Tiwi Islands

The Tiwi Islands are part of the federal electorate of Lingiari,[26] for which the current member is Warren Snowdon.[27] The islands are within the Northern Territory electorate of Arafura. The current member for Arafura is Lawrence Costa, from the Labor Party.[28]

The administration of the islands is divided between the local Tiwi Islands Regional Council, and the Indigenous landholder representative organisation, the Tiwi Land Council. Representatives on the Shire Council are elected from four wards, and include 12 councillors.[29]

1. Milikapiti Ward (northeast Melville Island, largest)
2. Nguiu Ward (south Bathurst Island, Buchanan Island)
3. Pirlangimpi Ward (west and southwest Melville Island)
4. Wurankuwu Ward (north Bathurst Island)

In 2011–12, the operating budget of the then Tiwi Islands Shire Council was A$26.4 million.[30] As of 2019, the elected Mayor of Tiwi Islands Shire Council is Lesley Tungutalum.[29]

On 4 April 2007, the land occupied by the Tiwi Islands and adjoining waters were gazetted by the Northern Territory Government as a locality with the name, 'Tiwi Islands. The boundary of the locality is similar to that gazetted in 1978 by the Australian government for the Tiwi Land Council.[31][6][32]

Tiwi Island bird carvings, 2011

Ceiling of a Tiwi Island art gallery and studio, 2011

The creation of Indigenous Australian art is an important part of Tiwi Island culture and its economy. There are three Indigenous art centres on the islands: Tiwi Design, Munupi Arts & Crafts, and Jilamara Arts and Craft,[33] and these collaborate through a cooperative venture, Tiwi Art.[34] Apart from Tiwi Art network there are two independent operations: fabric design, printing and clothing business Bima Wear,[35] operated by Indigenous women since 1969, and Ngaruwanajirri, also known as 'The Keeping Place'.

Tiwi artists who have held international exhibitions or whose works are held in major Australian collections include Kitty Kantilla, Donna Burak,[36] Jean Baptiste Apuatimi,[37] and Fiona Puruntatameri.[38]

A lot of wood carvings of birds are made by Tiwi people. Some of these are displayed in the Mission Heritage Gallery on Bathurst Island. The carvings represent various birds from Tiwi mythology, which have various meanings. Certain birds tell the Tiwi people about approaching monsoonal rains whilst others warn of impending cyclones. Others, depending on the totem of the people, alert the Tiwi people that someone has died in a particular clan. There are others that represent ancestral beings who were, according to mythology, changed into birds. Carved birds are sometimes at the top of pukumani poles, which are placed at burial sites.

The carving of human sculptures on the Tiwi islands was introduced by Cardo Kerinauia into Paru village in the 1960s after he had seen sculptures in Darwin[39] Paru villagers soon started a cottage industry of wood carving and had several pioneering Tiwi artists including Declan Apuatimi, Enraeld Munkara and Mick Aruni[40]

The Tiwi people also create many of their designs on fabric. The main method uses wax to resist dyeing similarly to Indonesian batik prints. Various fabrics are used ranging from sturdy, woven cotton to delicate silks, from which they create silk scarves.

The creation of their artwork is usually a social activity and consists of groups of people sitting together and talking whilst they work in a relaxed fashion. Often these grouping are segregated by gender.

Exhibition of tutini at 2019-20 Tarnanthi exhibition in Adelaide

The pukamani, or pukumani, is a burial ceremony based on a Dreamtime story,[41] which is performed around carved and painted grave posts, known as tutini (sometimes referred to as pukumani poles). The ceremony takes place two to six months after the burial, and may last for a few days. Specially commissioned carvers carve and paint up to 12 tutini, which are erected around the grave mound.[42] They are made from ironwood and decorated with white clay, black charcoal, and ground yellow or red ochre.

Dancers thread their way amongst the tutini and at the end of the ceremony, Tunga, or painted bark baskets, are placed on top of the posts. The burial poles, which are intended as gifts to please the spirits of the dead, are left to decay.[42][43]

There is some discussion about whether the poles are sacred ritualistic objects, or a commodified work of fine art[41] (in one case, an exhibition displaying objects which resembled the poles created by Melbourne designers was withdrawn[44]) but specially commissioned poles are freely borrowed or sold for displays in art galleries around Australia and the world.[45][46]

The band B2M (Bathurst to Melville) come from the Tiwi Islands. Fronted by Jeffrey "Yellow" Simon, the band toured Taiwan in 2016 and played the Northern Territory's Barunga Festival in 2018.[47]

Australian rules football is the most popular sport on the Tiwi Islands, and was introduced in 1941 by missionaries John Pye and Andy Howley.[48] There has been a Tiwi Islands Football League competition since 1969.[49]

A Tiwi Islands Aussie Rules game.

The Tiwi Australian Football League has 900 participants out of a community of about 2600, the highest football participation rate in Australia (35%).[50] The Tiwi Islands Football League Grand Final is held in March each year and attracts up to 3,000 spectators.

Tiwi footballers are renowned for exquisite "one-touch" skills. Many of the players have a preference for playing barefoot. Many of the male players also play for the St Mary's Football Club in Darwin, which was formed specifically to allow Tiwi soldiers in the 1950s to play in the Northern Territory Football League.

The Tiwi Bombers Football Club fielded a team in the Northern Territory Football League from the 2006/07 season.

Notable footballers from the Tiwi Islands to have played in the national VFL / AFL competition include Ronnie Burns,[51] Maurice Rioli,[52] Cyril Rioli, Daniel Rioli,[52] Dean Rioli, Michael Long,[51] Malcolm Lynch, Austin Wonaeamirri,[53] David Kantilla[54] and Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti.

Maurice Rioli (1982) and Michael Long (1993) are both uncles of Cyril Rioli (2015), and all three have won the Norm Smith Medal for being adjudged the best player of an AFL Grand Final.

The Tiwi Islands Football Club was the subject of a series on ABC's Message Stick in 2009, called "In A League of Their Own".[55]

As reported in The Weekend Australian in 2010, Australian cricketers led by Mathew Hayden raised $200,000 for cricket development in the Tiwi Islands. With former internationals Allan Border, Michael Kasprowicz and Andy Bichel, the match between Hayden XI and Border XI had a turnout of 1,000 people, nearly half the islands' population.[56]

The Tiwi Islands have a tropical monsoon climate, (Köppen Am), with 2,000 mm (79 in) of rainfall on northern Bathurst Island and 1,200 to 1,400 mm (47 to 55 in) on eastern Melville Island.[59] The wet season from November to April brings the islands the highest rainfall in the Northern Territory.[60] The Tiwi people describe three distinct seasons: the dry (season of smoke), the buildup (high humidity and cicadas songs) and the wet (storms) The seasons frame the lifestyle of the Tiwi people, dictating the food sources available and their ceremonial activities.[61]

The islands have been isolated from the Australian mainland since the last Ice Age. They are covered mainly with eucalypt forest on a gently sloping lateritic plateau. The extensive open forest, open woodlands and riparian vegetation are dominated by Darwin Stringybarks, Woollybutts, and Cajuputs. There are small patches of rainforest occurring in association with perennial freshwater springs, and mangroves occupying the numerous inlets.[60]

There is a range of threatened and endemic species on the Tiwi Islands. Thirty-eight threatened species have been recorded, and a number of plants and invertebrates are found nowhere else, including eight plant species and some land snails and dragonflies.[65] Threatened mammals include Brush-tailed rabbit rats, northern brush-tailed phascogales, false water rats and Carpentarian dunnarts.[60] The islands host the world's largest breeding colony of crested terns and a large population of the vulnerable olive ridley turtle;[65] a sea turtle conservation program commenced on the islands in 2007.[65] The seas and estuaries around the islands are home to several species of shark and saltwater crocodiles.

The islands have been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because they support relatively high densities of red goshawks, partridge pigeons and bush stone-curlews, as well as up to 12,000 (over 1% of the world population) great knots. Other birds for which the Tiwi Island populations are globally significant include chestnut rails, beach stone-curlews northern rosellas, varied lorikeets, rainbow pittas, silver-crowned friarbirds, white-gaped, yellow-tinted and bar-breasted honeyeaters, canary white-eyes and masked finches.[66] The birds have a high level of endemism at the subspecific level; the Tiwi masked owl (Tyto novaehollandiae melvillensis) is considered endangered and the Tiwi hooded robin (Melanodryas cucullata melvillensis) is at least endangered and may be extinct.[60]

Forest products are an important part of the Tiwi Islands economy, but the sector has had a chequered history. Forestry dates back to 1898, with plantations being trialled from the 1950s and 1960s.[67][68] A native softwood enterprise was established in the mid-1980s, as a partnership between the private sector and the Land Council, but by the mid-1990s, the Land Council was winding the venture down, noting that its investor partner had "various tax driven ambitions which are growingly incompatible with our own employment and sustainable production goals".[69] Despite the setback, it was still considered that forestry was likely to be crucial to the Tiwi economy,[70] and in 2001 the Land Council and Australian Plantations Group commenced a major expansion of Acacia mangium plantations to supply woodchips.[71] The operations of Australian Plantations Group (later named Sylvatech) were purchased by Great Southern Group in 2005.[72] In 2006, the operations were reported to be "the largest native-forest clearing project in northern Australia".[73] In September 2007 the Northern Territory Government investigated claims that the company had breached environmental laws,[74] with financial penalties being imposed by the Federal environment department in 2008.[73] Much of the cleared land is used for cattle or monoculture plantations, which the timber company has maintained are an important source of local jobs.[75] Great Southern Plantations collapsed in early 2009, and the Tiwi Land Council has been examining options for future management of the plantations.[76]

The islands have mineral sands on both Melville Island's north coast and the western coast of Bathurst Island.[70] In 2005, Matilda Minerals developed a proposal for mining on the islands, which was assessed and approved in 2006.[77] In 2007 sand mining produced the first shipments of zircon and rutile for export to China.[78] A 7,800 tonnes (17 million pounds) shipment was made in June 2007,[79] with a further 5,000 tonnes (11 million pounds) shipped later that year.[78] Matilda Minerals planned to conduct mining for four years,[78] but in August 2008, its Tiwi operations were halted, and in October of that year it was placed in administration.[80][81]

In March 2020, Plantation Management Partners (PMP), which manages around 30,000 hectares of acacia mangium trees on the Tiwis, made the decision to delay the year's harvest while demand for woodchips in China was depressed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[82]