ATADA Members,
 
Attached is the Advocacy Kit for the Art Market Integrity Act (S.2400) that was mentioned in the previous email. In it you'll find clear information about the proposed legislation and a sample message to send to your Representatives and Senators. 

You can find contact info for your Congresspersons at: 
https://www.congress.gov/members

More info about the proposed legislation can be found on the ATADA website at: 
https://atada.org/atada-blog/art-market-integrity-act-notice

Download the Advocacy Kit Today and
Spread the Word about this Terrible Bill! 

From: Will Hughes, ATADA President

Our dedicated public servants in Washington, D.C. are again hard at work on legislation designed to burden small, art market businesses with damaging, costly and unnecessary regulation. A bi-partisan collection of strange bedfellows in the U.S. Senate introduced the “Art Market Integrity Act” on July 23, 2025.

The innocently named, yet grossly misguided bill, would force most art market participants to meet burdensome Anti-Money Laundering (AML) reporting requirements by setting thresholds for compliance as low as $10,000 per transaction or $50,000 in annual sales. Thus, even the smallest businesses and most part-time dealers would likely be subject to this proposed law. The Act would cover most participants in the art market, including, art and antiques dealers, advisors, auction houses, museums, custodians, and collectors.

U.S. art businesses, museums, and collectors will suffer significant harm and expense by the imposition of the same Federal reporting obligations on ordinary transactions as if they were financial institutions or casinos. Failure to meet these reporting requirements would expose art market businesses to draconian penalties. Most businesses would need to retain the services of AML consultants and to purchase AML software to ensure compliance.

One of the supporters of this misguided, and totally unnecessary legislation is the Antiquities Coalition. Yes, it’s the same organization that lobbied for the 2021 amendment to the Bank Secrecy Act that extended AML coverage to “antiquities” dealers. We are, thankfully, still awaiting the regulations that will define an antiquities dealer. Depending upon the ultimate definition of “antiquities”, many of our ATADA members will become subject to AML laws under that already passed amendment to the Bank Secrecy Act.

I’ve included a link to a good article on the proposed Art Market Integrity Act published in the Cultural Property News.

https://culturalpropertynews.org/weaponizing-regulation-hidden-dangers-of-the-art-market-integrity-act/

I would urge you to support the Cultural Property News as it is one of our only sources of timely and accurate information on cultural property issues and proposed legislation. As noted in the article, “the Art Market Integrity Act is Trojan horse, using the language of financial crime to pursue long advanced ideological goals aimed at eliminating the antiquities trade.” The foundation of the proposed Act rests on various false claims, misleading analogies, and a total disregard of the U.S. Treasury’s own findings with respect to money laundering and terrorist financing in the art market.

Time to get active! Contact your Senator (particularly if he happens to be one of the ill-informed sponsors of the proposed Act: John Fetterman, Chuck Grassley, Sheldon Whitehouse, Dave McCormick, Bill Cassidy and Andy Kim) and complain loudly about this misguided bill that will cause significant harm and incurred expense to small businesses. You could also decide to help support ATADA’s legal and lobbying efforts with your financial contribution. ATADA cannot have a significant impact in the legislative arena without adequate financial resources.

Support the Legal Fund

LEGAL FUND DISCLAIMER:

ATADA is a 501(c)(6) organization; gifts to ATADA and the ATADA legal fund are not tax deductible as charitable donations.

ATADA is a nonpartisan organization and does not support or endorse any candidate for office. Contributions and gifts to the ATADA Legal Fund will support lobbying and other activities. 

ATADA’s tax status enables it to work directly in Washington and elsewhere to make real change for your benefit.

ATADA Members,

The Pennsylvania House is currently considering HB 994 which would impose severe restrictions on the purchase, sale or possession of objects made from or containing ivory (and certain other specified animal parts). If you sell covered objects in Pennsylvania, or source covered objects in Pennsylvania, I encourage you to read the pending HB 994 and to weigh in with PA legislators before the bill passes in its current form.
 
There are certain exemptions to the restrictions contained in HB 994, dependent upon the provenance and age of the ivory contained in an object. It is uncertain, however, what documentary proof will be required to satisfy the terms of the various exemptions. In addition, these exemptions will only apply if the total weight of the ivory contained in the object is less than 200 grams (slightly less than ½ pound). It appears that there are no exemptions to the ban on the purchase, sale or possession of objects made wholly or primarily of ivory (including most marine ivory). The PA law is clearly much stricter than applicable Federal law.
 
If you may be affected by PA House Bill 994, I suggest that you take a closer look at the proposed legislation: 

https://www.palegis.us/legislation/bills/2025/hb994

If you don’t like what you are reading, contact your PA representative or the bill’s sponsors to express your concerns.

Finally, I’ve attached a July 14, 2025 article from Antiques and the Arts Weekly which provides further information.

https://www.antiquesandthearts.com/pa-house-bill-994-proposes-to-further-restrict-ivory-trade/

-Will Hughes

President, ATADA

A heads-up to all ATADA members that sell tribal art and antiquities to EU customers. Regulation (EU) 2019/880 takes full effect on June 28th and will present significant challenges to the ongoing trade with EU based customers. The law will not affect all our dealer members as it applies to cultural goods over 200 years old (250 years for archeological objects and elements from monuments) and worth more than 18,000 euros (including all associated costs, such as sales tax, insurance, packing and shipping). There is no minimum worth for archeological objects and elements from monuments.
 
The impact of the new regulation could be severe for EU collectors and dealers because the obstacles to importing certain categories of cultural property may well discourage them from buying outside the EU. Buyers may be understandably discouraged because the regulation will entail additional paperwork for imports, cause delay if an import license is required, and require declarations under “penalty of law”, and pose the risk of seizure and confiscation. Please note that only the EU-based owner of the goods may initiate and complete the import process required by the regulation.
 
What role will the U.S. based seller play when contacted by an interested EU-based buyer of an object covered by the new regulation? First, from a pragmatic point of view, you must determine how likely it is for your client to be sufficiently motivated and interested enough to complete the import process themselves? Second, you must ascertain if the provenance of the object will meet the stated requirements of the regulation.
 
You must be able to supply your client with specific, accurate evidence/information concerning the object to be imported. Your client will be making a declaration as to the veracity of such provided information under penalty of law.
 
The EU-based importer (owner) must sign a declaration that the object was legally exported from its country of origin under the local law at the time of export. In many, if not most cases, evidence to prove legal export from the country in which the object was created or discovered is non-existent. Therefore, in many cases you may not have the information required to supply your customer with evidence to support a declaration as to the legal export of the object from its country of origin. The regulation does provide a workaround when the country of origin cannot be identified, or proof of the original lawful export cannot be provided or does not exist. If the object was exported from its country of origin before April 1972, the regulation allows for the introduction of evidence that the object was lawfully exported from the last country where it was continuously located for at least five years.
 
There is uncertainty over what qualifies as sufficient documentation for compliance. Guidance from EU bureaucrats has been somewhat conflicting thus far. The proof to obtain an import license for archeological objects could prove daunting: complete files, including export permits where available, customer records, sales invoices, shipping documents, title chain, catalog entries and photos. Non-archeological cultural property will require an importer’s statement, including a due diligence declaration, and EU customs may request supporting documents or additional documents at any time from the importer. Issued guidance suggests that a declaration under oath of a third party regarding the legal export of a cultural good may be acceptable in the absence of any other relevant documents. It also appears that detailed auction or exhibition catalog descriptions along with identifying photos might be sufficient evidence of original legal export (or location for 5 years within the last country from which the object was exported from) to permit the issuance of an import license or acceptance of an import statement.
 
There will be an interesting intersection between Regulation (EU) 2019/880 and the STOP ACT once the act’s final implementing regulations are issued and the export certification process itself is established. As to Native American and Native Hawaiian objects, if an exporter/seller obtains Export Certification under STOP for a particular object, such certification would be persuasive evidence of lawful export from the country of origin, the United States. If it actually proves possible to obtain export certification under STOP (or that the final regs clearly define those objects that do not require export certification), STOP may facilitate the export of certain Native American and Native Hawaiian objects to the EU.

-Will Hughes
President, ATADA

Disclaimer:
The foregoing is intended only as a reminder that Regulation (EU) 2019/880 takes effect in just a couple of weeks, and that it will profoundly change the import of cultural property into the EU.

ATADA strives to provide timely, general information regarding laws and regulations potentially affecting its members. ATADA does not provide specific legal advice to individual members. If you have a question about the impact of the new EU regulation on your particular transaction, please consult legal counsel with cultural property expertise or a specialized customs broker.

Tyrone D. Campbell passed on Thanksgiving morning at age 86 in Scottsdale, Arizona. His partner of twenty-seven years, Lillian Black, passed several days before him.

He was born in Missouri in 1938, but his family moved to New Mexico when he was just a child. In 1971, he published the Tyrone D. Campbell Newsletter for the Trade, writing about Navajo and Pueblo textiles, their beauty, and their investment value. He was fascinated by Navajo chantways and collected rare books on the subject. His passion for Navajo and Pueblo textiles was endless. He was a treasure hunter first and a businessman second. He loved to find treasures and enjoy their beauty for a time before selling them to collectors worldwide. He was considered one of the foremost experts in his field. He ran many successful galleries, curated numerous exhibits around the country, lectured, and wrote many catalogs for Navajo and Pueblo textile collections. He co-wrote Navajo Pictorial Weaving 1880-1950: Folk Art Images of Native Americans in 1991 and co-wrote Navajo Pictorial Weaving 1880-1950, Expanded Edition in 2018.

When he passed, he was with his daughters Una Campbell, Kari Dawn Daniels, and Nina da Costa. Per Tyrone's final wishes, there will be an informal memorial service on the banks of the Rio Grande in Corrales, New Mexico, on December 29, 2024, at 1:00 PM. Don't hesitate to contact Una Campbell at (505) 400-9027 or email her at una@parnalllaw.com for location details if you want to attend. 

by Kate Fitz Gibbon

In August 2024, Robert “Bob” Gallegos received the ATADA Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest accolade for a member of ATADA, the Authentic Tribal Art Dealers Association. Gallegos helped to found ATADA in the 1990s, as the Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association (ATADA now also includes dealers in postwar and contemporary ethnographic art). ATADA is an international association of dealers, auction houses, museums and collectors. It is focused on ensuring that its members meet the highest standards of ethics, integrity and responsible collecting practices.

Gallegos has seen every facet of the tribal art trade since Native American art achieved widespread global recognition in the 1970s. Native American art has long been the most popular form of art collected in the United States, with important collections starting with that of Thomas Jefferson and expanding continuously since the second half of the 19th century.

Gallegos became a collector as a teenager in northern New Mexico. His college degree in business and finance only briefly took him into a banking career. After just a few years, his passion for Native American art drew him into a lifetime in the art trade, first as a trader in contemporary pottery from Southwestern pueblos in the 1970s. In the 80’s, Gallegos’ connections with Native carvers and potters enabled him to establish a flourishing local Albuquerque auction house. He built an appraisal business serving museums, collectors, shippers and the IRS, drawing on his intimate knowledge of the whole range of antique and contemporary Indian art. He was also fascinated – and concerned – by the prevalence of fakes by non-Natives being substituted for authentic works. By the 1990s, he had co-curated an early show on Native American fakes at the Maxwell Museum in Albuquerque and completed an important book on historic and contemporary pottery with Francis Harlow. Gallegos has also contributed to other books on historic Native American jewelry, in which he specialized.

As a founder of ATADA, Gallegos served as its President for several years in the 1990’s and as Treasurer from 1990 to 2012. He has been active in representing art trade interests both locally and nationally. Gallegos testified before Congress in hearings in support of the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Thirty years later he testified again before Congress, this time challenging the unworkable and imbalanced provisions of the 2021 Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony Act (the STOP Act). Mostly, however, Bob has worked quietly behind the scenes, for example in limiting the intrusion of government into private collecting in NAGPRA, or in obtaining agreement from tribes on a compromise bill to the STOP Act (unfortunately later abandoned by them). In the case of the STOP Act, excessively burdensome legislation may be a factor in the Department of Interior’s failure to define export procedures almost two years after passage. Instead, Bob has worked to build consensus and better understanding, seeking pragmatic, workable solutions instead of engaging in adversarial grandstanding, an approach that has earned him the respect of tribes and art dealers alike.

Gallegos has continuously served as a member of ATADA’s board, and in recent years has led the ATADA Foundation, a separate 501(c)3 nonprofit. The Foundation provides grants to arts and arts policy organizations, museums, institutions, and federally recognized tribes. It promotes programs that advance knowledge of the cultural, historical, and aesthetic importance of the tribal arts of North America and the world, and the peoples that create it. The Vecinos Project, recently created by the ATADA Foundation, specifically invites tribes and tribal organizations to submit proposals for activities and programs that support both the cultural arts and the well-being of Indigenous peoples in the United States. 2023 Foundation grant recipients included the Casa Martina Restoration Project in Chimayó, New Mexico, a scholarship fund for Indigenous students at the Institute of American Indian Arts Foundation, and artist programs at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Lectures and Symposia

Gallegos has long understood that building an ethical trade and working to establish positive public policy went hand in hand. Always focused on promoting legitimate trade practices, Gallegos organized a 1993 seminar entitled “Collecting and the Law” in Santa Fe, bringing in as moderator Kevin Gover (Pawnee Nation), an attorney who later served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior from 1997-2001 and director of the National Museum of the American Indian from 2007-2021. While NAGPRA applies to museums and other federally funded institutions, private collecting, even of sacred artifacts, is legal and not subject to NAGPRA provisions on return. Many sacred artifacts were originally released onto the market decades ago after tribes adopted Christianity and turned away from their ancestral religion. A reawakening of traditional spirituality and strong sense of Native identity has taken place in recent decades and encouraged claims for returns of long lost sacred objects.

A frequent speaker himself, Gallegos subsequently organized numerous educational programs, culminating in a major Santa Fe symposium in 2017, “Understanding Cultural Property: A Path to Healing Through Communication.” This symposium, which overflowed the capacity of Santa Fe’s largest hotel ballroom, featured not only lawyers, educators, and auction house representatives, but also traditional spiritual leaders and Cultural Preservation Officers from a number of Southwestern Native Nations.

ATADA’s Voluntary Returns Program

Gallegos used the symposium venue to announce a signature program he had built for ATADA, the ATADA Voluntary Returns Program. In 2016 Gallegos had responded to a challenge from a Native American attorney to build positive relationships between art dealers and collectors and Native American tribes. A legal trade in Indian artifacts has been countenanced and even encouraged by the U.S. government since the 1880s, leaving millions of objects, including a small number of sacred objects, in private hands.

Gallegos identified the greatest challenge as the reconciliation of seemingly disparate concerns held by Native American communities, museums, collectors, and the art market. He sought to establish a collaborative approach that would establish that there were “inalienable tribal objects” whose trade was inappropriate, even if they were legal to own and sell. Gallegos wanted to find a means of bringing key sacred objects back to tribes without damaging a market that not only supports the trade, but which is a primary source of income to Native American artisans, especially in the Southwest.

ATADA responded with multiple complementary actions, modifying its bylaws to prohibit members from selling sacred items that have current ceremonial use and adopting due diligence guidelines prohibiting sales of items removed unlawfully from tribal communities.

Gallegos also urged the ATADA Board to set up the first and only Voluntary Returns Program for Native American sacred objects in the U.S. – which the ATADA Board unanimously approved in 2016. Gallegos and other Board members began to gather ceremonial items from willing donors, long-term collectors and art dealers, who felt that these objects – which are living entities for the tribes – should be in tribal hands.

At the 2017 symposium, Gallegos explained how the Voluntary Returns Program, in its first year, had brought back dozens of truly sacred objects needed by tribal communities for religious and spiritual activities.

Through the symposium and his continuing educational work, Gallegos has made the ATADA Voluntary Returns Program a phenomenal success – both in consciousness-raising within the collector community and in locating and bringing over 500 important sacred objects to tribal communities in New Mexico and Arizona in just the last six years.

Returned items include several Zuni war gods, an Apache Crown (Gan) Headdress used in the Apache Crown dance ceremony, Acoma and Laguna flat and cylinder dolls, Hopi ‘friends,’ Navajo Yei masks, numerous prayer sticks, bandoliers, rattles, arrowheads and other jish that are part of a medicine bundle. Gallegos has personally followed through on every step of the program, from sharing information on objects located across the U.S. with tribal leaders, to working to identify the proper tribal affiliation. This can be very challenging, as many objects left communities 50 or 100 years ago, and their significance has sometimes been lost. Gallegos routinely drives five hours or more each way to deliver the collected objects and put them directly in the hands of spiritual leaders, who decide their appropriate usage or burial. Most recently, Gallegos located an important altar that had been missing from a tribe for more than 60 years. Gallegos’ mission today is to encourage the continuation of this signature effort, both to return key sacred objects and to build collaboration and goodwill between the art trade and the Native American community.

The venue chosen for the presentation of the ATADA Lifetime Achievement Award was the annual Whitehawk Antique Indian & Ethnographic Art Show in Santa Fe. This August marked the largest Whitehawk show ever, bringing together 131 national and international dealers in tribal art from around the world. The award was presented by ATADA President Will Hughes. As Hughes described the many contributions that Robert Gallegos had made to education, public policy, and the betterment of the art community, Gallegos responded with his usual gentle humor, saying that if he’d known how much he’d have to do, he’d never have started in the first place.

Congratulations to Robert Gallegos!

In a recent newsletter, Will Hughes highlighted a few of the revisions to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990.

Kate Fitz Gibbon has written an in-depth, 26-page report on the revisions which came into force in January 2024. The report describes the impact these new regulations are having on museums, educational institutions, donors and researchers, as well as updated definitions of terms such as "cultural items", "sacred objects", and "cultural patrimony", among others. 

If you have not already done so, I urge you to read the full report on the Cultural Property News website at: 
https://culturalpropertynews.org/the-new-nagpra-traditional-knowledge-in-artifacts-out/

We announce with regret that John Morris, ATADA member, Objects of Art Shows partner, and friend to many of us, passed away on November 10th.

John lived an epic life, although he did struggle with a long term illness in his later years. He was an historic rock and roll promoter and producer as well as a producer of art shows in his later years. His support of and commitment to the tribal arts community through the many shows that he co-produced will certainly be missed. Many of you that knew John well will, of course, miss him.

For those of you that did not know John well, we would like to share his biography taken from a recent obituary:

John H. Morris, Jr., of Santa Fe, NM, the creator and first managing director of the Fillmore East rock & roll theatre in New York City, and the production manager of the original Woodstock Festival of Art and Music, died at his Santa Fe, New Mexico home Friday, November 10, 2023, after a long illness.

Born in Grammercy Park in 1939, Mr. Morris studied theater at Carnegie Tech. At the age of 25, after a brief career as a lighting designer off-Broadway, on London’s West End, and at Peter Cook’s The Stroller’s Club in New York, Mr. Morris launched his career as a theatrical producer. He acquired the rights to Peter Cook’s satirical British productions, The Establishment and Cambridge Circus, and toured the shows across the US with casts including John Cleese, Cass Elliot, Peter Bellwood and Joe Maher.

In July of 1967, during “the summer of love”, Mr. Morris produced his first rock and roll concert, a free show in Toronto, Canada’s City Hall square, featuring Jefferson Airplane, which drew a crowd of more than 50,000, second in size only to The Beatles’ Shea Stadium concert the year before.  The show was to promote a week-long Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead rock & roll residency at Toronto’s O’Keefe Theatre produced by Mr. Morris and fellow Carnegie Tech alum Joshua White for West Coast rock & roll empresario, Bill Graham. 

In Toronto, John Morris and Joshua White introduced elaborate theatrical staging to the world of rock and roll, including the first psychedelic light show projected from behind a giant screen.  Their theatrical innovations in concert production have evolved into today’s elaborate staging of popular music shows and festivals.

Mr. Morris produced Jefferson Airplane’s first East Coast tour before rejoining Mr. White in December of 1967, to produce a weeklong Festival of Light and Music at the Minneola Theatre, featuring shows by Frank Zappa, Vanilla Fudge, Tim Buckley and Ravi Shankar, that formally launched the psychedelic Joshua Light Show.

Mr. Morris then produced rock concerts at the Anderson Theatre on New York’s Second Avenue for Crawdaddy magazine, where, with Janis Joplin’s New York City premier, he convinced Bill Graham to open an east coast theatrical version of his already legendary San Francisco’s psychedelic rock ballroom.

Eighteen days after Graham and partners including Bob Dylan’s agent Albert Grossman, acquired Lowes lower east side Village Theater, Mr. Morris, and a crew including theater tech students from NYU, led by Professor Chris Langhart, opened The Fillmore East with Janis Joplin, BB King, Tim Buckley and the Joshua Light Show on the marquee. 

After co-producing the first European concert tours for Jefferson Airplane and The Doors with Doors manager Bill Siddons, Mr. Morris was invited to join the production team for the Woodstock Festival of Art and Music. For Woodstock, Morris booked most of the bands which would appear at Woodstock, assuring that both the relatively unknown Santana, Country Joe and the Fish and Joe Cocker were on the bill.  During the iconic, but weather-plagued three-day festival, where a crowd anticipated to be 100,000 grew to an estimated half a million, Morris was the principal Master of Ceremonies and is recognized as “the voice” of Woodstock, having made the now famous announcement, “it’s a free concert from now on”

After moving to England in 1970 to organize the European Producers Association and promote touring US rock bands, Mr. Morris launched London’s first rock & roll theatre, The Rainbow, in Finsbury Park, with The Who as its opening act, November 4, 1971.

Mr. Morris continued to produce rock and roll events throughout Europe and the United States until 1990, including 19 Grateful Dead concerts; the premier European tour of Paul and Linda McCartney’s post-Beatles band, Wings; and tours with Ike and Tina Turner, Chuck Berry, New Riders of the Purple Sage and Santana.  His production companies, Jumping Jack Productions in the UK and Europe, and Cadogan Productions in the US, mounted concerts for artists including Stevie Ray Vaugh, David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa.  He also acted as manager for Otis Redding, the Danish band Gasolin’ and Japanese jazz musician, Stomu Yamashta, producing Yamashta’s third album, Go Too for Arista Records.

A collector and student of Native American art and artifacts since boyhood, Mr. Morris opened a Native American Antiques store in London in 1973, The Bear Creek Trading company.  In 1995, he joined with Kim R. Martindale to produce antiques, fine art and design shows, throughout the US.  For the next 28 years, their Antiquities Shows, Native American Art Shows and Objects of Art Shows were produced in Santa Fe, NM; New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Scottsdale, and Napa.

The son of John H. Morris and Louise Morris, John’s Grammercy Park, childhood in New York City was interrupted when his father returned to active duty in the US Army during the Korean War, and he attended 6th grade in three states, before the family settled in Pleasantville, NY following the war. 

Morris is survived by his partner of 33 years, Luzann Fernandez of Santa Fe, NM; brother, Mark Morris of Sneden’s Landing, NY, nephew Eric Morris of Los Angeles, CA, and nieces, Nicole Merrick and her husband Keil; Marie Fernandez and her husband Guillermo Serrano Terren; Katie Fernandez; grandnephews Oliver and Charlie Merrick and grandniece Kate Merrick. 

John H. Morris, Jr., is also survived by a world of loyal and loving friends drawn to him over a lifetime on concert stages, sailing adventures, photographic safaris, dinner tables, art show floors and pickup football games.

Plans for a Celebration of Life will be announced at a later date.  The Family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in Mr. Morris’s memory to Assistance Dogs of the West in Santa Fe, NM.

Adios John, 

Will Hughes, President ATADA
Mark Blackburn, President ATADA Foundation

THE STOP ACT HAS PASSED.
WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW? WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?

The Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony Act of 2021 (the H.R. 2930 version) was passed by the Senate on November 29, 2022 and was signed into law by President Biden. The stated purpose of the law is to stop the export and facilitate the international repatriation of cultural items prohibited from being trafficked by the Native American Graves Protection Act (NAGPRA), and archaeological resources prohibited from being trafficked by the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 (ARPA) or any other Federal law or treaty. The STOP Act explicitly prohibits the export of items obtained in violation of NAGPRA, ARPA or any other federal law and in addition creates an export certification system for other items that may be exported but only after receiving export certification from the Interior Department.

Many ATADA members have requested guidance on how to navigate the export of Native American or Native Hawaiian objects after passage of the STOP Act. We follow with the best guidance that we can offer at this early stage.

Detailed guidance can’t be offered yet as to which Items require export certification or which items ultimately will not require any certification at all to export. The definitions contained in the law itself of items covered are vague, and we do not yet have the final or even proposed implementing regulations for STOP to give us further guidance.

It will take a year, perhaps more, for the Interior Department to go through the process of issuing proposed regulations all the way through to the adoption of final regulations. In the meantime, there will be no functioning export certification system, so compliance with STOP’s export certification provisions cannot yet be expected from exporters as to “Items Requiring Export Certification” under the law.

At this point, the only provisions of STOP that are now fully effective and enforceable are those provisions related to the ban and penalties attached to the export of an “Item Prohibited From Exportation (essentially items being “trafficked” in violation of NAGPRA, ARPA or any other Federal law).

Accordingly, the best advice right now is to be very cautious if you are exporting an item. Don’t attempt to export any item that you think may have been obtained in violation of NAGPRA, ARPA or any other Federal law. Of course, you should have been following such advice even before the passage of STOP. While we don’t see a legal justification for U.S. Customs to change its procedures before STOP regulations are finalized, it is also possible that Customs could raise questions about exports of antique or prehistoric objects based upon its own interpretation of authority derived from STOP’s export ban on Items Prohibited from Exportation. So again, be very cautious when considering the export of an item which could reasonably be characterized as a “cultural item” or “archaeological resource” under NAGPRA or ARPA.

Provenance has always been important, but under STOP it will be critical if you intend to export an item. Good documentation could be the key to a smooth export process.

Until we have final implementing regulations, the best course of action is to be fully prepared to document the provenance of all the Native American and Native Hawaiian items in your inventory or collection to the greatest extent possible. The best provenance, although admittedly rare, will provide documentation of the original acquisition of the piece from a tribe, tribal member or Native Hawaiian, or the original discovery of an archaeological piece. For example, a photo of a Great Aunt at Acoma Pueblo in 1905 holding the dough bowl she just purchased, or a photo of a Great Grandfather holding an Anasazi pot that he found on his ranch in Southern Colorado in the 1930’s. The next best provenance would be documentation of an early acquisition history, the earlier the better. For example, the Harvey House souvenir shop receipt a Great Aunt received for a piece purchased in 1915; or the receipt for a Hawaiian object that a Great Grandfather purchased at an antique shop in Honolulu in 1895. If you have a documented provenance before 1979, then the object cannot have been trafficked in violation of ARPA; if you have a documented provenance before 1990, then the object cannot have been trafficked in violation of NAGPRA. It is clear that objects lacking any credible provenance at all will not be eligible for export certification under STOP, and certain types of objects with only a very recent provenance may be unlikely to receive export certification. Objects that can be characterized as funerary items are very unlikely to receive export certification as in most cases the exporter will be unable to meet the burden of proof of a “right of possession” to the such object.

Note: The information contained on ATADA’s website and in e-mail communications to its members is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter. Anyone seeking specific legal advice or assistance should retain an attorney.

To date, the Voluntary Returns program has helped facilitate the return of over 350 important sacred and ceremonial objects. This vital work continues to build positive relationships between communities. We remain committed to the idea that working together is the best way to bridge divides and forge a better world for all people.

Click here to learn more about the Voluntary Returns Program.

From: Will Hughes
Date: March 23, 2022

ATADA Members,

Below is a link to an important open letter from CINOA (joined by ATADA) which was published by the Art Newspaper. It was submitted to publications in Europe & the U.S. and we expect it to be widely picked up, in whole or in part.

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/03/14/damaging-and-unjust-legislation-linking-art-and-antiques-trade-to-money-laundering-and-terrorism-financing-must-stop-industry-body-says


Sincerely,
Will Hughes

Support the ATADA Legal Fund

You can help us continue our work to protect your rights as dealers and collectors. Your contribution is greatly appreciated.

I would like to extend an invitation to be part of the Vecinos Outreach Project.

Vecinos means “neighbors” in Spanish. It is in that spirit that we are raising funds to help indigenous communities address needs that they deem important. Instead of relying on laws that address everyone’s concerns and hoping they are fair, we believe in starting this community-based approach founded on respect and honor. We anticipate some challenges with implementation at first, but all activities will be 100% transparent. We hope that this will be just the beginning of meaningful relationships that will serve as a model for the future.

The ATADA Foundation will be the conduit for the donations. The accounts will be under my purview and verified by our CPA. Please feel free to ask questions and make suggestions, as much of our policy will be determined as we go.

Further information about the ATADA Foundation and the Vecinos Outreach Project can be found by visiting https://atada.org/atada-foundation

As you plan your charitable donations, please consider supporting this important project. Working together, we can help to build stronger communities, forge new relationships and a better future for all.

Sincerely,
Robert V. Gallegos
The ATADA Foundation

November 30th is Giving Tuesday

Please help us raise $5,000 on this #GivingTuesday to jump start the Vecinos Outreach Project.

DONATE BY CHECK

Please make checks payable to:
The ATADA Foundation
* include ‘Vecinos’ in the memo line

Mail checks to:
Robert Gallegos
215 Sierra Drive S.E.
Albuquerque, NM 87108

DONATE ONLINE

You can make a donation using your credit card or PayPal account.
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Legal artifact collecting, small businesses and hobbyists are directly threatened by legislation that could kill small businesses trading in artifacts and antiques.

On Jan. 1, 2021, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Under Section 6110, this bill called for the Bank Secrecy Act to be amended to subject all “antiquities dealers” to anti-money laundering regulations that could drive small traders in antiques and artifacts out of business. This legislation makes “antiquities dealers” – who are not defined - into "financial institutions" under the Bank Secrecy Act.

Regulations are being written today aimed at people who legally collect artifacts, who go to artifact shows and who buy, sell or trade them.

How could regulation affect you? Typical Bank Secrecy Act rules would require all “antiquities dealers” with sales of $50,000 a year to collect private information including the name, address, and source of their money from buyers and sellers and file transaction reports with FINCEN (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), a Treasury entity. FINCEN shares this information with US tax authorities and police in 90 countries around the world.

Dealers could be required to do an annual independent audit and file Suspicious Activity Reports on cash or large sales over $2,000-$3,000. Anti-money laundering programs even for small businesses can cost thousands of dollars per year as well as the time required to comply. It is impossible to fly under the radar; regulations are enforced by the banks that will freeze or close accounts which do not comply.

American businesses, traders, and collectors, large and small, should ask FINCEN to define “antiquities” as narrowly as possible and to adopt high monetary thresholds before reporting is required.

The Treasury was given one year to decide what regulations to impose on the trade. FINCEN will soon announce a “Comment Period” for the public to respond to proposed regulations via the Federal Register. ATADA will post instructions below.

As soon as the Comment Period opens, it will be crucial to let U.S. FINCEN regulators – and your Senators and Congressmen – know that they should exempt the small businesses of the American Indian art and artifact trade from unnecessary regulation. Make YOUR VOICE count!

When the proposed regulations are issued and the comment period opens, ATADA will post links and instructions here.

Legislation that could lock Native American art within U.S. borders is pending again in Congress. The STOP Act threatens the tourist-dependent economy in the Southwest, calls for an unworkable export regime with no time limits, applies to objects of any age and value, lacks Constitutional safeguards and operates in secrecy – denying Freedom of Information Act access even to an exporter whose goods are seized. The STOP Act would require tourists as well as commercial exporters to submit photos and forms and obtain permissions for exports as low as $1 value.

This latest version of STOP is identical to a bill that was introduced in the Senate and was passed by the Senate, but not the House, at the end of 2020. ATADA has major concerns with STOP’s secrecy, its lack of transparency and public accountability.

ATADA supports halting illegal trade, whether it takes place in the US or overseas. We worked together with the Acoma Pueblo in 2018 to do exactly that, in a bill introduced by former NM Congressman Steve Pearce, H.R.7075.

ATADA fully supports bringing sacred items back to tribes. This is the goal of our highly successful Voluntary Returns Program, which has brought over 400 sacred objects to Native American Sovereign Nations over the last five years.

Here’s how the current STOP Act goes beyond its stated objective to ban export of illegal items: 

• Placing the burden of proof of lawful purchase from tribes on the exporter. The lack of ownership history of most items creates a de-facto export ban.

• STOP lacks a “knowing” standard threatening law-abiding citizens with criminal prosecution.

• Even “solely commercial” items can be denied export at the discretion of a tribe.

• It puts no time-limit on certification review serving as a bar to commercial transactions and foreign museum loans.

• Tribes have the right to review of all certification applications and appeals are limited, giving tribes unchecked authority to ban any and all exports.

• Tribal communications and application records are exempt even from Freedom of Information Act requests, denying exporters access to evidence to contest seizures.

The ultimate long-range goals of STOP may be those articulated by the Association of American Indian Affairs/AAIA. The AAIA has said that: “Title to items of Native American cultural heritage must be vetted with affiliated Tribal Nations.”

ATADA, the Authentic Tribal Art Dealers Association, believes it is crucial to honor Native American traditions, to ensure the health and vitality of tribal communities, and to respect the tribes’ sovereign rights. That is why both ATADA and the Acoma Pueblo worked with New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce when he introduced a 2018 bill, H.R. 7075, The Native American and Native Hawaiian Cultural Heritage Protection Act.

 H.R. 7075 was a far better bill. It was supported by Acoma Pueblo and ATADA. It addressed many of the same goals as the current STOP Act. It banned the export of illegal items. It enabled tribal review. Unlike STOP’s burdensome export system, which would have to be created from scratch, H.R. 7075 used a permitting process already familiar to Customs and provided for a more user-friendly certification process.

 Importantly, it preserved the rights of all Americans to due process – which STOP does not.

 That compromise has been rejected by Acoma’s new leadership. STOP substitutes a vague, start-from-scratch permitting system, without public accountability. In fact, STOP would explicitly restrict export of commercial items at the discretion of the tribes.

 ATADA supports legislation to preserve tribal heritage. Wouldn’t it be better to amend STOP, using the 2018 Native American and Native Hawaiian Cultural Heritage Protection Act as a model acceptable to all?

 ATADA should be judged by its actions. In 2016, ATADA created the Voluntary Returns Program, a community-based initiative that has so far brought over 300 sacred and highly valued ceremonial objects to Native American tribes, completely free. Returns take place through a consultative process in which ATADA representatives work directly with community and spiritual leaders of Native Nations. ATADA is truly committed to bringing sacred objects back to tribes.

by Ron McCoy

 In 1990, Americans debated how best to observe (or ignore) the upcoming Columbian quincentenary. Pressed hard, Congress sought some way to signal a desire to make some amends for past practices and ongoing injustices meted out to the nation’s indigenous peoples.Its response took the form of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which lays out a blueprint for attempting to not only revisit but essentially redo the past.

The law seeks to accomplish this by establishing a process for repatriating certain types of “cultural items”[1] of Native American or Native Hawaiian origin from institutions that meet its broad definition of “museum.”[2]The rationale underlying this practice rests on the proposition that the very nature of certain objects renders them inherently involved in, forever connected to, and fundamentally inalienable from the tribal milieu. If the museum and claimant(s) — specific tribal entities or identified individuals — agree on the legitimacy of the claim, the piece will be repatriated.

In order to qualify as a cultural item under NAGPRA, a piece must fulfill the requirements for inclusion in one or more of its five categories: human remains, associated funerary objects, unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. Given this column’s anticipated readership — people who curate, collect, and deal in authentic tribal art — pieces that find their way into a pair of NAGPRA categories regularly receive attention: sacred objects[3] and objects of cultural patrimony.[4]

NAGPRA news appearing here is typically related to repatriations of materials the museums possessing them and those laying claim to them have agreed should be transferred back into the tribal sphere from which they came. That information is drawn largely from the Federal Register, sometimes augmented by additional sources. The Federal Register may not find a place on most of our reading lists, but it remains the forum of record for publishing announcements about the repatriation agreements museums and claimants arrive at through NAGPRA.

NAGPRA repatriation notices published in the Federal Register follow a standard template. That blueprint is designed to: inform readers about the identities of the institution and claimant(s) involved in the repatriation bid; provide information about a piece, its description, function, and provenance that support the case for its inherent inalienability from — and therefore the need for its repatriation to — the tribal world; and, finally, identify the person(s) or entity to which the object will be repatriated pending the filing of a competing claim. (There is no requirement under NAGPRA for any of the parties involved in the process to account for an object’s actual final disposition. A dozen tribal entities are listed in the first notice summarized below, for example, but how such a repatriation would be carried out is not this law’s concern.)

Ideally, one should be able to read a NAGPRA repatriation notice in the Federal Register and learn quite a bit about a given piece’s appearance, provenance, and role.

Each element in a NAGPRA notice is important, but a point of particular concern and interest is that part in which the object to be repatriated is described. That is because for this column’s intended audience, knowledge about a piece’s construction, appearance, and provenance is of vital importance if they are to understand how the letter and spirit of the law are reflected through its application.

This current harvest of NAGPRA notices of intent to repatriate sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony brings us up to date on those appearing in the Federal Register through September 8, 2020. (Unless otherwise indicated, quotations used in reporting notices comes from those notices.)

Diegueño/Kumeyaay Basketry Feathered Shaman’s Hat
Sacred Object

Museum of Riverside, Riverside, CA (Sept. 8, 2020): The item covered by this repatriation notice, otherwise undescribed, is a “basketry feathered shaman’s hat” dated to circa 1900, a “sacred item [which] was removed from the traditional land of the Diegueño/Kumeyaay in San Diego County, CA.”No additional information supports that conclusion, and the piece’s provenance evidently consists of a 1952 letter documenting its donation to the institution.

The museum agreed to transfer the hat to a group of culturally related California entities referred to collectively as “The Tribes” for purposes of the notice: the Campo Band of Diegueno Mission Indians of the Campo Indian Reservation; Capitan Grande Band of Diegueno Mission Indians (Barona Group of Capitan Grande Band of Mission Indians of the Barona Reservation); Viejas (Baron Long) Group of Capitan Grande Band of Mission Indians of the Viejas Reservation); Ewiiaapaayp Band of Kumeyaay Indians; Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel; Inaja Band of Diegueno Mission Indians of the Inaja and Cosmit Reservation; Jamul Indian Village; La Posta Band of Diegueno Mission Indians of the La Posta Indian Reservation; Manzanita Band of Diegueno Mission Indians of the Manzanita Reservation; Mesa Grande Band of Diegueno Mission Indians of the Mesa Grande Reservation; San Pasqual Band of Diegueno Mission Indians; and the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation.

Painted Drum (Cochiti Pueblo)
Sacred Object/ Cultural Patrimony

Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX (July 30, 2020): This notice focuses on a painted wooden drum acquired by California attorney Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970), who achieved fame as the prolific creator-chronicler of fictional courtroom lion Perry Mason. We know nothing about this drum, other than that fact of its donation to the museum as part of Gardner’s estate and the piece’s general appearance: “a wooden drum with rawhide ends and lacing, and painted in ochre, dark brown, and white colors.”

According to the notice, “research and consultation with representatives from the Pueblo of Cochiti, New Mexico, found that Cochiti is known by all Pueblos for creating ceremonial drums of this style for tribal use in the practice of traditional native religion.” (Cochiti is also known for producing drums for the marketplace.) “Accordingly, this drum…clearly is a sacred object originating from Cochiti Pueblo,” to which the museum agreed the drum should be repatriated.

By combining this notice with an interesting firsthand account of the process written by Ester Harrison, a member of the museum’s staff, it is possible to glean some insight into how this decision was made.[5]

Basically, after the museum figured out the drum was likely of Native American origin, probably from the Southwest, the instrument was included in a 2019 summary of possible NAGPRA-affected objects in its collections. About a year later, Harrison writes, “we were delighted to hear from the Cochiti Pueblo in New Mexico who positively identified one of the drums in the inventory as being Cochiti and an object of cultural patrimony.”[6] After that, “[w]orking closely with the Cochiti Pueblo contact primarily by telephone, we supported each other through the required next steps, sometimes sharing each other’s views and experiences and embarking on a meaningful new professional relationship in the process.”[7]

Killer Whale Shirt (Tlingit)
Sacred Object/ Cultural Patrimony

Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, MN (June 10, 2020): In 1926, Presbyterian minister and teacher Axel Rasmussen (1886-1945) commenced a decade-long tenure as superintendent of schools in Wrangell, Alaska, subsequently taking up a similar posting in Skagway.[8] Over the years, Rasmussen, a keen student of Tlingit and other regional cultures, put together a substantial collection of pieces from the area’s indigenous peoples. Among his acquisitions is the piece to which this notice refers: a killer whale shirt, which the Minnesota Museum of American Art bought from the Portland Art Museum in 1957.

This shirt is associated with the Naanya.aayí clan, which serves as its collective custodian. Tribal representatives “described how the clan came to own the name and crest killer whale Sheiyksh, and demonstrated the traditional uncle-to-nephew hereditary transfer of the item going back to the first Chief Shakes.” (A photograph taken in the early 1940s shows Chief Shakes VII, also known as Charlie Jones, wearing this shirt.)[9]

The writer(s) of this notice took pains to emphasize the nature of the bonds linking the Naanya.aayí clan to this shirt. “The killer whale shirt bonds the Tlingit people to their ancestors,” the author tells us, “symbolizing the people’s relationship to the being depicted on it.” The prominent inclusion of the clan crest in the garment’s overall design “provides a physical form in which spiritual beings manifest their presence.”

The notice finds this shirt is “needed for current and ongoing cultural and religious practices,” and, further, that “under the Tlingit system of communal property ownership, it could not be alienated, appropriated, or conveyed by any individual.”

Accordingly, the museum agreed to return the killer whale shirt to the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes, acting for itself and on behalf of the Wrangell Cooperative Association (specifically the Naanya.aayí clan).

5,816 Objects (Winnebago)
Cultural Patrimony

John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI (June 10, 2020): Watchmaker and amateur archaeologist Rudolph Kuehne (1855-1929)[10] amassed a large trove of objects during some thirty-five years of digging and scraping in and around Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The collection he built contains nearly six thousand objects, including: stone points, scrapers, hand axes, hammerstones, gorgets, beads, and gaming pieces; copper points, blades, awls, amulets, beads, and rings; antler awls; also clay vessels, plant specimens, and seven beaded sashes or belts.[11]

After Kuehne’s death, the museum’s parent entity acquired this material from his widow.

The museum agreed these cultural items qualified as objects of cultural patrimony under NAGPRA and should be transferred to the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, whose ancestors resided in the Sheboygan area.

Eleven Objects “Erroneously Identified…as Masks” (Navajo)
Sacred Objects

Federal Bureau of Investigation, Art Theft Program, Washington, D.C. (June 10, 2020): At a time unknown, “11 sacred objects were acquired in the Southwest and transported to the East Coast.” There, these eleven undescribed pieces became “part of a private collection of Native American antiquities, art and cultural heritage.” In the spring of 2018, the FBI, acting in connection with a criminal investigation, seized those objects, which had been “erroneously identified by the collector as masks.” (For the moment, let us leave aside the question of what these pieces might be; after all, the notice tells us their identification as masks would be erroneous since they are obviously not masks.) The FBI determined these pieces are sacred objects that rightfully belong with the Navajo Nation of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.

If you are left a bit confused wondering what this notice is about, you are not alone.
In what appears to be a growing trend with NAGPRA notices, the author(s) of this entry opted for opacity by providing as little information as possible. Whether done intentionally or unconsciously, this renders the notice practically worthless for tribal art curators, collectors, and dealers in their attempts to discern the shifting parameters of the objects embraced by NAGPRA. The situation here is rendered patently absurd, because the eleven objects “erroneously identified by the collector as masks” are almost certainly eleven masks.

How did we arrive at the point where such a conclusion seems to be the only one that is even remotely reasonable?

We receive the message these objects are masks because the notice takes great pains to inform us they are not masks. The author(s) of the notice manage to attain this questionable goal by emphasizing that the objects were “erroneously identified by the collector as masks [italics added].” If these pieces are not masks, what are they? Baskets? Quillwork? Rattles? Pottery? It seems perfectly reasonable to conclude that what a collector “erroneously” identified as masks must have looked to her/him a lot like…masks.

“What’s in a name?” William Shakespeare’s Juliet asks her Romeo. After all, she asserts: “That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.”[12] (It might be helpful to recall that, like the rest of Romeo and Juliet, the words the bard placed on Juliet’s lips form part of a tragedy.) Some three centuries later, modernist writer Gertrude Stein reminded readers: “a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”[13] But obscuring the identity of a mask by failing to even describe it properly — while simultaneously asserting someone “erroneously identified” it as a mask — constitutes an act of masking.

It seems likely this masking exercise was intended to address the sensibilities of people for whom describing certain objects as “masks” would be problematic. However worthwhile that goal may be, in this instance the act of bending to it eliminates the possibility of presenting meaningful information about the pieces. Even Shakespeare and Stein, when talking about roses, did not use esoteric code; instead, they used a specific, readily understood word — that word was “rose” — so readers would know what they were writing about. In that vein, here is a suggestion for NAGPRA notice writers: Instead of muddying the waters, why not consult a list of appropriate synonyms for “mask”? In the meantime, let me suggest one: “not-mask.”

NAGPRA, like any law, is credible only so long as it is understood. Obscuring the identity of objects slated for repatriation is a profoundly unhelpful act, one which falls well outside the goal of keeping us informed about how the law is enforced.

Please note: This column does not offer legal or financial advice. Anyone requiring such advice should consult a professional in the relevant field. The author welcomes readers’ comments and suggestions, which may be sent to him at legalbriefs@atada.org

ENDNOTES

[1] “Cultural items” under NAGPRA means: “Human remains, associated funerary objects, unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects, [and] cultural patrimony.” “Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: Glossary,” National Park Service (2020), https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nagpra/glossary.htm

[2] For NAGPRA’s purposes, a “museum” refers to “[a]ny institution or State or Local government agency (including any institution of higher learning) that receives Federal funds an has possession of, or control over, Native American cultural items.” Ibid. Specifically excluded: “the Smithsonian Institution or any other Federal agency,” which are covered by other legislation.

[3]For NAGPRA’s purposes, a “sacred object” is “needed by traditional Native American religious leaders for the practice of traditional Native American religions by their present day [sic] adherents.” Ibid.

[4] An object is deemed “cultural patrimony” under NAGPRA if it has “ongoing historical, traditional, or cultural importance central to the Native American group or cultural itself, rather than property owned by an individual Native American, and which, therefore, cannot be alienated, appropriated, or conveyed by any individual regardless of whether or not the individual is a member of the Indian tribe or such Native American group at the time the object was separated from such group.” Ibid.

[5] Ester Harrison, “The Ransom Center and NAGPRA: A Team Effort in Research,” Ransom Center Magazine (2021), https://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcentermagazine/2021/02/18/the-ransom-center-and-nagpra-a-team-effort-in-research/

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Bill Mercer, “Native American Art at Portland Art Museum,” American Indian Art Magazine, Vol. 26, No. 2 (74-81), 76-79; “Beloit College Collections,” (n.d., accessed May 2, 2019). https://dcms.beloit.edu/digital/collection/logan/id/3274/

[9] The information accompanying the photograph labels the garment worn by Shakes VII the “Killer Whale Flotilla Robe.” “Chief Shakes VII,” Alaska’s Digital Archives (Alaska State Library – Historical Collections), https://vilda.alaska.edu/digital/collection/cdmg21/id/2418/

[10] “Emma Greiser Kuehne,“ Find a Grave (2021). https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/101993518/emma-kuehne

[11] At the time, The Wisconsin Archaeologist, NS, Vol. 9, No. 3 (April 1930) (The Wisconsin Archeological Society), 143, described Kuehne’s collection as “one of Wisconsin’s richest and most valuable private archeological collections.”

[12] Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene II REDO “The Complete Works of Shakespeare,”

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/romeo_juliet.2.2.html

[13] In her 1913 poem “Sacred Emily” (1913), Stein wrote: “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” Later, in Operas and Plays (1932), she recalibrated her remarks: “Do we suppose that all she knows is that a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” “Gertrude Stein,” EPC Digital Library (Electronic Poetry Center, 2011), http://writing.upenn.edu/library/Stein-Gertrude_Rose-is-a-rose.html

Participating ATADA Dealers

Buffalo Barry’s Indian Art

Chipeta Trading Company

Galerie Lemaire

Territorial Indian Arts

Waterbird Traders

Patrick & Ondine Mestdagh

Marcy Burns American Indian Arts LLC

George Postrozny

Mark A. Johnson Tribal Art

Gene Quintana Fine Art

Robert V. Gallegos

John Molloy Gallery

American Indian Antique Art

Thomas Lull Indian Art

Trotta-Bono, LTD

Charles Jones African Art

SavvyCollector.com

Cultural Patina

Erik Farrow Fine Art Gallery

Turkey Mountain Traders

Irwin and Marjorie Goodman

Indian Lodge Road

Salveson Collection

Xanadu Gallery LLC

Transitional Arts Trading Co.

Curtright and Son Tribal Art

Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery

Toby Herbst Antiques

Terry DeWald American Indian Art

Throughout our history, the mission of the ATADA Foundation has been to provide support for Native and Tribal art exhibitions, Native Artist scholarships, educational programs and humanitarian aid.

This year, we have focused our efforts on providing support for indigenous peoples affected by Covid-19. Through the generous donations of ATADA members and friends, we have raised over $20,000 to help Native American Nations bring food, water, supplies and other assistance to those in need. On this #GivingTuesday, we are asking you to help us reach our current goal of $30,000 in order to continue these efforts.

We also welcome donations to support our other Native and Tribal Art related programs. Whether you can give $20 or $1,000 - You can make a difference and help build a better future for us all. 

Please make your tax-deductible donation today. 
Thank you for your generosity.

Sincerely, 

The ATADA Foundation Board of Directors & 
The ATADA Board of Directors

by Ron McCoy 

The way things — “things” being synonymous with “pretty much everything” — have been going of late, it’s not surprising the repatriations of objects carried out under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which the U.S. Congress passed back in 1990, occupy at best a backburner for most of us just now. Nevertheless, NAGPRA remains in effect and its impact continues rippling through the world of antique tribal art dealers, collectors, curators, and scholars.

By way of a quick summing-up: NAGPRA is dedicated in part to repatriating “cultural items”[1] — physical objects — of Native American and Native Hawaiian origin from any institution satisfying its broad definition of “museum.”[2] In order to be eligible for repatriation, a piece must satisfy NAGPRA’s requirements for including it in one (or more) of its five categories: human remains, associated funerary objects, unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony. The two categories that regularly receive attention in this space are sacred objects[3] and objects of cultural patrimony.[4]

Announcements of a decision to repatriate objects — issued, pending the arrival on the scene of one or more competing claims on the piece — appear on an irregular basis in the Federal Register. These notices are supposed to let us know: (a) the institution involved; (b) the identity of the claimant(s); (c) information about the piece and its history; and (d) the person or body to which a piece will be repatriated. (Unless otherwise indicated, the quotes used in reporting these notices comes from the notices themselves.)

Each component of a notice of intent to repatriate — identifying the parties to the agreement; explaining what the piece is and why/how it satisfies the law’s requirements for inclusion NAGPRA’s sacred objects and/or objects of cultural patrimony categories; and, finally, the reveal: where it’s going now — is important in and of itself. That’s why, as I read through a notice, it’s the description of a piece and its history that looms especially large — particularly with respect to what types of objects, specifically, the law embraces.

After all, without that, how can we possibly know what, exactly, is being repatriated? Please keep that in mind when glancing at the final two notices in the current column.

Here, then, are summaries of NAGPRA notices of intent to repatriate sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony that appeared in the Federal Register through April 20, 2020.

Tlingit Killerwhale Hat, Rich Man’s Cane (Killerwhale Cane), Marmot Mask, Bear Headress, Bear Shirt, Sea Monster Pipe, Grizzly Bear Mask
Objects of Cultural Patrimony/Sacred Objects

Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (April 20, 2020): This notice highlights seven pieces of Tlingit origin.

Five of the seven objects were purchased by the museum in 1953 from the widow of Walter C. Walters, who operated the Bear Totem Store curio emporium at Wrangell, in southeastern Alaska.[5] Walters opened his enterprise in 1922, after acquiring works of Northwest Coast indigenous art while working as a mail carrier and fur buyer in the region.[6] The notice states Walters “removed” these pieces from Wrangell between 1920 and 1953, although the details of these transactions and exchanges appear unknown. The five objects addressed by this part of the notice are: a Killerwhale Hat, Rich Man’s (or Killerwhale) Cane, Marmot Mask, Bear Headdress, and Bear Shirt.

The notice also covers a Sea Monster Pipe, which was removed from Wrangell at a time and under circumstances unknown before ending up with art dealer Leonard S. Lasser, who donated it to the museum in 1972.

The fifth, final item repatriated under this notice is a Grizzly Bear Mask acquired between 1926-1937 by Axel Rasmussen, the superintendent of Bureau of Indian Affairs schools in Wrangell from the late 1920s until 1937, when he took up a similar position at Skagway.[7] Part of the Rasmussen collection acquired by the Portland Art Museum in 1948, the Grizzly Bear Mask was subsequently deaccessioned and acquired by noted Northwest Coast specialist Bill Holm, who donated it to the Burke Museum in 1974.

The notice references photographs showing some of the pieces listed here in situ, as it were: one of Chief Shakes, the fifth of that name, lying in state in 1878, with some of the objects surrounding him;[8] another of the interior of the clan home of his successor, Shakes VI, where some of the material was kept.[9]

Each of these items was originally collected at a time when Tlingit people were undergoing crushing hardships associated with the sort of dispossession and exploitation commonly associated with the saga of indigenous contact with the commercial, political, and spiritual representatives of European and Euroamerican cultures.[10]

All of these pieces were deemed objects of cultural patrimony and sacred objects under NAGPRA for purposes of turning them over to the Wrangell Cooperative Association and the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes in Alaska.

Hawaiian Zoomorphic Bowl, Basalt Cup
Sacred Objects

State of Hawaii, Department of Transportation, Honolulu, HI (Mar. 3, 2020): Between 1989-1992, highway construction in northeastern Molokai’s Halawa Valley led to the retrieval of archaeological finds, chiefly unassociated funerary objects. Among them: a zoomorphic bowl and basalt cup — listed in the notice but otherwise undescribed — which appear to have been the subject of some sort of unassociated funerary objects mix-up this notice evidently seeks to rectify. Both pieces were categorized as sacred objects and slated for transfer to lineal descendants of the person for whom the burial was created.

Wooden Carving of Laka, Founder of Hula
Sacred Object

Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (Jan. 3, 2020): In 1997, Hawaiian traditionalist artist Rocky Ka’iouliokahihikolo’Ehu Jensen “brought” the carved wooden piece covered by this notice to the museum.[11] The carving represents Laka, a female figure from the time of legends, credited as the patron of and likely originator of Hula on the island of Molokai.

The widely-held popular image of hula most likely involves an amalgam of snippets of ambient surf-sound, Don Ho warbling “Tiny Bubbles,” and scenes of happy-happy dancers waving their arms and wiggling their hips at beachside resorts’ jam-packed luaus. Whatever the entertainment value of those amusements, the motions and chants of hula, as practiced by the more traditionally minded, constitute what is nothing less than “a religious service, in which poetry, music, pantomime, and the dance lent themselves, under the forms of dramatic art, to the refreshment of men’s [sic] minds.” The “view of life” presented in hula performance, was “idyllic, and it gave itself to the celebration of those mythical times when gods and goddesses moved on the earth as men and women and when men and women were as gods.”[12]

The writer of those lines was Nathaniel B. Emerson (1839-1915), a physician, student of Hawaiian culture, and son of early Protestant missionaries to the islands. Christian missionaries like Emerson’s parents started descending in numbers during the 1820s on the Sandwich Islands, a common moniker for Hawaii until local naming practices acquired greater traction.

These missionaries generally perceived indigenous religious practices and observances as quite literally beyond the pale. Consequently, they expended considerable energy and effort addressing the competing Polynesian ethos with hostility. An example of this is seen in their lobbying among converts within the ruling elite for hula’s suppression, a goal first achieved in 1830.[13] (Among those advocating a hula ban was Emerson’s missionary father.)[14] Not surprisingly, hula — much like the Northwest Coast potlatch, Plains Sundance, and countless other ritualized expressions of cultures under assault — became a symbol of group resistance, survival, and a sort of cultural renaissance within population whose members felt very much under attack.

After consultations with representatives of the Native Hawaiian organization Nä Lei O Manu’akepa, the museum concluded the piece “is a necessary component which holds a very important role in the sacred Kuahu Ceremony of traditional Hula practitioners.” Basically, it is seen as nothing less than “a manifestation of the Hula patron, Laka, to which traditional Hula practitioners conduct ceremonies and rituals with offerings for inspiration, guidance and protection in their present-day cultural work and practices.”

The museum agreed the piece depicting Laka is a sacred object which should be dispatched to the Nä Lei O Manu’akepa.

Thirty-One Unidentified Pieces (Masks) Identified as Hopi Sacred Objects

U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Art Theft Program, Washington, D.C. (Jan. 3, 2020): The notice tells us that at a time unknown thirty-one “sacred objects were acquired and transported to the East Coast, where they remained part of a private collection of Native American antiquities, art, and cultural heritage.” Then, sometime in the spring of 2018, the FBI came calling and seized the pieces in connection with an unspecified criminal investigation. After “multiple consultations” with archaeologists and Hopi representatives, it was determined the pieces should be transferred to the Hopi Tribe of Arizona. As to the type of objects not otherwise described, they are “ceremonial objects that had been misidentified by the collector as ‘masks.’”

Unidentified Object (Mask) Identified as Zuni Sacred Object

U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Art Theft Program, Washington, D.C. (Jan. 3, 2020): The notice informs us that at an unspecified time an undescribed object, obtained by an unidentified party or parties, was “transported to the East Coast, where it remained part of a private collection of Native American antiquities, art, and cultural heritage.” We are told that in the spring of 2018 this piece “was seized by the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] as part of a criminal investigation.”

The notice breaks out momentarily from its cocoon of coyness to let us know that what we are actually discussing here “is a ceremonial object that had been misidentified by the collector as a ‘mask’” which, pending competing claims, would be given over to the Pueblo of Zuni in New Mexico.

So, when it comes down to the heart of the matter, we (probably) do know what the items in the last two notice summaries are after all: masks. What kind? What age? What materials? What anything?

We do not know.

A law’s utility is inherently linked not only to the circumstances and manner of its crafting, but also in the degree to which it remains transparent and credible, the extent to its purpose for existing and how it’s applied. In this, NAGPRA has been stumbling. How can we know what is considered a sacred object or object of cultural patrimony under NAGPRA — and therefore something eligible for repatriation — unless we are told what the object is, in more detail than its inclusion within a very general category of materials?

Having followed the appearance of NAGPRA’s intent to repatriate notices for more years than I care to count, it seems the law as expressed in them is becoming increasingly opaque; in some instances, hopelessly and unhelpfully useless. There are many exceptions, but the rot of opacity and the confusion it generates and in which it thrives may have settled in for the long haul.

Please note: This column does not offer legal or financial advice. Anyone requiring such advice should consult a professional in the relevant field. The author welcomes readers’ comments and suggestions, which may be sent to him at legalbriefs@atada.org

ENDNOTES

[1] Under NAGPRA, “cultural Items” means: “Human remains, associated funerary objects, unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects, [and] cultural patrimony.” “Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: Glossary,” National Park Service (2020), https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nagpra/glossary.htm

[2] With NAGPRA, a museum is “[a]ny institution or State or Local government agency (including any institution of higher learning) that receives Federal funds an has possession of, or control over, Native American cultural items.” Ibid. That definition specifically excludes “the Smithsonian Institution or any other Federal agency.”

[3]For NAGPRA’s purposes, a “sacred object” is a piece “needed by traditional Native American religious leaders for the practice of traditional Native American religions by their present day [sic] adherents.” Ibid. Ibid.

[4] An object is deemed to be “cultural patrimony under NAGPRA if it has “ongoing historical, traditional, or cultural importance central to the Native American group or cultural itself, rather than property owned by an individual Native American, and which, therefore, cannot be alienated, appropriated, or conveyed by any individual regardless of whether or not the individual is a member of the Indian tribe or such Native American group at the time the object was separated from such group.” Ibid.

[5] The Bear Totem Store presented a colorful, exotic aspect for visitors, as photographs taken from around 1927 (https://vilda.alaska.edu/digital/collection/cdmg21/id/23028/) and 1939 (https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/ alaskawcanada/id/3243/) indicate.

[6] Bonnie Demerjian, Images of America: Wrangell (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2011), 30; Greg Knight, “Wrangell’s Tlingit Art on Display at Two Museums,” Wrangell Sentinel (Sep. 20, 2012), https://www.wrangellsentinel.com/story/2012/09/20/news/wrangells-tlingit-art-on-display-at-two-museums/525.html

[7] “Dagger,” Beloit College Digital Collections (n.d.), https://dcms.beloit.edu/digital/collection/logan/id/3274/

[8] For the photo of Shakes V lying in state with those objects see https://www.bgc.bard.edu/objects-exchange-chief-shakes

[9] An image showing Shakes VI “at home with possessions” in 1907 is at https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/loc/id/2034. See also the photo of the object-rich interior of the Shakes VI home in 1909 at Aaron Glass, “Bard Graduate Gallery: 37. Interior of the Chief Shake House, Wrangell, Alaska, https://www.bgc.bard.edu/objects-gallery-chief-shakes-house

[10] Chip Colwell, Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), 151-152, does a good job establishing the atmosphere in which cultural material heritage moved out of the Tlingit sphere. As if to emphasize the poverty and desperation of the Tlingit at this time, Shakes VI maintained his home as a virtual gallery, charging admission and offering pieces for sale. Glass.

[11] For Rocky Jensen, see Senator Daniel Akaka’s remarks at “Tribute to Native Hawaiian Master Artist Rocky Ka’ioliokahihikolo’Ehu Jensen,” in Congressional Record (Vol. 146, Pt. 4 [2000]), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRECB-2000-pt4/html/CRECB-2000-pt4-Pg5013-2.htm;

Lucia Tarallo Jensen, “Carving Pathways to the Future: The Rocky Jensen Family Bonds in a Love of Art and Their Hawaiian Legacy,” Ke Ola – The Life: Hawaìi Island’s Community Magazine (June-July 2009), https://keolamagazine.com/art/carving-pathways-future/; Jolene Oshiro, “Activist’s Art Spiritually Authentic,” (Honolulu) Starbulletin,com (Sep. 17, 2004), http://archives.starbulletin.com/2004/09/17/features/index6.html

Of interest, also, is Wanda Ke’ala ‘Anae-Onishi, “Re-Presenting ‘The Kona Style’: Examining the Multiple Identities of Kū,” M.A. thesis (Art), University of Hawaii (2004), https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/12080

[12]  Nathaniel B. Emerson, “Unwritten History of Hawaii: The Sacred Songs of the Hula,” Smithsonian Institution, Burau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 38 (Washington, D.C.: 1909), 11-12

[13] For a brief introduction of missionaries’ role in hula banning, see “Missionaries and the Decline of Hula,” HawaiiHistory.org (2020), http://www.hawaiihistory.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ig.page&CategoryID=253

[14] Noenoe K.Silva, “He Kānāwai E Ho’opau I Na Hula Kuolo Hawai’i: The Political Economy of Banning the Hula,” The Hawaiian Journal of History, 34 (2000), 29-48, provides insight into hula banning. Missionary Emerson’s activity is noted at 40, 48 n32.