71
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Supporters of Native Americans held signs reading "Selling and handling stolen goods equals to a cultural genocide," at center, and "We are not for sale," left, in protest Monday outside of the Drouot auction house during the contested auction of Native American artifacts in Paris.
PARIS >> The largest Native American tribe in the American Southwest won its bid Monday to buy back seven sacred masks at a contested auction of tribal artifacts in Paris that netted over a million dollars.
The objects for sale at the Drouot auction house included religious masks, colored in pigment, that are believed to have been used in Navajo wintertime healing ceremonies but that generally are disassembled and returned to the earth once the nine-day ceremonies end.
The sale went ahead despite efforts by the U.S. government and Arizona’s congressional delegation to halt it.
The sale, which totaled $1.12 million, also included dozens of Hopi kachina dolls and several striking Pueblo masks embellished with horse hair, bone and feathers, thought to be from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Associated Press is not transmitting images of the objects because both the Navajo and Hopi have strict rules against recording and photographing ceremonies featuring the items that otherwise are kept entirely out of public view. The Navajo Nation initially included a photo of the masks in a news release but later retracted it, saying it was a mistake. The Hopi tribe considers it sacrilegious for any images of the objects to appear.
The U.S. Embassy in Paris had asked Drouot to suspend the sale to allow Navajo and Hopi representatives to determine if they were stolen from the tribes. But Drouot refused, arguing that the auction was in accordance with the law — and that a French tribunal had previously ruled that a similar sale was legal.
Navajo Nation Vice President Rex Lee Jim said the objects are not art but "living and breathing beings" that should not be traded commercially.
