When Quaiden Williams Riley laid eyes on the spears of his ancestors, tens of thousands of kilometres away from his traditional lands, it was the start of a return home more than two centuries in the making.
“My great-grandmother would always talk about it to my grandfather and his siblings, about the spears and artefacts that were in England and how they would eventually get them back,” Riley said.
The four spears, known as the Kamay spears, are the only that remain of dozens stolen by James Cook and his crew at the time of first contact with the Gweagal warriors. The spears were taken aboard the HMB Endeavour in 1770.
The spears were then given to John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich who then donated them to Trinity College, Cambridge. They were part of the collection since 1771.
In 2024, Riley was part of a delegation to the United Kingdom to shepherd the spears back to Country – and the spears are now the centrepiece of Mungarri, an exhibition at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney.
The exhibition honours cultural strength and resilience through the Dharawal fishing songlines, featuring contemporary woven fishing nets, carved fish hooks, woomeras and spears.
Today, the spears still bare a worn label from Trinity College. They rest upon sand collected from La Perouse, the traditional lands of Kamay, where both men are from.
“I was so grateful to be able to go there and get him for her,” Riley said of his great-grandmother.
David Johnson, who was also part of the delegation to the UK last year, said the journey to bring them home has been a delicate one, with elders and Gweagal community balancing negotiations with institutions, governments and community relations and expectations to ensure their respectful return.
“We’re honoured to be here showing the spears that belonged to our Old People,” Johnson said. “It had to be the right people speaking on behalf of and representing the spears.”
“It wasn’t an easy journey,” he said. “It’s that resilience towards building relationships over decades and trying to think of what’s best between institutions and community and family.”
Johnson said the spears are a cultural lens for younger generations to continue the ways of their elders, now that they are back in Australia permanently.
“It’s history in front of me, not in books, it’s another way of our classroom,” Johnson said.
“It gives [all Australians] a cultural lens of how our Old People done, lived and camped throughout that area.”
The founding chair of the Gujaga Foundation, Ray Ingrey, says the exhibition is a rare opportunity to get up close with special objects – and handing down cultural knowledge means contemporary ways are not so different from the old.
“Making the spears and teaching the young ones now using sinew and glues – it’s not that far off to what our ancestors were making 255 years ago.”
He acknowledged that without the UK university’s care the spears would not exist today.
“They’re 255 plus years old. They’re made of natural materials, just by nature, they’re supposed to break down.”
“My grandmother tells the story of finding an old spear and picking it up and it just crumbling in her hands,” Ingrey says.
Their centuries-old age and rarity meant that the spears must be carefully handled with gloves, kept in a temperature and light controlled conditions. On arrival in 2024, they were quarantined to ensure no mites led to their demise.
Ingrey said the spears will be permanently displayed at Botany Bay, with the La Perouse Aboriginal community building a museum and visiting centre.
“This shows that Aboriginal communities have the capacity and the capability to care for significant objects. What better place for them to be displayed than on the very lands they came from, rather than sitting in a drawer in the UK somewhere.”
For Riley, while his great-grandmother never got to see the spears arrive back into Gweagal hands, he said she never wavered in her belief that they would come home.
“She knew eventually that we were going to get them.”
Mungari exhibition runs at Chau Chak Wing Museum until 29 June 2025
