French Lawyer Aquires and Returns Hopi Artifact
THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Tom Machberg
FRANCE---A French lawyer who represented the Hopi tribe pro bono in April when it tried to halt a Paris auction of 70 sacred artifacts returned one of the masklike objects to tribal elders on Monday at their reservation in northeast Arizona. The lawyer, Pierre Servan-Schreiber, who acted for the Hopi on behalf of Survival International, a group that advocates on behalf of tribal and indigenous groups, bought the Hopi object, called a Katsinam, for about $9,000 during an auction at the Néret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou auction house that generated $1.2 million in sales. “It is my way of telling the Hopi that we only lost a battle and not the war,” Mr. Servan-Schreiber said in an e-mail. [link]
By Tom Machberg
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| Antique tribal masks, revered as sacred ritual artifacts by the Hopi Native American tribe in Arizona, are displayed at an auction house in Paris, April 11, 2013. |
