Tokampini, the Bird

Tokampini is the ancestral bird-man of Tiwi tradition, his name a common Tiwi word for 'bird' and his identity associated with the honey-eater. He is the father of Bima (Wai-ai). In the Pukumani mythology he is the messenger who carries to Purukupali the news that Bima has gone into the bush with Tjapara, and after the death of his grandson Jinani, grief-stricken that his own daughter had been the cause of the tragedy, he helps to organise the first mourning ceremony. As one of the bird-ancestors who witnessed the close of the creation period, Tokampini is a giver of law, delivering to the living Tiwi the customs they must keep; his image is among the figures most often carved on the tutini burial poles to signify the ending of the creation story.

Children

• Bima

Domains

• messengers and heralds
• law and ceremony

Powers

• to bring Purukupali word of his wife's adultery
• to help establish and carry the laws of the Pukumani mourning ceremony

Epithets

• Tokwampini

Relations

• father of: Bima

Sources

• Isaacs, J. (1992). Tiwi: Art, History, Culture. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
• Venbrux, E. (1995). A Death in the Tiwi Islands: Conflict, Ritual and Social Life in an Australian Aboriginal Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.