Native American tribal masks auctioned amid protests

Native American tribal masks auctioned amid protests

PanARMENIAN.Net - In a chaotic auction repeatedly interrupted by protests, dozens of Native American tribal masks were sold Friday, April 12, after a French court rejected the objections of the Hopi tribe and the U.S. government, The Associated Press reports.

The total tally was 931,000 euros ($1.2 million), with the most expensive, the "Mother Crow" mask, selling for 160,000 euros ($209,000) - more than three times the pre-sale estimate.

Of the 70 masks up for sale, one was bought by an association to give back to the Hopis, the Drouot auction house said.

Advocates for the Hopi tribe had argued in court the masks have special status and are not art - they represent their dead ancestors' spirits. The Hopis, a Native American tribe whose territory is surrounded by Arizona, nurture the masks as if they are the living dead.

But the auctioneer insisted any move to block the sale could have broad repercussions and potentially force French museums to empty their collections of indigenous works.

The Katsinam, or "friends," masks made up nearly all of the 70 lots that went on display at the auction house, offering a rare public glimpse of such works in Europe. The masks are surreal faces made from wood, leather, horse hair and feathers, and painted in vivid pigments of red, blue, yellow and orange.

They date to the late 19th century and early 20th century, and are thought to have been taken from a reservation inside northern Arizona in the 1930s and 1940s.

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