Grossman LLP | Sale of Hopi Artifacts Goes Forward Despite Legal and Moral Protests
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  • Sale of Hopi Artifacts Goes Forward Despite Legal and Moral Protests
    12/11/2013
    Last month, the Hopi tribe took Eve auction house to court in an effort to block the sale of 25 sacred artifacts, which the tribe believes are imbued with divine spirits. In spite of this legal—not to mention, moral—challenge, a French court allowed the Paris auction house to proceed with the December 9th sale. The Native American tribe maintains that the objects were stolen and that selling them amounts to sacrilege.

    This was the second unsuccessful attempt by the Hopi tribe to prevent a sale. In April, the tribe’s French attorney took legal action against another auction house, Tessier, Sarrou & Associés. That sale, which included 70 similar Hopi artifacts, went forward and generated over $1 million in sales, in spite of protests and an appeal from the United States ambassador to France to delay the sale.

    French legal authorities maintain the sale is legal because, despite their religious significance for the Hopi tribe, the artifacts are not associated with human remains or living beings in France. But the US embassy in Paris said that the Hopi should have been consulted prior to the sale, and that the appeal was made so that the tribe could investigate the objects’ provenance and determine whether they have a claim to recover them under the 1970 UNESCO Convention, to which France is a signatory. However, while the sale of sacred Native American artifacts has been illegal in the United States since 1990, there is no equivalent legislation in France, and the French court ruled that moral and philosophical considerations did not justify halting the sale.

    The auction, which a spokeswoman for Eve said was legitimate, proceeded as planned; the two most expensive items sold were a Crow Mother mask, which sold for €100,000, and an altar, which went for €80,000. These numbers are little consolation to the Hopi tribe, of course, which holds these artifacts sacred. In the words of the tribe’s attorney: “Some things are too important to be put on sale.”
    CATEGORIES: AuctionLegal Developments