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
TygrBright
(20,753 posts)...is remind us that some things are not, and should not be, commodities.
And even when voluntarily shared for the purpose of advancing non-Native understanding of Native peoples, they are not just curiosities or artifacts without context.
It seems to be taking many of us a very long time to learn the difference between objects created by Native peoples for day-to-day use or expression of creativity and artistic joy, willingly gifted, exchanged and/or sold, and objects created by Native peoples for spiritual purposes or objects that have accumulated spiritual meaning through context and reverence.
It's not like they're trying to keep it mysterious or play "gotcha" with the distinction, either. Native peoples are very free with this information, if we ask.
And if we ask, and they say "That is a sacred thing to us," the only possible ethical, moral response is to say "Thank you, here it is, take it, and if you'd like to share more information about it we'd be honored to learn."
Is this really so difficult?
confusedly,
Bright
Response to Omaha Steve (Original post)
cosmicone This message was self-deleted by its author.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)NCjack
(10,279 posts)Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)Beartracks
(12,793 posts)Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning
Pertains to Australian aborigines, but the sentiment is broadly applicable, I think, to all native peoples.
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Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)littlemissmartypants
(22,529 posts)CTyankee
(63,882 posts)gotta calm down but jeez this just frosts my ass. Stop the sale. Get the correct info about ownership (we all know of course). STOP.
Coventina
(27,049 posts)Thanks for posting, OS.
Very sad to see that the auction house was so insensitive.