Dozens of Native American masks were sold at auction Friday despite objections by the Hopi tribe, which considers the items sacred, and the U.S. government, reports The Los Angeles Times.
The 70 masks sold for a total of about $1.2 million after a French court approved the auction, rejecting arguments by the Hopi tribe and its supporters that the items should not be up for sale because they are “sacred figures” of their ancestors, not art.
A mask called “Mother Crow” sold for about $209,000. Another one, “Mud Head,” was bought for $4,840 by an organization that plans to return it to the Hopis.
The tribe's lawyer, Pierre Servan-Schreiber, said the court’s decision to allow the sale and dispersement of the masks was disappointing.
“The probability of them being returned to their rightful owners, the Hopi, is very slight,” Servan-Schreiber said outside the Paris courtroom. “The Hopi tribe will be extremely saddened by the decision.”
Gilles Neret-Minet, of the Neret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou auction house behind the sale, said he was “happy that French law has been respected."
“I am also very concerned about the Hopi tribe's sadness, but you cannot break property law,” Neret-Minet told reporters. “These are in [private] collections in Europe and are no longer sacred. When objects are in private collections, even in the United States, they are no longer sacred.”
Read more of this report from The Los Angeles Times.