For decades, they have languished in storage in the basement of a museum in the English West Country. Finally, an extraordinary collection of weapons and ceremonial objects taken from the Larrakia people more than a century ago is beginning a winding journey home to the saltwater landscapes of the Northern Territory in Australia.

During an emotionally charged ceremony, Bristol city council formally handed over 33 objects including spears that would have been used to hunt creatures from fish to buffalo, some still gleaming with the red ochre used to decorate them.

They will be flown to Melbourne and then taken by truck to Garramilla/Darwin – road is the only option because at three metres some of the spears are too long to be transported on a domestic flight – and the plan is to show them at the Larrakia cultural centre, which is scheduled to open on a site overlooking Darwin harbour next year.

“It’s a good day, very important,” said Nigel Browne, a Larrakia and Wulna man who was in Bristol to receive the objects. “This is the end of a four-year journey. To see the return of these cultural objects that were taken from Larrakia is very significant. They are the tools of our trade as ancient huntsmen, fishermen. They have been gone a long time.

“They’ll be used not only to admire back home, but also teach a new generation of Larrakia how to craft spears that our ancestors were very adept at making. It’s not just about the past here. It’s about the future, teaching the next generation about their heritage.”

Browne said museums across Australia and around the world held hundreds of such objects: “That’s the same for many different groups, not just Larrakia. Objects were taken over many years.”

He said other institutions should look at what Bristol had done: “It puts them in a leading role internationally and can be used as an example as to what good can happen.”

Some of the objects could be photographed while others were kept hidden beneath tissue paper. Browne said: “Some of the objects we call secret and sacred and were used for ceremony.” The ones from Bristol can only be handled by men.

The objects were collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and donated to the museum. The earliest is a collection of spears, a spear thrower and a club donated by a Mr R Cuff in 1881. Nothing more is known of him. Marlborough College in Wiltshire donated five spears in 1934.

Five years later, spears and spear throwers were donated by a relative of an English botanist who had “acquired” them while working in Darwin. Some were put on display in Bristol for a while, but all have been in storage for at least half a century.

Mikayla Lee, a Larrakia woman and a member of the advisory group for the Larrakia cultural centre, described the recovery of the objects as overwhelming. “It’s very moving, emotional, a special moment,” she said.

The handover took place in the museum’s Wills Hall, named after the family who made a fortune out of tobacco and whose financial success benefited from slavery. Close by were artefacts taken from Nigeria and China, and the council said it would continue to work on repatriations of objects taken by British colonialists.

The leader of the council, Tony Dyer, said he was proud of the work that had been done with the Larrakia people and that other objects may be repatriated to other countries. “I think there is much for us to learn from this and much to share with others,” he said.

Some Larrakia people who could not make it to Bristol had sent moving reactions to images they had been shown of the pieces.

“That’s a fishing spear. That’s really old that style,” said Roque Lee, a Larrakia man. “You don’t see that sort of spear now days. I’ve been to the National Museum in Canberra and looked at all the Larrakia objects, but there’s nothing like this. That’s great.”