Aboriginal man demands British Museum return 18th century shield stolen from his ancestor

‘I was filled with pride and happiness but then I knew it would have to go back to where it’s been kept. And that really hurts. So it was really emotional knowing I’ve got to walk away’

Rodney Kelly poses with his ancestral shield during a private viewing at the British Museum (Rodney Kelly)

An Aboriginal man demanding the return of an ancestral shield seized by James Cook in 1770 has become the first living member of his clan to hold it after being invited to a private viewing by the British Museum.

Rodney Kelly is the sixth generational descendent of a warrior called Cooman of the Gweagal clan’s Dharawal tribe.

According to historical documents, the shield was taken by Cook and his marines after Cooman was shot in the leg when the British arrived at Botany Bay, Australia on 29 April 1770.

Ancestral records documenting stories of the altercation between two naked warriors and a group of Englishmen were passed down through generations, Mr Kelly told The Independent.

Made of Australian red mangrove, the 45cm-wide shield ended up in the Cook Collection at the Museum of Mankind – today known as the British Museum.

Speaking about his up-close and personal experience with the shield, Mr Kelly said: “I felt I had a right to stand there and view the artefacts of my ancestor that were taken.

“To go behind the scenes of the British Museum and view the shield and touch it was a very powerful experience.

“I was filled with pride and happiness but then I knew it would have to go back to where it’s been kept. And that really hurts. So it was really emotional knowing I’ve got to walk away.”

Mr Kelly, who lives in Bermagui, New South Wales, launched a campaign to reclaim the shield in 2016 after he saw it had been loaned to Canberra’s National Museum of Australia.

He said he grew up listening to stories about his ancestors from the period of Britiain’s arrival in Australia, and traced his family tree to discover he is a direct descendent of the warrior who was killed.

The dream now, he said, was to get it back home in time for the 250th anniversary of it being taken.

He added the shield represents the British colonisation of Australia, and how they “never respected us as human beings when they opened fire and took everything”.

He said people at home were keen to learn about their roots and the shield was a major symbol of the past that could help teach them.

“They’re all just asking me ‘When are they coming back? Can you bring them back yet?’”

But he said the British Museum Act is one of the reasons why the institute is refusing to return the shield.

A report by Sarah Keenan, senior professor at Birkbeck Law School, claims the British Museum “changed its story” about the origins of the Gweagal Shield when a two-day workshop to “test the argument the shield was collected at Botany bay in 1770” led participants to argue it is not from Cook’s landing.

Mr Kelly said repatriation was important in light of “all the stuff that’s happened in the past” and it would be a “huge moment in time to have the British Museum and others actually return things to the Aboriginal people because it would be a great step towards the healing process.”

He added ancestral spears taken by Cook and his men at the same time were held at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge; he also viewed those privately last year.

Mr Kelly’s claim to the artefacts has been backed by a motion passed in 2016 by New South Wales’ parliament, which acknowledged his clan as the shield’s rightful owners; Australia’s Senate followed suit two months later.

Australian historian Keith Vincent Smith told The Independent: “I can certainly say the Gweagal at Botany Bay are the rightful owners of the shield and spears taken from there by Joseph Banks and James Cook in 1770.”

In a paper entitled Confronting Cook, Mr Smith describes how information about Cooman was passed down through generations, after an Aboriginal woman’s account of what happened was documented in the 1840s.

He said the shield is likely to be the same as the one seen in drawings from the time.

Mr Kelly, who is visiting the UK for the fourth time in collaboration with pressure group BP Or Not BP? said he was amazed at what was on display at the British Museum.

During last year’s visit he said he took part in the group’s ‘British Museum Stolen Goods Tour’ to protest a controversial BP-sponsored exhibition of Iraqi artefacts. This week, he leads the group’s ‘British Museum Stolen Goods Tour: Colonialism, Carbon & Cook” with speakers discussing “looted items” on display from Iraq, Palestine, Greece and Australia.

He said: “For me, this tour is all about getting different cultures together because we’re all in it for that one cause. I think it’s a great opportunity for us to unite and to show the British People and British Museum there’s a real need for these items to be repatriated and we can make the world a better place if we did.”

He said Aboriginal items living in museums made it “harder to have a connection to the past”.

BP Or Not BP’s Danny Chivers said the opportunity for Mr Kelly to privately view his ancestral shield was a positive step.

He said: “It shows on some level they must accept the legitimacy of his request, even if they haven’t shown any signs of returning it.”

But Mr Kelly said museums need to start thinking about new ways of “making their collections legitimate.”

He added: “As long as there’s stuff that’s been wrongfully taken, there’s always going to be someone like myself looking for ways to get their culture back so we can teach our kids about our history, and about where we come from.”

The British Museum was asked if it believed in the legitimacy of claims by historians and ancestral records that the shield belongs to the Gweagal clan but it did not provide a specific response.

A spokesperson at the Museum said “colleagues were delighted to welcome Rodney” and that the institute had “repeated the offer on Tuesday, that we would be very happy to discuss a loan of the shield” as it had done to the National Museum of Australia in 2016.

She added: “It was a very positive visit, with suggestions for future collaborations to understand and interpret both the shield and other objects more fully. The Museum looks forward to continuing these discussions.”