Research Marngrook

[West_Coast_Eagles]

Marngrook- which means "gameball" in the gunditjmara indigenous language.

Many people from different backgrounds & knowledge have different views on marngrook being the foundation (with many rule changes obviously)of what we now call Australian Rules.


I'd like to people's views and from research they have done

To share there views on marngrook and if they fit in with what Tom Wills was credited of creating.

I have no real knowledge of what is called Marngrook but would like to hear from people's research.

 

[royals1922]

Marngrook- which means "gameball" in the gunditjmara indigenous language.

Many people from different backgrounds & knowledge have different views on marngrook being the foundation (with many rule changes obviously)of what we now call Australian Rules.


I'd like to people's views and from research they have done

To share there views on marngrook and if they fit in with what Tom Wills was credited of creating.

I have no real knowledge of what is called Marngrook but would like to hear from people's research.

A simple test- a search of Trove reveals that there were only 2 references at all in any Australian newspapers to "Marngrook" while at the same time there were over 299,000 references to word "n****r" and over 474,000 references to the word "aboriginal" and over 1,350,000 references to the word "indigenous".

 

[West_Coast_Eagles]

A simple test- a search of Trove reveals that there were only 2 references at all in any Australian newspapers to "Marngrook" while at the same time there were over 299,000 references to word "n****r" and over 474,000 references to the word "aboriginal" and over 1,350,000 references to the word "indigenous".

I'm confused to what your trying to say

 

[royals1922]

I'm confused to what your trying to say

Basically the connection between Marngrook and AFL was not commonly made before 1945 when a lot of the original people in football were still alive and did tell their stories and also that aboriginal issues commonly abounded in those days whether in the PC form or otherwise.

In fact in newspapers up to 1992 marngrook or marn grook was mentioned 2 times in newspapers on Trove.

Simply put the connection between the 2 is a creature of modern invention.

 

[Giantman]

Suffice to say from the age of 4 until 10 Tom played largely with aboriginal children in the Ararat region of western Victoria. He learnt their games, sang their songs, spoke their language.

From the age of 11 he was a boarder at Brickwood College Melbourne...there he was introduced to cricket.

AT 14yo he went by sailing ship to England. There at Rugby School he of course played "football..Rugby style" His passion was sport....he promoted and helped create a new club and a new version of football.

To say that any one of his childhood experiences did not influence his ideas in promoting and developing the rules of the Melbourne Football Club is denying the obvious.

Whether he was taught Marngrook or not I guess may never be established but his passion for playing and creating games would have been developed, in his early childhood years playing with those aboriginal kids.

 

[fabulousphil]

Suffice to say from the age of 4 until 10 Tom played largely with aboriginal children in the Ararat region of western Victoria. He learnt their games, sang their songs, spoke their language.

From the age of 11 he was a boarder at Brickwood College Melbourne...there he was introduced to cricket.

AT 14yo he went by sailing ship to England. There at Rugby School he of course played "football..Rugby style" His passion was sport....he promoted and helped create a new club and a new version of football.

To say that any one of his childhood experiences did not influence his ideas in promoting and developing the rules of the Melbourne Football Club is denying the obvious.

Whether he was taught Marngrook or not I guess may never be established but his passion for playing and creating games would have been developed, in his early childhood years playing with those aboriginal kids.

Suffice to say he also took the first Australian team, which happened to be all Aboriginal to England to play cricket, pretty obvious he had great respect for Aboriginals, even after his father was speared to death up in QLD, he also bought Aboriginals into his Mothers house after his Fathers death to create harmony between his Mother and local Aboriginals.

But my main point is, that if Wills took some aspects of Marngrook, and IMO he did probably use aspects of Aboriginal games in the sports he played, no white man would have admitted that in those days, that would have probably been akin to probably admitting insanity.

By playing Aboriginal games and playing with Aboriginal kids Wills IMO developed his outstanding hand,eye and foot co-ordination that served hime well in his football and cricket career.

You don't develop good hand and eye coordination at 11 or 14, you can see kids much earlier than that who have it or don't have it.

 

[West_Coast_Eagles]

I find it amazing that only two articles mentioned marngrook on trove.

When did the term marngrook start to come into promenance?

 

[royals1922]

I find it amazing that only two articles mentioned marngrook on trove.

When did the term marngrook start to come into promenance?

Go and look at the wiki page , not so much for the truth of the content for the age of the references. Most of the references to Marngrook start from 1998 onwards.

My view is that there is no direct link between Marngrook and AFL.

 

[West_Coast_Eagles]

I just checked out wiki. Lots of info on it.

Reference #9 suprused me.

So basically it's a matter of opinion this one? There's no definite right or wrong answer?

 

[royals1922]

I just checked out wiki. Lots of info on it.

Reference #9 suprused me.

So basically it's a matter of opinion this one? There's no definite right or wrong answer?

The problem , as with a lot of AFL early history, is that there are sometimes no contemporary references to something we consider today is a fact. I've used the example of the name " Shinboners " of which there is no reference prior to 1935.

So people will make use of sparse facts to base their view of the facts.....

 

[SpareTowel]

Suffice to say he also took the first Australian team, which happened to be all Aboriginal to England to play cricket, pretty obvious he had great respect for Aboriginals, even after his father was speared to death up in QLD, he also bought Aboriginals into his Mothers house after his Fathers death to create harmony between his Mother and local Aboriginals.

Tom's relationship with Aborigines is more complex. First of all, he didn't take the Aboriginal team to England, nor did he organise or conceive the first tour in Australia. He was asked to give the team a final polish before it played at the MCG. The fact that he agreed to do so is remarkable, given the much-publicised murder of his father. You would think this signalled a reconciliatory attitude towards Aborigines, but Tom's writings on the Aborigines who killed his father - the Kairi - are relentlessly violent. He quarrelled with "Brisbane saints" and settlers nearby who supported the Kairi and regretted their demise. In fact he ridiculed people who said the Queensland Aborigines could be "civilised". So it's ironic that, as the most prominent figure on the Aboriginal tour, he was cast as a hero for "civilising" the blacks.

Tom's time on the frontier was an unimaginable struggle. There's a saying in reference to the colonial frontier: "Philosophy is of no use out here". I think Tom embodies that. He only knew how to get runs and wickets. The broader meaning of the tour and Tom's involvement is left for others to ponder.

 

[sturtman]

Origin of Aussie rules is a vexed question. Hell, Vics don't even recognize the SANFL, so what would they know of Marngrook? A quick look at the SANFL "History" website yields the following;

"Football in South Australia has a long and colourful history. The first official record of Australian Rules being played in SA dates back to 1843."

This is well before Tom put pen to paper. We are talking about "official records" here. Hence there was competition, at least in SA, that was "not Victorian Rules," as penned by Tom Wills. It also suggests that it was played by the colonists. Who would have at that stage, given that SA was proclaimed as a colony in 1836, been quite small in number.

There is a recorded outbreak of a Measles epidemic in the early days of the colony amongst the indigenous population which had rather an unfortunate decimating affect on their population. Given that the diseases vector transfer is mostly parents of young infants, my bet is that the early colonists saw the young indigenous fellows playing this athletic and interesting game and not having any other form of organized sport, joined in. This in it's early form was more than likely "Marngrook" or a form there of, and began it's development from then.

Victorian rules does not come to Adelaide until the 1870's, probably, (although this is somewhat disputed), through the Medindie FC based in what is now North Adelaide, and was largely formed from expat Victorians. The rules are adopted and the SAFL is formed (1877) as the first official "Victorian Rules" competition in Australia.

Although "Victorian Rules," is first played in Melbourne, it would be relatively self evident that Tom Wills would have been aware of what was transpiring in SA and probably also in Western Victoria. It's most likely in IMO, that Wills was probably frustrated by the adhoc rules and regional differences and desired to galvanize the game around a common set of rules and foresaw the opportunity to develop off (cricket) season fitness game that required little equipment and used space of which there was plenty available.

So there is a big difference here. If we are talking "Victorian Rules Football," there is no direct connection to Marngrook, but if we talk about "Australian Rules Football," then Marngrook is more than likely its progenitor game.

 

[Todman]

There is no answer to this question . The game of football under any sort of rules have varied for centuries.

The first written book of any code was 1845 by students of Rugby School in England
In 1859 when Thomas Wills wrote the origin version of the game we play today.
Football Association rules in 1863. (Assoc. evolved into Soccer)
Gridiron in 1873.
The Irish first book was in 1887
Rugby League in 1895

 

[fabulousphil]

There is no answer to this question . The game of football under any sort of rules have varied for centuries.

The first written book of any code was 1845 by students of Rugby School in England
In 1859 when Thomas Wills wrote the origin version of the game we play today.
Football Association rules in 1863. (Assoc. evolved into Soccer)
Gridiron in 1873.
The Irish first book was in 1887
Rugby League in 1895

Marn Grook's ties to footy strengthened

Family account lends weight to ancient game's contribution

A VICTORIAN family's near-century old story has strengthened Marn Grook's ties to modern football.

Lawton Wills-Cooke, a great-nephew of Tom Wills -- widely regarded as the founding father of the game -- has told of a family story relating to Wills playing football with Aboriginal children at Ararat in country Victoria.

The 88-year-old revealed to long-time Wills chronicler Martin Flanagan that his grandfather Horace told Wills-Cooke's mother Rene that great-uncle Tom played a form of football with local Aboriginal children.
Horace was Wills's brother.
The story has been re-told in the family down the years.

Wills-Cooke remembers his grandfather -- who died when Lawton was a boy -- and also Tom’s cousin HCA (Henry Colden Antill) Harrison, who was a key player in formulating the original rules of modern football in 1859, a year after the first version of the modern game was played.

Harrison died in 1929, aged 92, when Wills-Cooke was nine-years-old.

http://www.foxsportspulse.com/assoc...sID=76376&&news_task=DETAIL&articleID=7764092

And of course Tom Wills played forms of football with Aboriginal kids, do we really need proof from his great nephew, every kid plays football of a hundred different varieties with hundreds of other kids growing up.

IMO, the real question is whether these games and his relationship with Aboriginals had any lasting impact on Wills, his sporting career and his role in developing Australian football and IMO they most certainly did.

 

[fabulousphil]

http://www.foxsportspulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?c=1-5545-0-0-0&sID=220493

Marn Grook


This link may also be of interest to some.

 

[royals1922]

I'll be blunt- go to the facts- in Trove there are 2 references to Marngrook before 1992 - that's right 2.....

Historians want , whether for reasons of pro aboriginal or anti anglophile leanings to make the connection between the two but the basic problem is there is nothing to substantiate a connection.

I'm not on either side -whether Aussie Rules was generated from the aboriginal game or the English game matters nought personally to me. That said it would appear that historians and journalists are trying to confect a correlation of AFL to Marngrook when the evidence is just not there.

 

[SpareTowel]

A VICTORIAN family's near-century old story has strengthened Marn Grook's ties to modern football.

Lawton Wills-Cooke, a great-nephew of Tom Wills -- widely regarded as the founding father of the game -- has told of a family story relating to Wills playing football with Aboriginal children at Ararat in country Victoria.

The 88-year-old revealed to long-time Wills chronicler Martin Flanagan that his grandfather Horace told Wills-Cooke's mother Rene that great-uncle Tom played a form of football with local Aboriginal children.
Horace was Wills's brother.
The story has been re-told in the family down the years.

"Much has been made in recent years of a theory that Australian Football had its origins in an Aboriginal Game called Marn Grook. This idea was promoted by the self styled "Barry the Bush Poet" as a means of promoting tourism in the Moyston area. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that this was the case and when I questioned him on three separate occasions as to some evidence his response finally was "Well it could have happened couldn't it" and he declined to correct the record saying only that there was no evidence to prove that this hypothesis was not right. A journalist, Martin Flanagan, has also on a number of occasions pushed the same nonsense for his own reasons but neither Tom, in any correspondence nor HCA Harrison in his autobiography "The story of an athlete" gives any credence to it. The only evidence for the origin lies in a letter from Tom to Horace in my possession in which he says that they did not play the game he had played at Rugby because he wanted to use the game for fitness and did not want men thrown to the ground so they modified it (the game from Rugby) to suit the hard grounds found in Australia. Flanagan once said that he had been told by Lawton that Tom played a game with the local boys using stuffed possum skins but when I asked him he said that was not the case. Thus we find history rewritten to suit "political correctness", there is no doubt that the Indigenous people played a form of football but to link that to the formalisation and codification of Australian Football is a bridge to far."

Lawton Wills-Cooke, The Currency Lad, page 180

 

[royals1922]

"Much has been made in recent years of a theory that Australian Football had its origins in an Aboriginal Game called Marn Grook. This idea was promoted by the self styled "Barry the Bush Poet" as a means of promoting tourism in the Moyston area. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that this was the case and when I questioned him on three separate occasions as to some evidence his response finally was "Well it could have happened couldn't it" and he declined to correct the record saying only that there was no evidence to prove that this hypothesis was not right. A journalist, Martin Flanagan, has also on a number of occasions pushed the same nonsense for his own reasons but neither Tom, in any correspondence nor HCA Harrison in his autobiography "The story of an athlete" gives any credence to it. The only evidence for the origin lies in a letter from Tom to Horace in my possession in which he says that they did not play the game he had played at Rugby because he wanted to use the game for fitness and did not want men thrown to the ground so they modified it (the game from Rugby) to suit the hard grounds found in Australia. Flanagan once said that he had been told by Lawton that Tom played a game with the local boys using stuffed possum skins but when I asked him he said that was not the case. Thus we find history rewritten to suit "political correctness", there is no doubt that the Indigenous people played a form of football but to link that to the formalisation and codification of Australian Football is a bridge to far."

Lawton Wills-Cooke, The Currency Lad, page 180

Which, in simpler terms, is- there is no evidence to link Marngrook to AFL.

Sorry Fairfax press, sorry historians who wish that to be the case but you can't create history from dust.

 

[fabulousphil]

"Much has been made in recent years of a theory that Australian Football had its origins in an Aboriginal Game called Marn Grook. This idea was promoted by the self styled "Barry the Bush Poet" as a means of promoting tourism in the Moyston area. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that this was the case and when I questioned him on three separate occasions as to some evidence his response finally was "Well it could have happened couldn't it" and he declined to correct the record saying only that there was no evidence to prove that this hypothesis was not right. A journalist, Martin Flanagan, has also on a number of occasions pushed the same nonsense for his own reasons but neither Tom, in any correspondence nor HCA Harrison in his autobiography "The story of an athlete" gives any credence to it. The only evidence for the origin lies in a letter from Tom to Horace in my possession in which he says that they did not play the game he had played at Rugby because he wanted to use the game for fitness and did not want men thrown to the ground so they modified it (the game from Rugby) to suit the hard grounds found in Australia. Flanagan once said that he had been told by Lawton that Tom played a game with the local boys using stuffed possum skins but when I asked him he said that was not the case. Thus we find history rewritten to suit "political correctness", there is no doubt that the Indigenous people played a form of football but to link that to the formalisation and codification of Australian Football is a bridge to far."

Lawton Wills-Cooke, The Currency Lad, page 180

Yet .... Lawton Wills-Cooke stood before the MCC members and agreed with the opposite ..... It is at this point that I need to digress and tell you about a meeting I had several years ago at the Melbourne Club with an elderly gentleman named Lawton Wills Cooke. Lawton’s grandfather, Horace Wills, was one of Tom Wills’ younger brothers. After Tom committed suicide in 1880, Horace Wills was one of the few people to be recorded saying anything sympathetic or loving about him. Horace said Tom was a wild reckless individual but one of the best people he’d ever met and that it was not in his nature to disappoint people. Horace Wills’s daughter was Lawton Wills Cooke’s mother. She told Lawton, he told me, and I'm telling you, that Horace Wills said that when his brother Tom was a boy at Moyston, outside Ararat, he played Aboriginal football with the local blacks. He also said they used a possum skin stuffed with charcoal and wrapped with sinew. With Lawton by my side I addressed a meeting of the Melbourne Club and told them as much. With Lawton by my side I also said as much to the AGM of the Old Melburnians Football Club, calling upon them to bear witness to Lawton’s testimony

http://australianfootball.com/articles/view/Why+Tom+Wills+is+an+Australian+legend+like+Ned+Kelly/133

 

[Giantman]

You have to work on a much deeper philosophical level to get this. At some level everything is linked. Nothing exists independantly....everything exists interdependantly. Nothing exists in and of itself by itself. Words just conceptualize things which creates a nominal reality which inevitably cannot really describe accurately what really did happen. This is part of the reason why historians are continually re-writing history.

Who knows whether Tom Wills played Marngrook or not...it doesn't really matter. The critical point is Tom Wills was a home grown Australian hero who promoted the idea of a home grown Australian game.....I think he would have liked the idea of the indigenous round.

 

[fabulousphil]

You have to work on a much deeper philosophical level to get this. At some level everything is linked. Nothing exists independantly....everything exists interdependantly. Nothing exists in and of itself by itself. Words just conceptualize things which creates a nominal reality which inevitably cannot really describe accurately what really did happen. This is part of the reason why historians are continually re-writing history.

Who knows whether Tom Wills played Marngrook or not...it doesn't really matter. The critical point is Tom Wills was a home grown Australian hero who promoted the idea of a home grown Australian game.....I think he would have liked the idea of the indigenous round.

I am not actually sure whether you wrote this as a joke and FWIW half of it, i don't actually understand, but i find myself agreeing with it .

I think Tom played Marngrook or something similar, and whether he used it knowingly or perhaps unknowingly or subconciously in his working and reworking of Australian football rules is something that in all likliehood no one will ever know.

 

[SpareTowel]

Yet .... Lawton Wills-Cooke stood before the MCC members and agreed with the opposite ..... It is at this point that I need to digress and tell you about a meeting I had several years ago at the Melbourne Club with an elderly gentleman named Lawton Wills Cooke. Lawton’s grandfather, Horace Wills, was one of Tom Wills’ younger brothers. After Tom committed suicide in 1880, Horace Wills was one of the few people to be recorded saying anything sympathetic or loving about him. Horace said Tom was a wild reckless individual but one of the best people he’d ever met and that it was not in his nature to disappoint people. Horace Wills’s daughter was Lawton Wills Cooke’s mother. She told Lawton, he told me, and I'm telling you, that Horace Wills said that when his brother Tom was a boy at Moyston, outside Ararat, he played Aboriginal football with the local blacks. He also said they used a possum skin stuffed with charcoal and wrapped with sinew. With Lawton by my side I addressed a meeting of the Melbourne Club and told them as much. With Lawton by my side I also said as much to the AGM of the Old Melburnians Football Club, calling upon them to bear witness to Lawton’s testimony

http://australianfootball.com/articles/view/Why+Tom+Wills+is+an+Australian+legend+like+Ned+Kelly/133

My bad, Terry Wills-Cooke is the author of The Currency Lad. The point is, no other Wills family member other than Lawton has come forward and shared this piece of oral story. If it was real, Terry would have known about it - he has spent decades trawling through the Wills family archives, which is all laid out in The Currency Lad.

 

[Todman]

All football in the early 1800's were played by local rules, There was nothing written down. If you challenged another team then you played to their rules or the rules of the person puttng the money up for winning.

 

[Giantman]

I am not actually sure whether you wrote this as a joke and FWIW half of it, i don't actually understand, but i find myself agreeing with it .

I think Tom played Marngrook or something similar, and whether he used it knowingly or perhaps unknowingly or subconciously in his working and reworking of Australian football rules is something that in all likliehood no one will ever know.

Thanks.....not joking and by your response I think you do get it. The simple associations we have in life inevitably influence our behaviours and attitudes as life goes on. To quantify and describe the exact influence and effect that these associations have on our attitudes in later life is impossible to know....it's simply too complex.

I'll approach the question regarding Tom Wills and Marngrook from another direction. To say Tom Wills was not influenced by his early years growing up with aboriginal children is a far fetched proposition. Inevitably it would have influenced his behaviours and attitudes in later life both conciously and subconciously in whatever he did.

 

[fabulousphil]

Thanks.....not joking and by your response I think you do get it. The simple associations we have in life inevitably influence our behaviours and attitudes as life goes on. To quantify and describe the exact influence and effect that these associations have on our attitudes in later life is impossible to know....it's simply too complex.

I'll approach the question regarding Tom Wills and Marngrook from another direction. To say Tom Wills was not influenced by his early years growing up with aboriginal children is a far fetched proposition. Inevitably it would have influenced his behaviours and attitudes in later life both conciously and subconciously.

I understand what you are saying, and agree but it is to complex for my brain to really work it out .

As for your second paragraph, i do understand it and totally agree with it and said as much a couple of posts up .....