Skin-group

The skin-group, or “yiminga” of a Tiwi is matrilineal; it is inherited from the mother and determines the marriage line.

In Walbiri society you belong to one of these eight skin-groups. They dominate your social life; they determine who you can marry, and they determine how you relate to everybody else in Walbiri society.

She moved from skin-group to skin-group at the start of each of the six Noongar seasons, helping each family as best she could, and circulating the idea that violent resistance to the Europeans would result in more dead Noongar.