Image: David James.
The Chau Chak Wing Museum is proud to present the Gweagal Spears in the Power Gallery. The Chau Chak Wing Museum has been entrusted with the temporary care of the spears before their return to the Gweagal clan of the Dharawal Nation and keeping place at Gundal (Kurnell, Botany Bay, NSW).
Mungari: Fishing, Resistance, Return is at the Chau Chak Wing Museum within the University of Sydney from 5 April 2025. Mungari celebrates the homecoming of the Gweagal Spears, the resistance of community and continued strong cultural fishing traditions. Mungari features the four spears crafted by Gweagal clansmen and stolen by James Cook during the Endeavour in April 1770.
The Gweagal Spears are all that remain of 40 to 50 spears taken by Cook and his crew from the Gweagal clan in Kamay (Botany Bay) and were presented to Trinity College, Cambridge, United Kingdom in 1771 by Lord Sandwich. After years of discussions, La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council, Gujaga Foundation and Trinity College, the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology announced the return of the Gweagal Spears in March 2023. By 2024 the Gweagal Spears had been returned to Australia and placed in the temporary care of the Chau Chak Wing Museum before their permanent home at a new visitor centre which is being built in Gundal where they were taken over 250 years ago.
Alongside the Gweagal Spears, Mungari features contemporary spears made by Uncle Rod Mason and artworks from Gweagal artist Shane Youngberry.
Join the curators Kirsty Beller, David Johnson, Clare Woolley (Gujaga Foundation and Gweagal descendants) and Marika Duczynski (Chau Chak Wing Museum and Gamilaraay/Mandandanji) in-conversation at the Chau Chak Wing Museum 10 April 2025 from 5:30-8pm. Register here.
Where: Chau Chak Wing Museum, the University of Sydney, University Pl, Camperdown NSW, 2050
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