And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Subject: Indians Buying Back Their Heritage Sent: 3/15/99 1:13 PM Indians Buying Back Their Heritage .c The Associated Press By JOHN McELHENNY MONROE, Conn. (AP) -- Newly moneyed Indian tribes, reveling in the riches from casinos and other ventures, are bidding top dollar for artifacts from the American past -- leaving poorer tribes at a disadvantage in buying back their heritage. Wealthy tribes are increasingly investing in impressive new museums, ``from the Mashantucket Pequots in Connecticut to the Seminoles in Florida to the Makahs in Washington State,'' says Ginger Ridgway, curator of a museum for Cahuilla Indians in Palm Springs, Calif. They need artifacts to display in those museums, and some can now pay almost any price. The Mashantucket Pequots, for example, opened a $193 million museum in August and have been buying up baskets and other artifacts native to New England. Powered by earnings from their highly successful Foxwoods Casino in Ledyard, Conn., the Pequots have helped force prices sky high. Ash and basswood baskets woven generations ago by the Schaghticoke tribe of western Connecticut sold for as little as 10 cents in the 1950s and '60s, and a mere $50 to $75 in the early 1990s, says Philip Liverant of Colchester, Conn., an antiques dealer for more than 40 years. Today, they typically bring $300 to $1,000 apiece. Some sell for as much as $7,000, Liverant says. ``There's a tremendous amount of interest in Native American goods'' from all quarters, he adds. ``They seem to have taken off.'' The Schaghticokes also want to stock a museum but, lacking a casino, are unable to compete with richer tribes and non-Indian antiquarians in the open market. ``They are purchasing bits and pieces of our soul,'' Schaghticoke Chief Richard Velky says. ``If it was a crucifix, a Torah scroll or a tombstone, I doubt these items would fall under an auctioneer's hammer.'' In California, the Agua Caliente band of Cahuillas has prospered from appreciation of land it owns in Palm Springs, the resort community 120 miles east of Los Angeles. A casino and hotel with a mineral spring spa have also paid dividends. Ridgway, the curator, says Agua Calientes plan to expand their museum from 1,600 square feet to 30,000 square feet in the next 18 months and have started a fund to buy back Cahuilla artifacts for the expanded space. The 300-member Schaghticoke tribe has no such fund. Besides its relative impoverishment, it also lacks the federal recognition granted larger Connecticut tribes such as the Pequots or Mohegans. The Schaghticokes filed a lawsuit last June seeking federal recognition and more than 1,900 acres of ancestral land in northwestern Connecticut. Those claims are pending. In the meantime, tribal members continue to search for a unifying, tangible heritage, piece by increasingly costly piece. The recent auction of a private collection of 278 American Indian artifacts, including 11 Schaghticoke baskets, highlighted the difficulty. The Schaghticokes have no budget to buy artifacts, so tribal historian Paulette Crone-Morange, a nurse who traces her Schaghticoke heritage to 1687, took her own savings. Crone-Morange was able to buy six baskets woven in the 1800s for $1,700. But the five others, including one made by her great-grandfather, Henry Harris, were auctioned off for almost $12,000. Such baskets were once vital to Schaghticoke tribal life. Made from interlaced strips of wood and stamped with berry juice markings made with carved potatoes, the baskets were originally used to carry eggs and berries. Later, some Schaghticokes made their living selling baskets to white farmers. Industrious tribal members paddled down the Ten Mile River into New York state or up the Housatonic River into Massachusetts to sell the baskets, says tribal archaeologist Lucienne Lavin. Crone-Morange says she grew increasingly frustrated at the November auction as she watched collectors and dealers push the bidding up. ``I'm getting angry, saying, 'But these mean nothing to you. This is our family.''' Carol Knight, whose father, Lyent Russell, a Yale physics professor, amassed the collection over 80 years, was asked before the auction to consider donating the Schaghticoke baskets. She says a tribal member told her the baskets were sacred tribal objects. ``But sacred objects, to me, are used in burial or religious activities,'' Knight counters. ``These were not that. These were made for sale. ``They did not offer me any money for them,'' Knight says. ``My feeling is that my father bought them. He paid money for them.'' AP-NY-03-15-99 1613EST Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.
