Marn Grook

rdf:langString Marn Grook

rdf:langString April 2021

rdf:langString Source is in some foreign language; look for it in Archive.org?

rdf:langString No mention of an sort of game in the text of the source.

rdf:langString Marn Grook or marngrook, from the Woiwurung language for "ball" or "game", is the popular collective name for traditional Indigenous Australian football games played at gatherings and celebrations by sometimes more than 100 players. These games featured punt kicking and catching a stuffed ball. They involved large numbers of players, and were played over an extremely large area. The game was subject to strict behavioural protocols: for instance all players had to be matched for size, gender and skin group relationship. However, to observers the game appeared to lack a team objective, having no real rules or scoring system. A winner could only be declared if one of the sides agreed that the other side had played better. Individual players who consistently exhibited outstanding skills, such as leaping high over others to catch the ball, were often praised, but proficiency in the sport gave them no tribal influence. Historical reports support such games being played extensively in south-eastern Australia, including the Djabwurrung and Jardwadjali people and other tribes in the Wimmera, Mallee and Millewa regions of western Victoria (However, according to some accounts, the range extended to the Wurundjeri in the Yarra Valley, the Gunai people of Gippsland, and the Riverina in south-western New South Wales. The Warlpiri tribe of Central Australia played a very similar kicking and catching game with a possum skin ball, and the game was known as pultja. North of Brisbane in Queensland in the 1860s it was known as Purru Purru. The earliest accounts emerged decades after the European settlement of Australia, mostly from the colonial Victorian explorers and settlers. The earliest anecdotal account was in 1841, a decade prior to the Victorian gold rush. Although the consensus among historians is that Marn Grook existed before European arrival, it is not clear how long the game had been played in Victoria or elsewhere on the Australian continent. A news article published in 1906 suggests that the game of Marngrook had been observed around a century prior. Some historians claim that Marn Grook had a role in the formation of Australian rules football, which originated in Melbourne in 1858 and was codified the following year by members of the Melbourne Football Club. This connection has become culturally important to many Indigenous Australians, including celebrities and professional footballers from communities in which Australian rules football is highly popular.