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The name of the city is derived from the language of the Wiradjuri tribe, which was the biggest Aboriginal tribe in New South Wales.

Their tribal region embraced the Riverina area.

"Wagga", "Wahga" or Wahgam" in Aboriginal dialect means "crow". The repetition of a word was the method of expressing the plural or emphasis, thus Wagga Wagga means "crows" or "the place where crows assemble in large numbers". The Murrumbidgee River which runs through the city also derived its name from the aboriginal language and means "plenty water" or "big water".

The people of the Wiradjuri 'tribe'  occupied one of the largest areas in New South Wales. Wiradjuri territory was bounded by the Eastern Highlands in the east and the Murray River in the south; it extended above the Lachlan River in the north and almost to the junction of the Lachlan and the Murrumbidgee Rivers in the west.

They travelled in small groups - usually a man, his wives and children and other close family members. The girls left the group at about the age of 14 to marry. Young boys left to live with the single men after they were initiated.

The Wiradjuri people were deeply religious. Aborigines believed in a supernatural being. For the Wiradjuri people the supernatural being was known as Baiame. They believed that during the Dreamtime Baiame and the other ancestral beings created all forms of living things.

Power and authority usually rested with the elders in the community. However the most powerful man was the 'clever man' or native doctor. The Wiradjuri people believed he was able to communicate with Baiame and the  various spirit beings and that he could see into the future.

Once or twice a year the tribal group and sometimes other tribal groups met to fulfil marriage arrangements or settle disputes over land use. The meetings were also used for the exchange of knowledge, and of goods such as food, weapons, kilts, possum cloaks, possum rugs, nets, bags and digging sticks.
The most important meetings were held for initiating the youths to make them worthy members of the community and to admit them to the privileges of manhood. The initiation ceremony was known to the Wiradjuri people as the Burbung.

Aborigines believed that after an individual died his or her spirit dispersed. Complex rituals were considered necessary to help the spirit return to its sacred site. Bodies were usually buried in a hollow tree or in the ground in sandhills (including the sandhill now the site of the Wagga Wagga courthouse) or in oven mounds where it was easy to dig.

After Governor Philip arrived in New South Wales with the First Fleet of convicts in 1788, the Wiradjuri people in the Wagga Wagga area heard the news from the coastal tribes along the lines of trade and communication. Before they even sighted a white man, the Wiradjuri people felt the effects of white settlement. Two smallpox epidemics (in the 1790's and the 1830's), to which they had no immunity, had decimated their numbers. Because it was an unexplained illness, the Wiradjuri people blamed the powerful magic of a hostile deity.

The white explorers and settlers soon began moving into the Wagga Wagga area. At first the Wiradjuri people welcomed and assisted the explorers.  The Wiradjuri people were unaware of the consequences of white settlement. They did not realise their lifestyle was to change dramatically.

Information courtesy of Wagga Wagga - A History, Sherry Morris