At the time of Cook's first landing in 1770, the Australian Aborigines numbered about 300,000 individuals speaking about 200 languages. Reduced to about 50,000 in the following two centuries, their settlements are above all concentrated in the territories of the tropical North and of the North West. Originally the Aborigines lived by hunting and food-gathering and they were divided into small groups of patrilocal nomads. In Australian tribes, such as that of the Tiwi, totemism is widespread, by virtue of which all individuals, bound by descent to a mythical forefather in close relation to an animal or a vegetable, belong to the same tribe and have the same totem. The Tiwi, of which the Museum has numerous ceremonial objects, live on the Balthurst and Melville islands, near the northern coast of Australia in front of the city of Darwin. Having converted to Christianity and abandoned polygamy, they are today integrated into Australian society.