French court allows Hopi mask auction to go ahead

A French court has given the go-ahead to an auction of masks that Hopi native Americans consider sacred objects, despite appeals from the US ambassador in France and actor Robert Redford.

Antoine Mercier / Dan Graphiste

“The sale will go ahead,” lawyer Pierre Servan-Schreiber announced on Friday after championing the Hopi’s call for the auction to be banned in court.

He was disappointed and in disagreement with the decision, he said, but that there was a positive side.

“I want to look at it positively, the reaction we’ve had from press and public opinion in France is I believe almost unprecedented and I believe eventually we will prevail," he told RFI. "It has been useful, as public opinion begins to understand that not everything can be bought or sold."

 “We are asking a motion with the supervisory body of French auction houses to request that they suspend the sale,” he added

Servan-Schreiber was hired by Survival International to take the case to a Paris court.

The court’s judgement ruled that, if Hopie considered the objects to have “a sacred value, a religious nature or if they incarnate the spirits of some people’s ancestors, it remains obvious that they cannot be assimilated to human bodies or parts of the bodies of people who exist or have existed …”