The United States Embassy in Paris has asked a French auction house to consider postponing its Friday sale of Hopi artifacts and let tribal leaders examine them to assess their origins and authenticity.
The tribe views the items â€" an array of colorful masks and headdresses made from wood, leather and wool â€" as sacred objects that embody living and divine spirits.
“Given the ancestry of these masks and the distance between Paris and the Hopi reservation,†the embassy’s cultural affairs minister, Philip J. Breeden, wrote on behalf of the Hopi Tribe last week, “requesting a delay seems reasonable to allow for a complete examination of the situation.â€
But Gilles Néret-Minet, director of the Néret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou auction house, said he told the embassy that the sale of the 70 items, valued together at $1 million, will go forward.
The Hopis call the items Katsinam, or “friends,†and use them in religious ceremonies and place them on altars on their Arizona lands. The tribe, which objects to calling the items “masks,†says no one has the right to sell the communally owned items and believe they were obtained illicitly in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Jim Enote, director of the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center in Zuni, N.M., which is run by Zuni Indians, said his review of the auction catalog indicates that not all the artifacts are Hopi, and may indeed be from the Zuni or Jemez tribes of the same region.
Though the United States often pursues cultural heritage claims on behalf of foreign governments who seek the return of antiquities in this country, America does not have reciprocal international agreements. But U.S. officials have sought to offer guidance to the tribe.
