Native American artefacts sold for £1m in France

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/09/native-american-hopi-artefacts-sold-france

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A French auction house has sold sacred Hopi masks and other contested Native American artefacts for a total of £1m, after ignoring a plea from the US embassy to delay the sale.

As protesters stood outside the Drouot auction house in Paris with banners reading "Sacred masks, sacrilegious sale", 25 vividly coloured Kachina masks went under the hammer inside.

The American Indian Hopi tribe says the artefacts represent their ancestors' spirits and cannot be sold as merchandise. A judge ruled last week that the sale was legal in France.

The objects sold quickly, including Crow Mother, a menacing Hopi mask with billowing black plumes that was bought for nearly twice its expected value at £104,000.

The US embassy had requested a delay on behalf of the Hopi and San Carlos Apache tribes to allow them time to come to France, identify the artefacts and investigate whether they have a claim under the 1970 Unesco convention on the export and transfer of ownership of cultural property.

Pierre Servan-Schreiber, a lawyer who represents the Hopi tribe, and who bought one of the masks to return to them, said: "No one is saying we should empty museums of their artefacts. But these objects have a special significance for a people that still exists. When will someone realise that not everything can be sold and bought?"

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