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''Marn Grook'' or ''marngrook'', from the Gunditjmara language for "game ball", is a collective name given to a number of traditional Indigenous Australian recreational pastimes believed to have been played at gatherings and celebrations of up to fifty players. It is distinct from the indigenous ball game Woggabaliri which is believed to be the subject of William Blandowski's engraving "never let the ball hit the ground" (see picture on right).〔Tim Hilferti, "The Australian Game" ''The Advertiser'' Pg 79 24 October 2010〕 Generally speaking, observers commented that Marn Grook was a football game which featured punt kicking and catching a stuffed "ball". It involved large numbers of players, and games were played over an extremely large area. Totemic teams may have been formed; however, to observers the game appeared to lack a team objective, having no real rules, scoring or winner. Individual players who consistently exhibited outstanding skills, such as leaping high over others to catch the ball, were often commented on.〔''The Sports Factor'', ABC Radio National, program first broadcast on 5 September 2008.〕 Anecdotal evidence supports such games being played primarily by the Djabwurrung and Jardwadjali people and other tribes in the Wimmera, Mallee and Millewa regions of western Victoria (which are commonly associated with the name "Marn Grook"). 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 Walpiri tribe of Central Australia played a very similar kicking and catching game with possum skins known as ''pultja''.〔("Aboriginal Rules" ). 2007 video documentary by the Walpiri Media Association〕 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, not enough is known by anthropologists about the prehistoric customs of Indigenous Australians to determine how long the game had been played in Victoria or elsewhere on the Australian continent.〔Martin Flanagan, The Call. St. Leonards, Allen & Unwin, 1998, p. 8 Martin Flanagan, 'Sport and Culture'〕〔Gregory M de Moore. Victoria University. from Football Fever. Crossing Boundaries. Maribyrnong Press, 2005〕〔David Thompson, ("Aborigines were playing possum" ), ''Herald Sun'', 27 September 2007. Accessed 3 November 2008〕 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.〔("A code of our own" celebrating 150 years of the rules of Australian football ) ''The Yorker: Journal of the Melbourne Cricket Club Library'' Issue 39, Autumn 2009〕 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.〔(AFL turning Indigenous dreamtime to big time - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) )〕 == Eyewitness accounts == Robert Brough Smyth, in an 1878 book, ''The Aborigines of Victoria'', quoted William Thomas, a Protector of Aborigines in Victoria, who stated that in about 1841 he had witnessed Wurundjeri Aborigines east of Melbourne playing the game. :''The men and boys joyfully assemble when this game is to be played. One makes a ball of possum skin, somewhat elastic, but firm and strong. ...The players of this game do not throw the ball as a white man might do, but drop it and at the same time kicks it with his foot, using the instep for that purpose. ...The tallest men have the best chances in this game. ...Some of them will leap as high as five feet from the ground to catch the ball. The person who secures the ball kicks it. ...This continues for hours and the natives never seem to tire of the exercise.''〔Robert Brough-Smyth ''The Aborigines of Victoria'' 1878 Pg.176〕 The game was a favourite of the Wurundjeri-william clan and the two teams were sometimes based on the traditional totemic moeties of Bunjil (eagle) and Waang (crow). Robert Brough-Smyth saw the game played at Coranderrk Mission Station, where ngurungaeta (elder) William Barak discouraged the playing of imported games like cricket and encouraged the traditional native game of marn grook.〔Isabel Ellender and Peter Christiansen, pp45 ''People of the Merri Merri. The Wurundjeri in Colonial Days'', Merri Creek Management Committee, 2001 ISBN 0-9577728-0-7〕 An 1857 sketch found in 2007 describes an observation by Victorian scientist William Blandowski, of the Latjilatji people playing a football game near Merbein, on his expedition to the junction of the Murray and Darling Rivers.〔(Kids play kick to kick −1850s style ) from abc.net.au〕 The Australian Sports Commission considers this sketch to be depicting the game of Woggabaliri. The image is inscribed: :''A group of children is playing with a ball. The ball is made out of typha roots (roots of the bulrush). It is not thrown or hit with a bat, but is kicked up in the air with a foot. The aim of the game – never let the ball touch the ground.'' Historian Greg de Moore comments: :''What I can say for certain is that it's the first image of any kind of football that's been discovered in Australia. It pre-dates the first European images of any kind of football, by almost ten years in Australia. Whether or not there is a link between the two games in some way for me is immaterial because it really highlights that games such as Marn Grook, which is one of the names for Aboriginal football, were played by Aborigines and should be celebrated in their own right.'' In 1889, anthropologist Alfred Howitt, wrote that the game was played between large groups on a totemic basis — the white cockatoos versus the black cockatoos, for example, which accorded with their skin system. Acclaim and recognition went to the players who could leap or kick the highest. Howitt wrote:
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