In a chaotic auction repeatedly interrupted by protests, dozens of Native American tribal masks were sold Friday after a French court ignored the objections of the Hopi tribe and the U.S. government.
The total tally was $1.2 million, with the most expensive, the “Mother Crow,” selling for $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 Hopi, 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 Hopi, 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 for the art market in general 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 in northern Arizona in the 1930s and 1940s.
Hopi representatives contend the items were stolen at some point, and wanted the auction house to prove otherwise.
As the auction got under way 2 1/2 hours after the court ruling, Jo Beranger, a 52-year-old French filmmaker, yelled as auctioneers showed a 1970s image of a Hopi leader in tribal beads and holding a mask.
Beranger told reporters the Hopi leader had since died, and it was “a scandal” and “shameful” that he was shown. Security guards escorted her out of the auction hall.
About a dozen protesters from a French group that sides with the Native Americans gathered outside — one waving the flag of the American Indian Movement.
In Arizona, Hopi Chairman Le Roy Shingoitewa said the judge’s decision to let the sale go on was disappointing but not unexpected.
“It’s a whole new legal field that many tribes have not truly experienced,” he said. “So I think the Native American tribes in the United States are going to have to start looking at this area of being able to try to protect our cultural areas as well as sacred sites.”
After the “Mother Crow” mask dating from about 1880 was sold, a protester shouted “this is not merchandise, these are sacred beings!” before being pushed out of the room by a security guard and breaking into tears.
Auctioneer Gilles Neret-Minet pressed on. He likened one mask to a clown’s face, and said the eyes of another resembled the diamond-shaped logo of French car maker Renault. He jokingly told guests the sale “is the deal of the day.”
The U.S. Ambassador to France, Charles Rivkin, tweeted in French, “I am saddened to learn that Hopi sacred cultural objects are being put up for auction today in Paris.”
Neret-Minet said the auction house has received “serious threats” ahead of the auction, and declined to comment further other than to say: “But remember this is an auction open to everyone. If anyone wants to come and buy them, they can.”
The Associated Press did not transmit images of the objects because the Hopi have long kept the items out of public view and consider it sacrilegious for any images of the objects to appear.
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