of maps and prose in
the atlas are indeed a ‘labour of love’,
illustrated in more than 80 coloured,
intricately detailed maps. The maps are
also accompanied by comprehensive
text on the cartographical and
geographic aspects of the law of the
sea, ocean resources, port
infrastructure and Malaysia’s maritime
boundary delimitations.
Malaysia’s Maritime Realm Atlas will
officially be launched in Kuala Lumpur
this October. A copy of the atlas has
been donated to the University Library.
The University of Western Australia UWA NEWS 6 October 2008 5