Introduction
The Tiwi are a type of Australian Aborigines who live in the northern part of Australia. To be more specific, they lived in the Bathurst Island north of Australia.
“Recent Writings on low water periods relevant to the history of humans in Australia State that about 17,000 years ago, the ocean was about 160 meters below its present level” [1]
Thus according to such evidence there has been different theories that explains that what are now the Tiwi could have been early sea masters who landed in the Bathurst Island. Also, as they started to migrate more towards inland (where there were more resources) the Tiwi started to evolve into food foragers. With this culture movement, their whole way of live had to change. As it is the case in every food forager society, the need for more helping hands is critical for the survival of the group. This would have eventually shaped the way the Tiwi marriage works because now the need for more people in the household is necessary.
What is a food forager society? Although not a very common type of society now in days, this type of food “production” if we can argue that they produce food is somewhat popular with tribal societies.
“Today, most food foragers are found only in the world’s marginal areas such as the frozen Artic tundra, deserts and inaccessible forests” [2]
Basically, in these types of societies women are in charge of collecting all types of eatable vegetables, fruits, and small animals; while the men are in charge of hunting. To be honest, women are the hard workers thus supporting the household. With all of this aspects of the Tiwi culture, we can now explain why the Tiwi have a different marriage system and also explain how they value women.
