Miranda Belarde-Lewis: Auction a dark day for Pueblo people

Last Friday started like any other busy day. Get the kid to school, gear up for the commute, read the news. By news I mean read the Facebook status updates.

I’d been following one news story in particular lately. It involved the upcoming auction of Hopi, Zuni and Jemez katsinam (in Zuni we say kokko) or kachina friends in Paris, France. The story had the attention of many Pueblo, museum and art people. We all wondered if a French judge would halt or delay the auction of 70 ‘objects’ on the grounds that the katsinam friends are still considered sacred cultural patrimony to the Hopi people.

The auction house, Néret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou, claimed in their catalog that the collector selling their collection (who is not required to make himself publicly known), was “fascinated” by the time and energy a group of people would spend making masks that represented “among the most important Katsinam spirits of the Hopi pantheon.”

There is no shortage of questionable claims made by the auction catalog, but it did get something right. “The Hopi Indians still practice ritual ceremonies to mark the seasons.” About the collector, the catalog stated “by his own admission, you have to see the masks in dances to fully appreciate them.”