Navajos buy back artifacts at Paris auction
Source: AP-Excite
By THOMAS ADAMSON
PARIS (AP) — Navajo officials won their bid to buy back seven tribal masks at a contested auction of native American artifacts in Paris that netted over a million dollars. Monday's sale went ahead despite the best efforts by the U.S. government and Senator John McCain to halt it.
The objects for sale at the Drouot auction house included sacred masks, colored in pigment, believed to have been used in Navajo wintertime healing ceremonies.
The sale — which totaled 929,000 euros ($1.12 million) — also included dozens of Hopi Kachina dolls and several striking Pueblo masks embellished with horse hair, bone and feathers, the origins of which are unclear.
The U.S. Embassy in Paris had asked Drouot to suspend the sale to allow Navajo and Hopi representatives determine where they came from. But Drouot refused, arguing that the sale was in accordance with the law — and that a French tribunal had previously ruled that a similar sale was legal.
FULL story at link.
Supporters of Native Americans hold a banner reading "Selling and handling stolen goods equals to a cultural genocide", at center, and "We are not for sale", left, in protest outside of the Drouot's auction house during the contested auction of Native American artifacts in Paris, Monday Dec. 15, 2014. Navajo officials have spent several hundred thousand euros to buy back seven tribal masks put up for sale at a disputed auction despite the U.S. Embassy in Paris asking Drouot to suspend the sale to allow Navajo and Hopi representatives to determine where they came from. (AP Photo/Francois Mori )
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141215/eu--france-us-artifacts-28fb1f90b8.html
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