Legal Issues

Open Letter on Damaging Anti-Money Laundering Legislation

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

 

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Anti-Money Laundering Legislation Will Affect You

Plateau,_Klikitat,_Unassigned_-_Burden_-_1917.411_-_Cleveland_Museum_of_Art.tif.jpg

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.

The STOP ACT, HR 2930, S 1471: Draconian Legislation Threatens Collecting and Trade in Native American Art

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.”

A Better Alternative to the STOP Act

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?

Zuni-olla.jpg

 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.

Legal Briefs - June 2021

NAGPRA Repatriations through September 8, 2020;
Law’s Opaque Reporting Leads to Masking Objects’ Identities

by Ron McCoy

Interior of Chief Shakes House, via Wikimedia Commons

Interior of Chief Shakes House, via Wikimedia Commons

 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

 

Legal Briefs - November 2020

NAGPRA (Increasingly Opaque) Repatriations through April 20, 2020

by Ron McCoy 


Totem poles outside of Chief Shakes' home, Wrangell, Alaska, 1895

Totem poles outside of Chief Shakes' home, Wrangell, Alaska, 1895

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.

World Customs Organization Report: Heritage Trafficking Is Tiny Percentage of Illegal Trade

Eight coins from Afghanistan, including two U.S. silver quarters. Courtesy World Customs Organization.

Eight coins from Afghanistan, including two U.S. silver quarters. Courtesy World Customs Organization.

In recent years, critics of the art trade, and more specifically the antiquities trade, have claimed there is a multi-billion dollar black market for illicit items which helps fund nefarious activities such as terrorism. 

The Illicit Trade Report 2019, published by the World Customs Organization, shows that the true scale of cultural property smuggling is actually quite small, especially when compared to other forms of illegal trade such as drugs, counterfeit goods and weapons. 

In his article published on Cultural Property News website, Ivan Macquisten notes that, "The 200-page Illicit Trade Report reveals that cultural property accounts for just 0.2 percent of all investigations and seizures reported by the Customs Enforcement Network." 

For some perspective, Macquisten further states, "...of the 102,214 cases investigated in 2019, just 227 involved cultural heritage. This compares to 36,264 for drugs, over 28,000 for counterfeit goods including medical supplies and over 26,000 for alcohol and tobacco..."
This small share of cases is not sufficient to fund terrorism. 

Read Macquisten's full article ➤

Download the WCO Illicit Trade Report for 2019 ➤

Article Describes ATADA's Concerns with the STOP Act

ATADA Members and Friends,

We would like to draw your attention to a recent article on the STOP Act which was published on the Antiques and The Arts Weekly website by Greg Smith. In the article, Mr. Smith describes the various issues and causes for concern that ATADA has continued to raise with each iteration of the bill. 

A_pueblo_pottery-making_LCCN2002716421+%281%29.jpg

Click below to read our update on the STOP Act from earlier this month.


You can read the text of S.2165 by clicking below.

ATADA Written Testimony
June 10, 2020


Legal Briefs - August 2020

If the Past is Another Country, What’s the Future?

by Ron McCoy

“The past is another country; they do things differently there.” 

L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)

 

Hoa Hakananaia’a at the British MuseumPhoto by: James Miles / CC BY-SA

Hoa Hakananaia’a at the British Museum

Photo by: James Miles / CC BY-SA

Hopefully, you are weathering the pandemic’s upheavals and dislocations as best and as well as you can.  Paso a paso, folks, step by step. 

At the moment, we appear to be in a state akin to a hiatus: perched in the narrowest of gaps betwixt and between; lodged in a liminal bubble sliding along a wobbly continuum that runs from the wreckage of a rapidly receding past crammed-up uncomfortably against an incomplete present; all the while searching for the makings of a bridge that will allow us to move into an uncertain future dominated by some great reset.  Cheerful stuff.

Not surprisingly, then, when it comes to the field of tribal art things have been almost preternaturally quiet of late.  Museum and gallery closings, widespread civil upheaval, and the fact that most people find their minds focused on other, more prosaic matters like survival…well, there is nothing quite like a pandemic to refocus one’s attention.  Although searching for signs of links between this pandemic and antique tribal art may seem a bit of a stretch, it has been during this time that musing on these subject’s relationship to one another took me back to 1967. 

That was the year many then-young seekers of transformational change listened avidly to a record called “For What It’s Worth (Stop, Hey What’s That Sound?).”  In what became an audible trope for the era, the eclectic folk-rock group Buffalo Springfield sang Stephen Stills’ haunting lyrics about the dislocating uncertainties of a disconcertingly unsettling time: “There’s something happening here/What it is ain’t exactly clear….”[1]

The next year, 1968, the genie came roaring out of the bottle.  Everything seemed adrift, loosened from moorings, far from in-control as the firestorm of events accelerated: war, protestors and police battling in the streets, cities alight, assassinations, all in a seemingly relentless cascade of near-apocalyptic horror during one of those may-you-live-in-interesting-times times.  Four years later, 1968’s goings on occupied the thoughts of China’s wily premier Zhou Enlai, who carved his way up to a point as close to the top of the Maoist hierarchy as you could get without being Mao.  Asked for comment on the long-term impact of a tumultuous revolutionary wave which reminded many of the beginnings of the French Revolution, Zhou wisely replied: “Too early to say.”[2]

If you consider the confusion voiced by Buffalo Springfield and mingle it with Zhou’s words of wisdom, there’s a lot right now that may not seem “exactly clear.”  Still, it’s just about ironclad-certain that there’s another side to all of this from which we shall, at some point, emerge.  (Needless to say, “all” includes that array of aficionados, curators, collectors, and dealers associated with the field of antique tribal art.)  It is certainly an equally secure wager to take the position that life on the other side is going to be a whole lot different from that to which we are accustomed. 

We often perceive the loci of our activities as firmly rooted in what amount to different worlds: “tribal art world,” “automobile manufacturing world,” “world of politics,” and so forth.  But this perception of separateness is an illusion, a mental accounting trick that allows us to compartmentalize our affairs.  But none of those world-constructs is inherently distinct; all are inextricably linked.  

With that thought in mind, we may sense that the impact already wrought upon the tribal art sphere by the pandemic and its resulting waves of after-effects remains uncertain, the details of its longer-term impact unknown.  Still, it is not too early to give some thought to the future if only to be better equipped for dealing with its new realities. 

“The past,” British novelist and short story writer L.P. Hartley observed, “is another country; they do things differently there.”  Similarly, the future — at least as much and perhaps even more than the past — will be another place; one where we shall, perforce, find ourselves doings things differently. 

As we prepare to venture into alien territory, it’s a safe bet  that the impact of what amounts to a pandemic earthquake (complete with its cascade of riffling aftershocks) cannot help but exert a profound impact upon those for whom antique tribal art is a passion.

The previous edition of this column — “Emmanuel Macron’s Bold Promise to Repatriate African Objects: ‘Hey, Wha’ Happen’?” — looked at the pledge  French president Emmanuel Macron made in 2017 to atone for the “grave mistake”[3] of European colonialism by repatriating objects of African material culture to the continent of its origin.  

Macron envisioned a five-year timeline for creating a mechanism to effect the repatriation from French public collections of an unspecified amount of African tribal art — currently, a legal impossibility — and, by implication, works emanating from other exploited cultures. Macron even pledged a $22.5 million loan to Benin so a suitable museum could be constructed at the UNESCO World Heritage site at Abomey.[4] 

Naturally, there was a report on the subject.  Macron received the Savoy-Sarr Report, named after its coauthors, in late 2018.[5]  This is bold stuff, its authors proclaiming they seek nothing less than “the emancipation of memory.”[6]  Much of the report is devoted to mind-numbing statements concerning impossibly convoluted constructs theoretical and special pleading.  Whatever else it may have accomplished, the Savoy-Sarr Report succeeded in transforming the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris into ground zero for Macron’s experiment.  

One of the world’s foremost museums, the Quai Branly holds more than 300,000 pieces of ethnographic art from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.[7]  The Savoy-Sarr Report took account of the roughly museum’s 70,000 pieces of sub-Saharan origin and honed-in on twenty-six objects, including “statues and thrones looted by French troops during a military raid against the once powerful West African Kingdom of Dahomey in 1892.”[8]

At the time that column was published, Macron’s initiative remained unrealized, stalled for any number of reasons.  Since then, the Quai Branly announced the appointment of Emmanuel Kasarhérou as its new president (director).  Kasarhérou, the New Caledonia-born son of a Melanesian father and French mother, completed museum studies in Paris, headed the Museum of New Caledonia in his homeland, and returned to the Quai Branly where he served as deputy head of collections.[9] 

“I feel as much the descendant of people who were colonizers of a certain place as of people who were colonized,”[10] Kasarhérou explained  in an interview with Farah Nayeri of The New York Times soon after his appointment to the Quai Branly directorship. 

He lost no time making some interesting observations about Macron’s pledge (indirectly) and the Savoy-Sarr Report (directly), including offering his opinion that the overall issue of cultural heritage and its repatriation is not something that can be “tackled with big block ideologies.”[11] 

In fact, Kasarhérou evidently holds some decidedly negative views of the Savoy-Sarr Report, which he describes as a “very militant” document, one which “cannot be a blueprint for policy.” (He did give its authors some kind of nod for “[s]haking things up.”)[12]  In addition, Kasarhérou committed himself to careful review of repatriation claims, declaring: “I’m not in favor of objects being sent out into the world and left to rot.”[13]

Emmanuel Kasarhérou certainly knows how tricky his outsider-insider/insider-outsider position may become when it comes to the crunch, the actual business of receiving and evaluating repatriation claims, engaging in often difficult dialogue between claimants and those possessing the relevant objects, and a gazillion other points of agreement, confusion, and contention.  “I know I will inevitably disappoint people,” he has ruefully noted, perhaps reflecting a somewhat optimistic form of stoicism.  “One always does.  The worst thing would be to do nothing.”[14]

This is not just about Macron, the Savoy-Sarr Report, or the Quai Branly.  As the pandemic raged and its associated dislocations scythe through our societies there are plenty of people and organizations playing a truncated game of catch-up.  In June, for example, the British Museum came under renewed pressure about its own massive collection of controversial works.  Hartwig Fischer, the institution’s director, put up a statement online declaring the museum “stands in solidarity with the British Black community, with the African American community, and with the Black community throughout the world.”[15]

For more than a few observers, the statement exhibited precisely the sort of cluelessness, condescension and desperation that may be capable of generating a few cheers but is absolutely guaranteed to invite a chorus of jeers.  After all, as the Artforum account of this affair pointed out in an interesting coda:

Among the countries currently seeking the return of cultural heritage objects from the museum are Greece, which has repeatedly tried to secure the restitution of the Elgin marbles pilfered from the Parthenon in Athens; Ethiopia, which has called for the restitution of tabots, Christian plaques representing the Ark of the Covenant; and Chile, which has demanded the return of Hoa Hakananai’a, a stone monolith taken from Easter Island.[16]

“Look, I love you guys, but maybe you ought to sit this one out” a Twitter warrior responded.  “Unless you plan to return the looted Ethiopian treasures, the stolen Elgin Marbles and permanently return the Benin Bronzes.”  Another was “appalled at the hypocrisy” of the institution, with one cutting to the chase by twittering, “Time to give back the swag, guys!”[17]

Ultimately, as the author of the Artforum account explained, “expressing the institution’s solidarity with the black and African American community” is “a move that has invited heated criticism from those who claim the words will ring  hollow until the museum reckons fully with the looted objects in its collection.”[18]

Although Emmanuel Macron’s dream remains unrealized, at least for the moment, it is not a forgotten remnant from a vanished past.  This is something anyone associated with tribal art needs to spend time considering, because there will be new initiatives, more reports, and in some cases action. 

We could do worse than preparing for the day we finally wash up on the shores of the future.  Because  we may find that shore crowded with folks who share reflections of Macron’s repatriation proposal; people for whom the dream of a great reckoning trending toward social justice remains not only undiminished but revitalized by a powerful sense of urgency. 

After all, the future is another country; they do things differently there.

           

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] “Stephen Stills Lyrics: For What It’s Worth,” AZLyrics (n.d.), https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/stephenstills/forwhatitsworth.html

[2] Although Zhou’s observation is commonly thought to involve his analysis of the French Revolution of 1789, he was speaking of revolutionary developments in France in 1968.  Richard McGregor, “Zhou’s Cryptic Caution Lost in Translation,” Financial Times (June 10, 2011).  See, too, “Delanceyplace.com 6/21/11 — Too Early To Say,” Delanceyplace.com (June 21, 2011), https://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=1711

[3] “Macron Calls Colonialism a ‘Grave Mistake’ During Visit to Ivory Coast,” France24 (Dec. 21, 2019), https://www.france24.com/en/20191222-frence-president-macron-on-official-visit-to-ivory -coast-calls-colonialism-a-grave-mistake

[4] Ibid.

[5] The Savoy-Sarr Report was authored by art historian Bénédicte Savoy, chair for Modern Art History/Art History as Cultural History at the Tecnische Universität Berlin,[5] and economist Felwine Sarr, director of the Civilizations,  Religions, Arts, and Communication research center at Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, Senegal.[5] 

[6] Savoy-Sarr Report, 1.

[7] “Missions: A Bridge Between Cultures,” (Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac, n.d.), http://www.quaibranly.fr/en/missions-and-operations/the-musee-du-quai-branly/#:~:text=; Farah Nayeri, “Museums in France Should Return African Treasure, Report Says,” The New York Times (Nov. 21, 2018), https:/ /www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/arts/design/france-museums-africa-savoy-sarr-report.html/.

[8] Heleluya Hadero, “Benin’s New Museum for Artifacts Looted by France Is Being Built Using  a French Loan,” QuartzAfrica (wJuly 23,2019), https://qz.com/africa/1672922/france-will-help-fund-benin-museum-housing-looted-artifacts/

[9] Farah Nayeri, “A New Museum Director’s First Challenge: Which Exhibits to Give Back,” The New York Times (June 5, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/arts/design/emmanuel-kasarherou-quai-branly-museum.html

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Catherine Hickley, “’Time to Give Back the Swag, Guys!’ British Museum Unleashes Twitter Storm With Statement on Black Lives Matter,” The Art Newspaper (June 9, 2020), https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/british-museum-unleashes-twitter-storm-with-statement-on-black-lives-matter

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] “After Solidarity Statement, British Museum Faces Renewed Demands To Give Up Loot,” Artforum (June 12, 2020), https://www.artforum.com/news/after-solidarity-statement-british-museum-faces-renewed-demands-to-give-up-loot-83215