The Tiwi people (or Tunuvivi) are one of the many Aboriginal groups of Australia. Nearly 2,000 Tiwi people live on the Tiwi Islands. The landmass of the Tiwi Islands is made up mainly of Bathurst and Melville Islands, both located about 48 kilometres (30 miles) from Darwin. The Tiwi language is a language isolate, with no apparent link to the languages of Arnhem Land or of other Aboriginal Australians beyond recent linguistic interaction as a result of the federal government's Stolen Generations relocation policies. Tiwi society is based on matrilineal descent, and marriage plays a very important part in many aspects of their lives. Art and music form an intrinsic part of their societal and spiritual rituals as the Tiwi people tend to follow a certain form of indigenous Dreamtime belief system alongside Roman Catholicism.

Tiwi, the most polysynthetic of all Australian languages, is a language isolate with no apparent genetic link to the contiguous languages of Arnhem Land on the Australian mainland.

The Tunutivi people are thought to first inhabit the island 40,000 years ago, and thought to have developed in relative isolation, In Tiwi Mythology an "old blind woman named Mudangkala created the Tiwi islands. She rose up from the sea cradling three infants. As she crawled in the dark, the sea and land filled the imprints of her body. She populated the islands with flora and fauna to create a beautiful home for her children, who would become the Tiwi.". The Tunuvivi people held sway over some 8,000 square kilometres (3,100 sq mi) of land on Melville and Bathurst islands. The Tiwi Islands lie about 80 kilometres (50 mi) from Darwin, with Melville and Bathurst Islands comprising about 8,344 square kilometres (3,222 sq mi) of land. There are two large inhabited islands, Melville and Bathurst, originally called Ratuwati Yinjara (meaning "two islands"), and many smaller uninhabited islands. Most of the smaller islands lie close to Melville and Bathurst, but Kulangana (South West Vernon Island) is less than 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the Australian mainland coast. The Tiwi Islands are now part of the Northern Territory of Australia.

There is evidence of trade between the Tunutivi and Chinese and Indonesian Traders but no evidence has been found of permanent settlement.

Dutch explorers landed on Melville Island in 1705, but did not colonise it then nor in succeeding voyages. After a failed attempt by the British in 1824, it was not settled by Europeans until the arrival of missionaries in 1911 overseen by German Catholic missionary Bishop Francis Xavier Gsell. Gsell constructed the first mission at Nguiu (present-day Wurrumiyanga) with the help of two local Tiwi men.

Subsequent intervention by the Australian government during the 20th century saw many Indigenous people brought to the Tiwi Islands who were not of direct Tiwi descent, a group commonly referred to as the Stolen Generations.

The Tiwi consider themselves Tiwi first and Aboriginal second

Another thing that impressed me was the Tiwis' deep spirit of faith and their total acceptance of me, a stranger. Another indelible memory is my recollection of the fervour with which they launched into numerous hymns during Mass and their evident love for Our Lady. Their sense of fun and their inexhaustible fund of patience left me with a deep sense of wonder and appreciation.