The Native American Navajo tribe won its bid yesterday to buy back seven sacred masks at a contested auction of tribal artefacts in Paris that netted over a million dollars

The Native American Navajo tribe won its bid yesterday to buy back seven sacred masks at a contested auction of tribal artefacts in Paris that netted over a million dollars.

The objects for sale at the Drouot auction house included religious masks, coloured in pigment, that are believed to have been used in Navajo wintertime healing ceremonies.

The sale went ahead despite efforts to halt it by the US government and Senator John McCain of Arizona. The sale - which totalled €929,000 ($1.12m) - also included dozens of Hopi Kachina dolls and several striking Pueblo masks embellished with horse hair, bone and feathers, thought to be from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Hopi have long kept the items out of public view and consider it sacrilegious for any images of the objects to appear. The US embassy in Paris had asked Drouot to suspend the sale to allow Navajo and Hopi representatives determine if they were stolen from the tribes. But Drouot refused, arguing that the auction was in accordance with the law - and that a French tribunal had previously ruled that a similar sale was legal.

Navajo Nation Vice President Rex Lee Jim said the objects were not art but "living and breathing beings" that should not be traded. Mr Jim, a medicine man who travelled to Paris for the auction with three other Navajo officials, said they were unable to determine the exact provenance of the artefacts, but said they had to face the reality of the auction and buy them back.

"They are sacred masks... and unfortunately they end up here. Whether that is legal or illegal... We don't know. What we do know is that they are for sale," Jim said.

Irish Independent