Four spears stolen from Kamay, now known as Botany Bay in Sydney, by Captain James Cook and his crew have been returned to their traditional owners after more than 250 years.
Forty Kamay spears were recorded as being taken by the British in 1770, at the time of first contact between the local Gweagal people and the crew of the Endeavour. The four spears returned on Tuesday are the only ones of the original 40 that remain.
The spears have been held by Cambridge University’s Trinity College since shortly after they arrived in the UK in 1771, and have only appeared in Australia for museum exhibitions on loan from the university.
After a three-decade campaign by the Gweagal community and a formal repatriation request from the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council and the Gujaga Foundation, the spears’ return was formalised on Tuesday with a ceremony in Cambridge.
Michael Ingrey, a Dharawal man of the La Perouse Aboriginal community, said the spears’ return was “a long time coming”.
“The emotions are mixed … a lot of the old people that started the campaign aren’t with us any more to see their hard work and labour come to fruition,” he told ABC News Breakfast on Wednesday.
But Ingrey said the returned spears provided an opportunity to educate and engage with the broader public.
“It’s great to have our objects back, not only for our community, but the wider Australian community to witness … it allows us to teach not only our traditional culture, but how we practise culture today as well.”
The spears will be housed on country in a new visitor centre at Kurnell, Kamay, near where they were first taken on the day Cook and his crew landed at Kamay.
The crew took the spears after shooting at Gweagal men and forcing them to withdraw, as Joseph Banks recounted in the journals of Cook’s Endeavour voyages.
“We … thought it no improper measure to take away with us all the lances [spears] which we could find about the houses, amounting in number to forty or fifty,” Banks wrote on 29 April 1770.
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The spears are the first objects taken by the British from Australia that remain in existence, according to Nicholas Thomas, the director of Cambridge’s archaeology museum, which has held the artefacts since the early 20th century.
“They reflect the beginnings of a history of misunderstanding and conflict,” he said.
“The spears were pretty much the first point of European contact, particularly British contact with Aboriginal Australia,” said Ray Ingrey, director of the Gujaga Foundation, which leads cultural and research programs within the La Perouse Aboriginal community.
Sally Davies, the head of Trinity College, said it was the right decision to return the spears.
“[We’re] committed to reviewing the complex legacies of the British empire, not least in our collections,” she said.
With Associated Press