Purru & Buroinjin - History of Aboriginal Rugby League

The Aboriginal Ball Game: Purru & Buroinjin

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

by Pat McLeod
Gold Coast Bulletin - 27/01/2010

RUGBY LEAGUE: If you think Indigenous players seem to have an uncanny ability in rugby league, maybe that's because their association with the sport goes back much further than the game which recently celebrated 100 years in Australia.

League historian Sean Fagan has unearthed details of a rugby league-type game played by Aborigines long before any form form of rugby came to these shores.

"In what would become the northern part of NSW and through Queensland, Indigenous communities played a ball passing and running game known as 'buroinjin' or 'purru-purru'," Fagan told Weekend Extra this week.

"Vance Palmer, a novelist and writer who grew up in many southeast Queensland towns in the 1890s, remembered he and other white and Indigenous children playing 'purru-purru' together."

Palmer described it as a sport somewhat akin to rugby football.

"The 'buroinjin' -- a ball made from kangaroo skin stuffed with grass -- was passed in any direction, from player to player but it could not be hit with the fist or kicked," said Palmer.

"The players tried to clutch their opponents or intercept the ball."

Of the Aboriginal players Palmer noted: "In keenness of perception and general alacrity we were their inferiors and in a certain quality of cheery sportsmanship they were models to all."

Though much has been said and written of the similarities between Australian rules football (AFL) and 'Marn Grook,' the Aboriginal game played in western Victoria, in what would become NSW and Queensland, Indigenous communities played other ball games.

“Among their juvenile exercises I observed that of throwing up a ball, and passing it from one to another," wrote David Collins in his 1798 publication "An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales."

Common to many communities was a ball-passing and running game - variously known as ‘Buroinjin’ or ‘Purru-Purru’ - played as far north (at least) as south-east Queensland, and down to south-western NSW.

One of the first white men to come upon the 'Purru' ball game was Tom Petrie, who arrived in the (yet to be settled) Brisbane area in the 1830s. He held a life-long association with the local Indigenous people, keeping notes on his experiences and what he had seen. His memoirs were published in a book by his family in 1904 as "Tom Petrie's Early Reminiscences of Early Queensland".

Held by the State Library of Queensland, Petrie's notes record that: "Another game was 'Purru Purru.' It was played with a ball made from kangaroo skin stuffed with grass, and sewn up. 'Purru' meant ball."

"Sides were picked, but the women joined in," continued Petrie. "The ball was thrown up in the air, and caught here and there, each side trying to keep it to themselves or to catch it from the opposite one" as they attempted to pass the ball to a team mate.

Vance Palmer, a renown Australian novelist and journalist who grew up in many south-east Queensland towns in the 1890s, remembered he and other white and Indigenous children playing "purru-purru" together.

Writing in "The Nineteenth Century and After" in August 1906, Palmer described the game as "a sport somewhat akin to rugby football" with the players running and passing the ball, and attempting to clutch hold of the ball-carrier and the ball.

Peter Beveridge (early settler in north-west Victoria) presented a paper in 1883 to "The Royal Society for NSW", in which he detailed Aboriginal life, including a ball-game he had seen played in the Riverina-Murray region of south-west NSW and north-west Victoria.

"They have not any appointed goal to which the ball has to be driven," wrote Beveridge, "the whole of the play merely consists of keeping the ball in motion, and preventing its coming to the ground, whilst the struggles of the game all tend to keep the ball from being captured by the opposing side."

"Those holding the ball throw it from one to the other of their own side, and it is whilst this is going on that the non-possessors strenuously run and jump to intercept it in its nights." [see below for full transcript]

The playing of these ball-throwing games contrasts with the ball-kicking game (Marn Grook) of the communities of western Victoria, with the accepted view that (as was the case with language) there was no one ball-game common to the hundreds of Aboriginal communities across Australia.

The Australian Sports Commission has issued a guide to how to play a modern form of 'Buroinjin’ or 'Purru', equating it to a variation of touch football without any off-side rules.

This is not to suggest that 'Buroinjin' or 'Purru' was a forerunner to rugby league, but the nature of the ball-passing and running game and its required skills and techniques share similarities - which may go some way towards explaining why so many "All Aboriginal" teams were formed to play rugby league in the 1920s as the code spread across regional NSW and Queensland.

References:
The Nineteenth Century and After - August 1906 edition: The Australian Corroborree by Vance Palmer
Tom Petrie's Early Reminiscences of Early Queensland, byTom Petrie (1904)
Australian Sports Commission guide to playing 'Buroinjin'
Tom Petrie's Early Reminiscences of Early Queensland, by Tom Petrie (published 1904)
The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina as Seen by Peter Beveridge (published 1889)
An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, by David Collins (published 1798)
An Excursion to Yugambeh Museum : Yugambeh Museum, Language & Heritage Research Centre, Beenleigh, QLD

"The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina as Seen by Peter Beveridge"
(published 1889, Melbourne)

Ball-playing is another game to which they are exceedingly partial. This game they make much more boisterous and noisy than they do the wrestling bouts, but, notwithstanding this, it results in very much fewer serious mishaps. The women participate in this game as well as the men. I have seen as many as 200 (including both sexes) engaged in this game at one time.

The ball is composed of old opossum skin tightly rolled up, and covered with a fresh piece of skin firmly sewed together with opossum [possum] tail sinews; before they begin to play they arrange sides, each side having a captain, whose place it is to guide and control his oftentimes unruly squad.

When all is in order, a lyoor starts off with the ball in her hand; she walks a little way out from her own side and towards that of her opponents, drops the ball with seeming carelessness, but ere it has time to reach the ground she gives a dexterous and by no means a gentle kick, which being correctly aimed sends the ball spinning high into the air. Thereupon the fun begins in downright earnest.

Such screaming, jumping, and frothing at the mouth by reason of the excitement I am certain was never seen at any other game outside the walls of Bedlam, and then again, such inter mingling of limbs, brawny and bronze, nude and glossy, or such outre groupings were never yet beheld under any circumstances other than those attendant upon an aboriginal ball match.

They have not any appointed goal to which the ball has to be driven; the whole of the play merely consists of keeping the ball in motion, and preventing its coming to the ground, whilst the struggles of the game all tend to keep the ball from being captured by the opposing side.

Those holding the ball throw it from one to the other of their own side, and it is whilst this is going on that the non-possessors strenuously run and jump to intercept it in its flights.

As the eyes of the players are never by any chance bent on the ground, tumbles during a game are numerous and frequently ludicrous, more especially when one goes down, and so becomes a stumbling-block over which a dozen or more come toppling in a heap; these incidents, however, add mirth unto the fun, without creating the least ill temper.

Ball-playing is frequently kept up from noon until dark, and even at that late hour it is given up with reluctance. The many laughable incidents which occur during the game provide ample matter for conversation round the camp fire, besides affording abundant opportunity for high feconde to which they are particularly addicted, both old and young in fact it is a trait peculiarly characteristic of these people.