Chani Thorum

Anthro 1010
Final Paper

The Tiwi of Australia

I ultimately decided to do my final paper of the people that reside on
the Islands of Australia and they are the Tiwi. There are eleven islands north
of the Darwin territory but the only inhabited islands are Melville and
Bathurst Islands while the rest of the nine islands are uninhabited. The Tiwi
people have been on these islands before European settlement and they
number around 2,500+ and in my research I found that most of the
population that inhabit these islands are from Aboriginal decent. Most of
these Tiwi peoples live on the Bathurst Island. In this paper I will talk about
the language, history, culture, marriage, conception, and some beliefs.
First I will talk about language in their culture because how a culture
communicates is one of the most important elements. The actual word Tiwi
means people in their own language and they speak Tiwi first and foremost
but also know English and are taught English as their second language in
school. Of course the older generation seem to have a bit of a distaste for
the young people possibly loosing fluency in the Tiwi language. I also learned
that long ago when someone could use the Tiwi language fluently, to their
people that meant that they had reached adulthood1. As in most language
they recognize gender and assign names accordingly, people, and animals
according to shape and sex. If there is something that is thin, small, and stick
like those things are masculine or male. Opposite goes for things assigned
the female gender, large, round, and curvy which also might speak to how
1 Nicholas Hewett, Arnold R. Pilling, Jane Carter Goodale, Holt, Rinehart and Winston
1988, the Tiwi of North Australia.
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Chani Thorum
Anthro 1010
Final Paper

the women want to see themselves in their society and culture. The
characteristics of the islands where they inhabit are made up of forest and
sandy beach on the coastlines with many rivers throughout. Usually when
you have lush forest you get monsoonal rainfall and their wet season is
between November and March and they dont really have any rainfall
between the months of June and September. One of the most fascinating
pieces of information I found while researching was that you can only visit
the islands if you pre-arranged a tour with a permit and with an actual
Aboriginal guide.
History of the Tiwi goes back thousands of years and anthropologists
think they go back as far as forty thousand years ago as their peoples have
popped up in historic records in the eighteenth century2. There is evidence
that suggests Chinese and Indonesian peoples have had contact with the
Tiwi because of cultural similarities. When know that most of Australia and its
inhabitance are of British decent when the British banished their criminals to
the island and also the British settlement in 1788. The British brought with
them diseases that were new to the Aborigines and killed a very large
portion of the original peoples. This has happened with many different
cultures when they came into contact with peoples from other parts of the
world, for example, the British and the Native Americans of the US. The
British brought with them Catholicism and established a mission upon the
2 Nicholas Hewett, Arnold R. Pilling, Jane Carter Goodale, Holt, Rinehart and Winston
1988, The Tiwi of North Australia, Case studies in cultural anthropology
2

Chani Thorum
Anthro 1010
Final Paper

island and this development caused more and more contact with outsiders to
the island and people of Tiwi which influenced some cultural norms such as
the Tiwi like to play football and have a Football League every year on the
island.
In recent history the Tiwi people live in houses much like us, outsiders
have built them homes with plumbing and electricity and most families have
a car. I never thought you could have an older culture but also be in the
present modern world, for some reason I thought they would be uncultured
but thats just ignorance. A good deed that I came to read about was the
granting of land back to the Tiwi under what was called the Land Rights Bill
and that was passed in 19763.
The Tiwi culture and economy is big on the hunter/gatherer lifestyle
and they are great at fishing. They are also becoming more modern in a
sense that they hold jobs just like we do to make an income but most people
still practice the ancient ways of native foods and forage for them often.
When it came to individual roles I was a little confused because I read the
hunting and fishing was done by the males and the gathering was done by
the females but I also read that men and women do both, and they equally
contribute to the daily meals. They do have some income from tourism when
people visit the island and purchase traditional goods from the Tiwi like
pukamanis which is a burial post that is colorfully decorated and is used to
3 Nicholas Hewett, Arnold R. Pilling, Jane Carter Goodale, Holt, Rinehart and Winston
1988, the Tiwi of North Australia.
3

Chani Thorum
Anthro 1010
Final Paper

mark graves. I read an article called Cemetery Tourism by Eric Venbrux that
showed a darker side to the tourism, he goes on to explain that the Tiwi
would do their burial dances when they greeted the Europeans in exchange
for tobacco and that the visitors would like the burial sticks so much that the
Tiwi started to make imitation ones to sell to visitors of the island which
exploited one of their traditions.
Marriage among the Tiwi is still practiced the same way as in the
ancient times. A man doesnt marry his true wife (which is arranged usually
before she is born) until around thirty years old, but before that as a young
man he will marry a widow and start his household in that way4. They hold
the true wife or bestowed wife as a prestigious symbol and the first wife or
widow isnt as prestigious but what I like about that is they dont exclude
widows from their culture, through remarriage they can still participate in a
family and in the culture while being taken care of. The true wife or promised
wife will live with her future husband in the household but as soon as she has
her first menstrual cycle she leaves to the bush for five days and returns to
him afterward as a women. 5A Domestic Unit consists of a woman and her
daughters and their husbands with their children and monogamy is widely
practiced. All the kids are taken care of by the family and the unit, they all go
to school in their community, but its up to them if they choose to get a
4 Marriage Contracts among the Tiwi by Jane C. Goodale Ethnology Vol. 1, No. 4
(Oct., 1962), pp. 452-466
5 Goodale, Jane C. 1994. Tiwi Wives: A Study of the Women of Melville Island, North
Australia
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Chani Thorum
Anthro 1010
Final Paper

better education at a university. Another interesting and reliving piece of info

I found out is when boys go through a ritual to become a man they dont get
circumcised and there is no female mutilation like female circumcision. The
belief of conception between the Tiwi is one of the most beautiful that I have
read, the man marries a women from the same clan as him and when they
have a child they believe that the man sends an unborn spirit to his wife,
thus she is pregnant and a baby is born.
Religion for the Tiwi is belief in their ancestral spirits but there have
been many outsiders that go on missions to the Tiwi islands and most of
which are Catholic. They celebrate the yam which to them symbolizes
reproduction and life. The ceremony lasts three days and is celebrated by
digging up the yams, cooking them and eating them, and while carrying out
the celebration they sing songs throughout the three days. Death to the Tiwi
is surprising because I
read that when they die, they wont even be reincarnated, not as people or
as animal or plant6. They also believe that wherever you are buried is where
your spirit will stay, they believe you can travel back to their homeland if
they happen to be buried elsewhere on the earth because of outside contact
and some Tiwi will leave to pursue other things such as education or
marriage to someone outside of the Tiwi people because the younger
generation are becoming more liberal. Something else that I read was a
6 Goodale, Jane C. 1994. Tiwi Wives: A Study of the Women of Melville Island, North
Australia
5

Chani Thorum
Anthro 1010
Final Paper

mention of their belief in tarni7 which, as I understand, is not a specific

sickness but just being sick. It is describes as them believing that a yam with
a sharp end is ingested by a pregnant women and if the sharp end pierces
the baby then the baby can be infected with tarni and can kill the baby. They
say that all yams can carry this sickness and that women who are pregnant
have to stay away from them for the duration of the pregnancy. The Tiwi
describe this sickness as something that pain and a cough can happen and
this pain can stay around from only five minutes up to five hours. While
reading I found that they use this term for many different coughs, pains,
headaches, and am thinking it is just a general way to describe someone
that might be sick.
In conclusion I have learned many new things about a culture that I
previously didnt even know existed. As I did my research I was able to find
many anthropological journals and works with a lot more information and
details, I found it hard to organize through the mass amounts of information
to narrow it down and put only a small amount of it in this paper. I like
learning about different cultures and broadening my horizon because as I
said before, this paper has opened my eyes and shown me that even though
this culture is ancient, they are still adapting and trying to keep traditional
values and beliefs while also having modern conveniences. They new
generation seem to be trying to find a balance between the new and the old
7 George Simeon Tiwi Ethnomedicine and the Concept of torni (N. Australia)
Anthropos Bd. 75, H. 5. /6. (1980), pp. 942-948
6

Chani Thorum
Anthro 1010
Final Paper

ways and being so close to Australia and all things modern seems to be a
tempting idea and can draw out some of the younger generation and
keeping those traditions alive is important to the Tiwi. Also you are reminded
that they have a simpler way of life with their hunting and gathering and
being able to sustain themselves off the land and down to their belief in tarni
which seems to be an umbrella term for all things sick. The Tiwi have beliefs
that I found beautiful and my favorite is their idea about conception and I
feel like we could learn a thing or two from the Tiwi in holding values, family,
and taking care of our own people while nurturing the future generations.

Works Cited
Jane C. Goodale 1994. Tiwi Wives: A Study of the Women of Melville Island,
North Australia

Chani Thorum
Anthro 1010
Final Paper

Nicholas Hewett, Arnold R. Pilling, Jane Carter Goodale, Holt, Rinehart and
Winston 1988, The Tiwi of North Australia, Case studies in cultural
anthropology
Eric Venbrux Cemetery tourism: coming to terms with death? No. 61,
Indigenous tourism, performance, and cross-cultural understanding in the
pacific (April 2010), pp. 41-49
Jane C. Goodale Marriage Contracts among the Tiwi Ethnology Vol. 1, No. 4
(Oct., 1962), pp. 452-466
George Simeon Tiwi Ethnomedicine and the Concept of torni (N. Australia)
Anthropos Bd. 75, H. 5. /6. (1980), pp. 942-948