Indigenous Australian Culture - Traditional Recreation

Traditional Recreation

The Djabwurrung and Jardwadjali people of western Victoria once participated in the traditional game of Marn Grook, a type of football played with possum hide. The game is believed by some to have inspired Tom Wills, inventor of the code of Australian rules football.

Similarities between Marn Grook and Australian football include jumping to catch the ball or high "marking", which results in a free kick. Use of the word "mark" in the game may be influenced by the Marn Grook word mumarki, meaning "catch". However, the term "mark" is traditionally used in Rugby to describe a free kick resulting from a catch, in reference to the player making a mark on the ground from which to take a free kick, rather than continuing to play on.

There are many indigenous players of Australian Rules Football at professional level, with approximately one in ten AFL players being of indigenous origin. The contribution of the Aboriginal people to the game is recognised by the annual AFL "Dreamtime at the 'G" match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground between Essendon and Richmond football clubs (the colours of the two clubs combine to form the colours of the Aboriginal flag). .

Testifying to this abundance of indigenous talent, the Aboriginal All-Stars, an AFL-level all-Aboriginal football side competes against any one of the Australian Football League's current football teams in pre-season tests. The Clontarf Foundation and football academy is just one organisation aimed at further developing aboriginal football talent. The Tiwi Bombers began playing in the Northern Territory Football League and became the first all-Aboriginal side to compete in a major Australian competition.

A popular children's game in some parts of Australia is weet weet or throwing the play stick. The winner throws the week week furthest or the most accurately.