The Kamay spears come home to Dharawal land more than two centuries after James Cook took them

Quaiden Williams Riley and David Johnson with repatriated fishing spears at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, at the University of Sydney. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

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.