According to Canada's Postmedia News (via the Montreal Gazette), on Tuesday a Tlingit ceremonial mask depicting "Mosquito" was the subject of an intense bidding war at a major Paris auction.
The mask, believed to have been made in either Alaska or Canada during the 19th century, was only expected to sell for around $40,000, but the hammer fell on a final bid of nearly $400,000 by an unidentified European collector. The winning bidder bested a Canadian art dealer who was bidding on behalf of a Canadian collector and who has a history of successful efforts to repatriate First Nations artifacts to Canada.
The sale of cultural objects, Postmedia notes, calls up a host of thorny questions. The sale price of that mask, for instance, is equal to four of the 22 modular emergency homes that are being delivered in December to the Attawapiskat First Nation, whose members are in dire straits in northern Ontario.
Read much more at the Montreal Gazette, here.