Coreeda

Member Organization(s)

(withdrawal in 2018)

Introduction

Coreeda is a combination of Aboriginal dance with a unique wrestling game. It is a team sport that calculating the team members' scores by summing them up. The scores of six competitors representing each weight class from each team are added to the team scores.

History

The word “Coreeda” means ‘kangaroo spirit’ in the Ngiyampaa language of Cobar region, NSW, Australia, and is based on a story told by the elders of that region: As a solution to the endemic warfare and reprisal killings that were taking so many lives, an old man named Beereun observed the Red Kangaroos fighting and realized that peace could be found if warriors simply put down their weapons and fought within the strict rules of play; thus the sport of wrestling was created.

Centered on the great kangaroo hunts that brought many different tribal groups together for festive gatherings, the young men of the region were made to compete to dissipate their aggressive tendencies and display themselves for potential marriage arrangements. The Coreeda Festivals were occurring until the 1870s when the discovery of copper mines in the region brought European settlers and the destruction of the tribal way of life.

The Coreeda Association was founded in 1998 as an attempt to revive the lost forms of traditional wrestling that were practiced in pre-colonial Australia by aboriginal people.

References

Coreeda Association of Australia (2010). WoMAU membership application form.

Jens Korff (14 August 2020). “Coreeda: Aboriginal wrestling”. Creative Spirits.