ATADA News, Spring, 2006 Archive

ATADA News, Spring, 2006

From the President

...A Year of Challenges and Changes...

"This new year has been and will be a year of challenges and changes for us as individual dealers and as members of ATADA."

As I begin my second year as President of our organization, I notice a more active and involved membership. This new year has been and will be a year of challenges and changes for us as individual dealers and as members of ATADA.

We now have an updated and more professional looking newsletter and directory. We have taken a forward step in associating ourselves with a vetted show and have other promoters interested in following suit. The board has managed to avoid a possible controversy between ATADA and one of the major auction houses. It is this and other matters that require your input in general.

As you all know, it was the wish of the members present at the general meeting in Santa Fe last August that auction houses not participate in the shows. We have been advised that we cannot legally speak as a group on this matter, but only as individual dealers.

I would like to continue to encourage you, as individuals, to make your voices heard on matters that are important to you as regards our industry. We, as a board, will try to keep you better informed and you as individuals need to pitch in, express your opinion and offer to help when needed. It is through our continued energetic involvement that changes for the better will occur.

Please do try to attend the general meeting in Santa Fe in August. Subjects such as show vetting will be on the agenda, and, if you have other issues that should be discussed, please advise us. And remember, please bring in new members!

Merrilll Domas, President

Editor's Notebook

Many ATADA members have opinions about our new one-year association with Barry Cohen. Because opinions are running strong, a Members' Forum follows, which includes some of the email sent as replies to Merrill's email (and snail mail) to the membership.

I hope that ATADA members will continue to send email to acek33@aol.com expressing their feelings and opinions, or proposing a new idea that can be shared with your fellow members.

The response to our new newsletter format has been very positive. But we need images from the membership to use to make our pages (and cover) more attractive. We would like to print what you send, and we'll give you a credit line (no need to identify the object). Again, please send images to acek33@aol.com, or directly to joy@webfeatstudios.com (Joy is our graphic designer).

Last, I would like to apologize to Marcia Berridge. The line in the table of contents of the Winter 2006 issue should have read, "Whither Whitehawk?"and was an allusion to the show's new location at El Museo Cultural, 1615 Paseo de Peralta.

Alice Kaufman

Member's Forum

A letter from Merrill to the membership about "associating" with Barry Cohen and vetting went out via email and snail mail to the members who have not supplied their email addresses. Here is the letter and some of the replies. All the replies reprinted here are positive because respondents with negative viewpoints asked that their letters not be published. Members are urged to join this forum and send their points of view to acek33@aol.com for inclusion in the next issue of the ATADA News.

Merrill's letter to the Membership:

I wanted to take a few minutes to answer questions that have been raised by some members in regard to ATADA's "association" with the Barry Cohen's fifth annual Historic Indian and World Tribal Arts show in Santa Fe this year. As most of you know, the issue of vetting tribal art shows has been under discussion for years. In fact, this topic was discussed and voted on at the last general meeting in Santa Fe 2005.

The Cohen show and the Whitehawk show are two of the last important shows in the country which are not vetted. Barry Cohen approached the ATADA board and asked if we would be interested in "sponsoring" a vetted show. After a great deal of discussion, it was decided that it would be in the interest of ATADA to help provide vetters for a show in which a good number of our members were already participating. It was felt that "associating" with a vetted show would both promote the reputation of this show, the industry, ATADA and the dealers participating in it. Since we did not feel it was appropriate at this juncture for ATADA to sponsor any show, we agreed on the concept of "associating" with the Cohen show; this relationship is guaranteed for one year only. In return, Barry has agreed to use the ATADA name in all of his promotional materials and press releases, thereby spreading awareness of our association and its mission.

It is important to note that at no time did any other promoter ask us to sponsor or associate with a vetted show. Although Marcia Berrige and I spoke shortly after the 2005 Whitehawk Show and discussed vetting, she indicated to me that this was something she would possibly like to look into in the future. Understandably, she has recently taken on this new business and is finding her way at her own pace. Kim Martindale attended the last board meeting in Marin and I believe he understands what we are trying to accomplish with this decision; he will decide whether he wishes to associate one of his events with ATADA in this manner.

The board had no intention of taking sides or discriminating against any of the promoters. Nor was this a political decision meant to favor one promoter over another. Starting in 2007, every promoter is welcome to request to "associate" their show with ATADA as long as he or she is willing to work with a vetting committee. We cannot "associate" directly with any show which does not do so. The very meaning of the word "associate" in this case is to indicate that the standards of ATADA and its bylaws will be implemented at the show.

It is my hope that this will be seen as a forward step and one that is perhaps long overdue. I would also hope that the membership will understand that this is a volunteer board which has at all times the best interests of its membership. Hopefully many of you who have strong feelings regarding the decisions of the board will come forward and volunteer your time in the future. If, in the future, you wish for all major decisions to be put to a vote of the membership before any action is taken, please attend the August meeting in Santa Fe so that we can discuss this matter. Your input is always welcomed and needed. An organization such as ours is only as strong as its membership and we certainly need your support.

Merrill Domas

And here are some of the replies:

Please convey to Merrill that this one small member is heartily in favor of the Board's recent action in vetting Barry's Santa Fe show. I have long felt that ATADA should exist for many good reasons besides that of obtaining cheap insurance. (Don't get me wrong, I love the insurance, and in fact it was my reason, as a collector, for joining ATADA in the first place.)

There are a number of moral issues facing dealers and collectors today, and ATADA should assume a leadership position in at least some of them. Vetting a show is a fine start.

Thanks to all the Board for some very good work!

Mary Lou Walbergh

...

I support your action in associating ATADA with shows that ATADA vets. The only concern I have is that this be an offer open to all show promoters.

Rich Edwards

...

I believe that vetting of materials for authenticity and accuracy of labeling at shows is an appropriate role for ATADA. It is important also that vetting be thorough. This can be an arduous undertaking, and one that requires expertise in a great many fields. It seems to work best if non-exhibitors do the vetting, although often, fellow exhibitors are the best qualified persons to make judgments.

I recently attended the Caskey-Lees Asian Art Fair show in New York, where I saw several unquestionably new Central Asian textiles (all in a single booth) and all labeled as antiques. A well-respected textile dealer approached the booth owner, told him the pieces were new, and a brief argument ensued in which the booth owner refused to accept that his material was fake. Three days later, the textiles were still on the wall and still labeled as antique. Fellow dealers who identify fakes can be placed in a very uncomfortable position vis a vis other exhibitors and show management. Yet the potential for harm to the reputation of the show and all who participated in it through the sale of such materials is real.

I have also heard of situations in which there has been a legitimate question about the vetter's expertise, and others in which an unscrupulous or misinformed vetter too quickly condemned authentic pieces, thereby injuring a competitive dealer, although I did not witness these events myself. I would suggest that any vetting framework allow for a swift appeal for these reasons.

Kate Fitz Gibbon

...

Whoever negotiated this deal with Barry accomplished a minor miracle by getting the ATADA name on the publicity in addition to getting the show properly vetted. Several of us including me tried to figure out how to advertise ATADA last year. We had no way to do it and spent a few thousand in failing. Congratulations!

Arch Thiessen

...

Here is Barry Cohen's press release on his affiliation with ATADA:

ATADA Chooses Cohen's Santa Fe Show as Its First Affiliated Event

Historic Indian & World Tribal Arts Runs August 10 - 13, 2006

The Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association Inc. (ATADA) has chosen the annual Historic Indian & World Tribal Arts show, now in its fifth year in Santa Fe, as its first-ever affiliated event. Managed by promoter Barry M. Cohen (b4rTIME, Inc.), Historic Indian & World Tribal Arts: Santa Fe was founded by him in August 2002 with the guidance of a core of dealers specializing in antique Indian arts. It was held at the Eldorado Hotel in Santa Fe for two years prior to moving to more spacious quarters at the Shellaberger Tennis Center on the College of Santa Fe campus.

ATADA was founded by a small group of independent tribal art dealers in 1988, due to their mutual concern for the overall lack of ethical standards within the business at that time. Members of the Association offer buyers a guarantee that objects they sell are accurately represented regarding age, authenticity, and the extent (if any) of restoration present. Further, this guarantee allows buyers a full refund if the object later proves to be other than represented at the time of the sale. ATADA members also share a concern that the objects have been properly acquired and comply with all state and federal laws, including those concerning cultural sensitivity." The organization maintains a website at www.atada.org.

"I am pleased with the affiliation," says Merrill Domas, President of ATADA, "and anticipate that it will further ATADA's purpose of promoting ethical trade in tribal arts and educating others in the valuable role that collectors have played in preserving tribal objects as a lasting tribute to the people who created them."

Barry Cohen is understandably delighted. "Being the first antique show with the imprimatur of an organization whose membership includes many of the most respected and knowledgeable dealers and collectors in the field distinguishes my event from all others. This 2006 exclusive arrangement establishes it firmly on the international calendar."

The Historic Indian & World Tribal Arts show will open on Thursday evening, August 10, 2006 with an Opening Reception that will benefit, in part, El Rancho de las Golondrinas, a living history museum whose early 18th century buildings are set among 200 acres in a rural farming valley just south of Santa Fe. The antique show and sale will run through Sunday afternoon, August 13.

Approximately 100 distinguished dealers from across North America, as well as some from Europe, participate in this show, which the New York Times has called "superb." Its new association with the ATADA organization will enable the Historic Indian & World Tribal Arts show to become the only vetted event of its kind in the southwest; vetting the items in the show will offer collectors an additional level of comfort that the objects they are viewing and buying meet the standards of that organization.

For a list of participating dealers, to be placed on the mailing list, see images from the 2005 show, purchase advance Opening tickets, or find updated information about the show, visit www.tribalantiqueshow.com. or contact Barry M. Cohen at 703.914.1268.

ATADA Board Meeting Minutes

February 23, 2006 - San Rafael, California

Present

Bob Bauver
Merrill Domas
Roger Fry
Bob Gallegos
Alice Kaufman
Brant Mackley
Kim Martindale (guest)
Mike McKissick
Ramona Morris
Tom Murray
Arch Thiessen
Len Weakley

The first items on the agenda where those that concerned Kim Martindale, the board's guest: Vetting: "It would be wonderful," Kim said, "if ATADA would assist in locating people to vet the Marin show." Past Marin shows have been vetted. It was admitted in the discussion that vetting dealers by other dealers could be problematic. Non-exhibitors should be part of the process. Kim also said that he would like to associate with ATADA for future shows. Ramona Morris said that extra time would be needed during set-up to accommodate vetting.

Kim commented that vetters would vet out things that "were not appropriate for the show." They would not make a judgment on reproductions or restoration. Tom Murray and Ramona discussed vetting for tribal art shows, where different specialists vet in different areas. Tom also said that having exhibitors agree to vetting would need to be part of the promoter's contract. Kim said that was already in most promoters' contracts, and that vetting is the promoter's prerogative. Ramona added that there should be an appeal process and that the final decision would rest with the promoter. Bob Gallegos said that buying at a show was not a case of "Buyer Beware" if the object is purchased from an ATADA member/dealer, who guarantees his/her inventory. "There will be problems," Bob said, "and as dealers, we will make mistakes and will refund money." "It's all about improving the quality of the show," said Arch Thiessen. "Shows that survive are vetted shows," Brant Mackey pointed out. Roger Fry suggested that a vote be taken to assist promoters (Kim Martindale in 2007) with vetting by providing some vetters and making recommendations for others. Kim said he would appreciate the help, and hoped the committee would include dealers, collectors and non-ATADA members. Arch seconded Roger's motion and the vote to support the concept of vetting and helping to provide experts passed.

Auction houses exhibiting at shows? Should there be early admission to shows? Roger Fry said that by law, ATADA is not permitted to restrain trade (asking promoters to keep auction houses out of shows). That decision should be left to show promoters. Roger also advised that preferences for limiting early admissions should also be left up to the show promoters. Brant said that some promoters have dealers' meetings at East Coast shows. Tom Murray mentioned that early admission could be an incentive to outside experts to agree to vet. Merrill said we would not take any position with Kim or any other promoter regarding early entry or auction houses exhibiting. That, she said, would be up to each individual promoter.

Kim then left the meeting, as the board moved on to other business.

Education chair Bob Bauver spoke about possible grants, gifts and scholarships. The Millicent Rogers Museum requested a grant for their 50th anniversary; funding would go toward exhibiting a buffalo robe. The board voted to give $1,500. Navajo jeweler Elizabeth Wallace requested a scholarship so she could study metalsmithing at school in Texas. She was awarded $1,500. Tom Murray suggested that ATADA find a way to hold a competition for scholarships, and should find a way to attract potential recipients.

Alice Kaufman reported two donations to ATADA, a free ad in Tribal magazine worth $1000 and two cartons of books to give away at the ATADA table from Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh worth about $850. Bob Bauver also suggested that ATADA finance a trip to Phoenix for Sarah Leekya so she could see an exhibit of her father's work. $1,000 was awarded as a research grant, and Ms. Leekya's trip will be videotaped. Bob Gallegos said that Virgil Ortiz, a Cochiti potter, wants to establish a foundation for young tribal members to learn pottery. If he gets his 501 (c) (3), our Foundation can contribute, and Ortiz will match our donations.

Theft Alert Success Story

An email to ATADA from a satisfied user of the ATADA Theft Alert Page:

Just before Christmas, 2005, the Whitman Mission Tomahawk was returned by mail to the Whitman Mission National Historic Site along with an anonymous letter asking for forgiveness (!).

The investigation is on-going but you can change your website to indicate that the tomahawk has been recovered. Thanks very much for your organization's assistance in this matter. It is my opinion that the publicity generated by the theft and the spread of information of the theft (in part due to your organization and its website) pressured the thief to return the tomahawk.

Thanks again,

Steve Yu
Criminal Investigator
Yosemite National Park
(209) 372-0215

In Memoriam

The American Indian art community lost several people recently. Here are comments from some of our members, starting with Bob Gallegos writing about Bob Ashton.

Robert Harding Ashton
May 11, 1947 - January 16, 2006

I am not sure exactly when Bob lost control of his life, but he fell prey to his demons creating a financial spiral that he could only satisfy by deceiving his friends. When confronted, he stated "I am morally and emotionally deplete, I have no self esteem and I can no longer face my friends and the shame I have created. I don't know how I made such a mess of my life." Bob took his life Monday morning, January 16, 2006, in Albuquerque. No doubt Bob caused a lot of grief and financial turmoil for his friends, and his actions have damaged the overall credibility of our business and its participants. However, before you formulate your final opinion of Bob, I would like to share with you how I knew Bob for most of our 34-year friendship. I knew Bob as the most knowledgeable self-taught person in our business. He loved all aspects of the business and was relentless in seeking out books; I knew Bob as a lovable person with a great personality and a humorous approach to life. He never took himself too seriously; I knew Bob as very competitive but yet would share his deals and knowledge with those genuinely interested.

I knew Bob as a hard working individual, thinking nothing of getting on a phone or driving all night with little notice to pursue an opportunity; I knew Bob as a great public speaker holding audiences spell bound with his knowledge and enthusiasm for the history of the Native American cultures; I knew Bob as a loyal friend. If a friend needed him, he would have been there without question. Most recently, he was Jay Evetts' biggest supporter. He faithfully came down, sometimes four times a week, to accompany Jay in his physical therapy or take him to lunch. Bob stated, "My support for Jay is the only source for self-esteem that I have left."

Most of all, I knew Bob as a great father to his ex-wife's children, accepting them as his own. He spared no expense or emotion always being there for them.

For those of you spreading rumors based on lies or suspicions, SHAME ON YOU! Bob's death was tragic because if he were able to deal with his issues in a different, more constructive manner, he would still be alive today and definitely would have been an asset to the community.

Robert V. Gallegos

...

Paul Dyck
1917-Feb 6, 2006

Mac Grimmer wrote this for the ATADA News on the death of Paul Dyck:

Paul Dyck, noted American Indian art collector, painter and Arizona rancher, passed away February 14, 2006. Born in 1917, Paul studied art abroad, returning to the United States in his early twenties. He met and married a Lakota woman, then divided his time between her people along the Grand River on Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota and Chicago, Illinois, where he worked as a commercial artist. In the 1930s, Paul moved to Arizona's Verde Valley and began ranching.

Paul was also an internationally known painter whose works incorporated abstract lines, a glass-like tempera glaze, and bold use of color in his paintings of landscapes, horses, and especially the Indian people of the Southwest and Great Plains. His lifelong fascination with Plains Indian culture led him to create one of the largest and most important private collections of 19th century Plains Indian materials ever assembled. As he collected, Paul came into contact with many of the older tribal members, through whom he gained insight not only into the objects he was collecting, but also into their tribal history and traditions. Over the years, through his willingness to share his enthusiasm and encyclopedic knowledge, he became a valuable authority, advisor and mentor for numerous tribes, museums, collectors and dealers.

Paul also compiled Brule: The Sioux People of the Rosebud, a book of late 19th and early 20th century photographs of the Lakota. In 1989, the University of Montana recognized Paul's efforts to preserve Plains Indian cultures by awarding him an honorary doctorate. Sadly, his dream that a museum would be created at the site of the Battle of the Little Bighorn was never realized. He had hoped that the museum would not only house his collection, but would also provide valuable study materials and insights into the art and history of "the buffalo culture." Many of us -- collectors, dealers, academics and museum professionals alike -- owe our love of Plains cultures and materials to the influence of this remarkable man. He will be greatly missed.

Mac Grimmer

...

Here is an obituary of William Guthman from a Westport, Connecticut newspaper:

William H. Guthman, a prominent antiques dealer and museum consultant, died at his Westport home Dec. 28. He was 81.

The cause was lung cancer, said his wife, Elizabeth Stillinger, according to today's New York Times.

Guthman was a dealer in Colonial and Federal Period Historical Americana and one of the country's leading authorities in the field. He established Guthman Americana in Westport and exhibited his collections at New York's Winter Antiques Show for 32 years. He was an appraiser on Public Broadcasting Service's "Antiques Roadshow" for five seasons.

A veteran of the U.S. Army Air Force who served in China during World War II, Guthman began collecting old firearms in the 1950s and went into business as an antiques dealer in 1966.

He was the author of a number of books on early American militaria, including such titles as "New England Militia Uniforms and Accoutrements" (Sturbridge, 1971); "March to Massacre: A History of the First Seven Years of the U.S. Army, 1784-1791 "(Pulitzer Prize Nominee, New York, 1975); "U.S. Army Weapons: 1784-1791" (Cincinnati, 1975); and "Drums Abeating, Trumpets Sounding: Artistically Carved Powderhorns in the Provincial Manner" (Hartford, 1993).

...

And from the Adobe Gallery's website on Pablita Velarde:

Pablita Velarde Tse Tsan (1918-2006) Santa Clara Pueblo, had been well known to Indian art collectors for several decades. She was born in 1918 at Santa Clara Pueblo and was active up until her death in January, 2006. She was the first full-time female student in Dorothy Dunn's art class at the Santa Fe Indian School (The Studio); she also studied with Tonita Pena. She painted in the "traditional" style of Santa Fe and did accurate portraits of Indian life and culture. At first she worked in watercolor, but later learned how to prepare paints from natural pigments (a process called Fresco secco).

Pablita Velarde was best known for her earth paintings, where she used mineral and rock elements, which she ground on a metate and mano until the result was a powdery substance from which she made her paints. She painted almost exclusively on paper supports, and used watercolor and casein in addition to the earth pigments.

Pablita Velarde painted murals for the Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico (1939-1948). She was also known to create art derived from the Navajo sandpainting tradition. Clara Tanner called her the "greatest woman artist in the Southwest." Pablita Velarde's daughter, Helen Hardin, is also quite well known.

Kennewick Man Update

Jan. 9, 2006
The East Benton County Historical Society Museum in Kennewick, Wash., is opening its new Kennewick Man display, complete with a plastic skeleton purchased on eBay and an even more authentic skull that is a mold made from the original skull by James Chatters, the scientist who first studied the bones after they were discovered in 1996. The story, "Kennewick museum provides Kennewick Man exhibit," has been posted to http://www.kennewick-man.com. A video showing the display accompanies this story.

Jan. 23, 2006
Scientists who fought to study Kennewick Man now are focusing on the battle with tribes over another set of ancient bones, Spirit Cave Man, which was found in Nevada in the 1940. The story, "Tribe claims rights to ancient bones," has been posted to http://www.kennewick-man.com

Feb. 6, 2006
Jim Chatters, the scientist who first studied Kennewick Man after the bones were discovered in 1996, has joined an engineering firm in Seattle, for whom he will study cultural resources and archaeological surveys. The story has been posted to http://www.kennewick-man.com.

Feb. 22, 2006
Scientists plan to disclose their findings about Kennewick Man on Thursday in Seattle, nearly a decade after the discovery of the 9,000-year-old skeleton that attracted worldwide interest and sparked a lengthy legal fight. The story, "Scientists releasing Kennewick Man research," has been posted to http://www.kennewick-man.com.

Feb. 23, 2006
Scientists spent some time Wednesday studying Kennewick Man at the Burke Museum in Seattle prior to their press conference today to reveal what they have learned from the 9,000-year-old bones. The story, "Scientists pay visit to Kennewick Man," has been posted to http://www.kennewick-man.com.

Feb. 25, 2006
We have posted several new stories to our Web site,including:

Yakamas seek peace over Kennewick Man
Meet Kennewick Man
Kennewick Man was buried after he died

http://www.kennewick-man.com

VIDEO - We have posted several video interviews from the Kennewick Man announcements in Seattle. Many are attached to stories listed above, and others are being posted to http://www.kennewick-man.com/kman/video. These include an in-depth interview with Doug Owsley, the lead scientist studying Kennewick Man; Glen Howard Pinkham, a member of the Yakama Nation; James Chatters, the scientist and author who first studied Kennewick Man in 1996; Richard Jantz, the scientist who led the legal battle to study the ancient remains; and Nola Leyde from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. We will continue to post new videos throughout the weekend.

March 13, 2006
KENNEWICK MAN ON TIME MAGAZINE COVER
Time magazine featured the Kennewick Man on its cover this week, drawing added attention to the 9,000-year-old bones and the legal battles to study them. For more on this story, go to http://www.kennewick-man.com

Media File

Excerpts from recent newspaper, magazine and Internet articles of interest to the Membership. All opinions are those of the writers of the articles and of the people quoted, not of ATADA. Members are encouraged to submit press clippings or email links for publication in the next Newsletter.

From the January 10, 2006, New York Times by John Noble Wilford: "Symbols on the Wall Push Maya Writing Back by Years."

The Story: "A vertical column of 10 glyphic words, uncovered last year in ruins in Guatemala, is unreadable even by the most expert scholars, but they know what it means - that Maya writing is older than they once thought.

"Archaeologists reported last week that the script sample, discovered at San Bartolo, in northeastern Guatemala, is clear evidence that the Maya were writing more than 2,300 years ago. This is a few centuries earlier than previous well-dated Maya writing and 600 years before the civilization's classic period, when a decipherable writing system became widespread.

"Scholars of Maya culture and other pre-Columbian societies said the discovery deepened the chronology of literacy's origins in the Americas. But they were not sure whether it brought them any closer to learning exactly when, where and how early American cultures first put words into graphic form.

" 'This early Maya writing,' the discovery team concluded in the current issue of the journal Science, 'implies that a developed Maya writing system was in use centuries earlier than previously thought, approximating a time when we see the earliest scripts elsewhere in Mesoamerica.'

"William A. Saturno, the team leader who is a Maya archaeologist at the University of New Hampshire and Harvard, said the study of the origins of writing in Mesoamerica, the ancient region of Mexico and parts of Central America, was now 'likely to get more complicated in the near future as more early texts come to light.'

Joyce Marcus, a professor at the University of Michigan and an authority on Mesoamerican cultures, said the Maya discovery "is terrific and does constitute some of the earliest Maya writing." " 'Every piece of early writing enriches our knowledge of the ancient Maya,' Dr. Marcus said.

"As matters stand, the Zapotec, who lived around Oaxaca, Mexico, appear to have led the way to literacy, at least by 400 B.C., perhaps as early as 600 B.C. Clear evidence for Maya writing has been more recent.

"A few scholars contend that the Olmec, living along the Gulf of Mexico near Veracruz, developed a script even earlier.

"Some of the confusion stems from differing definitions of writing, whether a few symbols strung together suffice or fuller texts are required.

"But it is generally agreed that the primal writing by contemporary groups in Mesoamerica was one of just four scripts - Sumerian, Egyptian and Chinese are the others - to be invented independent of outside influences.

"What may be the earliest Maya words turned up in the same ruins where the same archaeologists reported last month finding a richly colored mural depicting the culture's mythology of creation and kingship. The mural is one of the earliest examples of Maya art, dated about 100 B.C.

"Boris Beltrán, an archaeologist at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala, was exploring deeper in the ruins of a pyramid, down several layers of debris and time below the mural chamber. There he came on the Maya glyphs painted in black on white plaster.

"A scribe apparently drew the characters along a subtle pinkish-orange stripe as a guideline.

"Radiocarbon analysis of charcoal associated with the inscription dated the written words to as early as 300 B.C. The column, Dr. Saturno said, was presumably part of a text associated with a nearby work of art that included a painted image of the maize god.

"The style of the painting was distinct from later Maya art, and the glyphs were more archaic and abstract than later Maya writing.

"This has been frustrating for David Stuart, a professor of Mesoamerican art and writing at the University of Texas, a member of the discovery team.

"Dr. Stuart said the glyphs had distinctive Maya characteristics and were 'the earliest firmly dated Maya writing.' But he and others were able to decipher just one symbol, the one meaning 'ruler' or 'lord' or possibly anyone of noble status.

" 'It's the same script,' Dr. Stuart said. 'But it was written several centuries before the full Maya script that we can read. It makes it tough. I don't think we will be able to read this anytime soon.'

"The exact meaning of the other nine glyphs will probably remain obscure, he said, until additional and longer texts are found from the same time in Maya history. Then there may be enough specimens, he continued, to compare with later decipherable glyphs and 'make some tentative connections with things we are familiar with.'

"The discovery at San Bartolo is expected to inspire archaeologists to search for other examples of Mesoamerican writing from this period or earlier. Previous ideas about the relationships of Olmec, Zapotec and Maya writing are giving way to new thinking.

" 'Now it is looking like a lot of Mesoamerican cultures came up with writing at about the same period," Dr. Stuart said. 'They all were in contact with each other, building cities, trading, telling their history and ideology through script and art.'

"Dr. Marcus cited recent excavations that produced monuments with Zapotec writing as early as 600 B.C., and even though the Mesoamerican cultures were in frequent contact with one another, she pointed out the individuality of their writing systems.

" 'What is of great interest,' she said, 'is that Zapotec writing is distinctive and Maya writing is distinctive, and each has its own genesis.' "

"Defendant in Antiquities Case Speaks Up, Angrily," was the headline for a January 14 story in The New York Times about the Marion True case.

Datelined Rome, the story began: "Robert Hecht, an American art dealer charged in Italy with trafficking in illegally excavated antiquities, spoke out indignantly in his defense here on Friday, saying he had been unjustly accused.

"Citing a Roman bronze figure of the god Pan that he said he had bought from Sotheby's auction house before it turned out to have been stolen from the National Roman Museum, Mr. Hecht said he had always acquired such objects in good faith. (That object is not at issue at the trial and has been removed from the market.)

"Prosecutors, Mr. Hecht said, seemed intent on casting him as a villain. 'Why don't they go after Sotheby's?' he asked. 'It's because they want to smack me.'

"Mr. Hecht, 86, spoke during a recess in a long trial hearing. Inside the courtroom, a Rome prosecutor, Paolo Ferri, continued to build his case, detailing a web of connections among dealers who he said traded in freshly dug-up artifacts by routing them through Switzerland or prominent auction houses and into the collections of museums and private individuals.

"Mr. Hecht is on trial with Marion True, the former antiquities curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, who is also accused of having traded in illegally exported antiquities.

"On Friday, an expert witness for the state continued to match several artifacts in the Getty's collection to photographs of those objects - often in a fragmentary state - found in a Swiss warehouse rented by Giacomo Medici, a dealer who was convicted in 2004 on charges of trafficking in illegally excavated artifacts.

"The expert, Maurizio Pellegrini, a document and photography analyst with the Italian Culture Ministry, testified that fractures in ceramic pottery could be smooth or rough. Smooth fractures suggest that the broken edge has worn down over time, he said, while jagged or rough fractures suggest a new break resulting from a clandestine dig.

"On some photographs shown in court, Mr. Medici had scribbled 'v. BO' - a shorthand, the prosecution contended, for 'via Bob,' which they said indicated that the works had been traded through Mr. Hecht.

" 'Why can't that mean "visto Bob"?' ("Bob saw it")', asked Mr. Hecht's lawyer, Alessandro Vannucci, pointing out that his client was an expert in ancient art.

"The Italian authorities have portrayed the trial of Ms. True and Mr. Hecht as a warning to dealers, museums and private collectors that illicit trafficking in antiquities must come to an end.

"But on Friday, Mr. Vannucci said that his client was a scapegoat and that the wrong defendant was on trial. 'The real culprit is Italy, which consented for many years to its territory being sacked,' he said, pointing out that some of the objects cited in the prosecution had been sold decades ago.

" 'What this trial is showing is that Italy was indifferent for years,' Mr. Vannucci said. 'No one cared.'

"In addition to the Getty, Mr. Hecht has sold works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including a set of Hellenistic silver pieces and a fifth-century-B.C. vase by the Greek painter Euphronios that Italy contends were clandestinely removed from the country. The Italian government has offered the Met a proposal for ending the dispute over works there that it says were illegally removed.

"Asked during a break what he would do if the Met were obliged to return the Euphronios vase and sought compensation from him, Mr. Hecht replied, 'I don't know anything - it's out of my hands.'

"For the most part, he ably fended off reporters' questions during recesses, alternately humming the Italian national anthem, citing lyrics from Gilbert and Sullivan's 'H.M.S. Pinafore' and joking in a Roman dialect. (He lived in Italy from 1947 to 1974 and is now based in Paris.)

"Mr. Hecht did tell reporters after the hearing that he 'wouldn't touch' works he suspected came from a clandestine dig. But he noted that the issue was not always straightforward. 'Say someone came to you and had a bag full of fragments from a fresh excavation,' he said. 'I'd tell them I'm not interested. But if someone came with a fragment of a vase and that vase was in a museum collection somewhere in the world, would it be more profitable to the world to give the fragment back to Italy or sell to the museum? He could sell the piece to a thousand other buyers, so what's right?'"

On January 20, The New York Times reviewed two shows in which tribal and Indian art were exhibited, the 52nd annual Winter Antiques Show and the American Antiques Show. Excerpts from both reviews follow.

In her review of the Winter Antiques Show, "A Curiosity Shop With Stock to Covet From Around the World," Holland Cotter wrote, "Pluck and luxe are what you need to get an art fair right. When they work, it works. So, welcome to the 52nd Annual Winter Antiques Show, which opens today on Park Avenue.

"This was once the hands-down swellest event of its kind in the New York season, but it has competition now. Lots. The Seventh Regiment Armory has functioned as a glorified loading dock for all kinds of shows, coming and going, with specialty items like the International Asian Art Fair and the Tribal and Textile Arts Show generating serious incandescence.

"Actually, one thing that keeps the Winter Antiques Show distinctive is variety. While it tilts heavily in an 18th- and 19th-century Euro-American direction, there's a little something for everyone. Asian art? Got it. African? Check. Italian Renaissance? Ma, certo. You're in the mood for a Egyptian faience pectoral of the winged goddess Isis, circa 1069-715 B.C.? Step right this way. Rupert Wace Ancient Art from London awaits you.

"Other fairs have booths; this one has architectural structures and furnished interiors: shops, parlors, floor-through salons, with nooks and crannies to peer into and corners to peek around. All is tidy and trim. What's clutter in other shows is cluster here. Yes, it can get a bit too ye olde. But life is short; someone had fun; snippiness would be mean...

"Besides, the look changes from year to year, adding a crucial element of novelty, even suspense, to the proceedings. The element of surprise helps compensate for a comparative shortage, at least this year, of truly blockbusterish objects. In other words, in place of eight-digit price tags, you get material muchness and a heady atmosphere of edging-over-the-top largess.

"But before moving on, a thought about terminology, which also means attitude. Most, if not all, of the objects that were called antiques 50 years ago are called art now. The objects haven't changed; we have. We are less uptight, or we should be, about all those old-time hierarchies: art versus craft, high versus low, etc. Sculptures, rings, teapots, photographs: they're all art to me, or can be. Just so you know.

".before leaving the Americas, there are two more important New World stops. One is Throckmorton, to see ancient Mesoamerican sculptures. Wonderful. The other is Donald Ellis, a Canadian gallery specializing in North American Indian art.

"The Ellis display style - white box, no frills - is an oasis of visual clarity. And the art is beyond beautiful, from an early 19th-century carved wood mask from British Columbia, to a Southern Plains hide shirt painted with images of a moon, a star and a river filled with floating trees the shape and colors of autumn leaves. The shirt was made around 1890 for the Ghost Dance, a ritual developed by a weakened Plains people in a last, desperate, mystical effort to ward off destruction by United States government forces. If ever a single garment could do something to deepen the still-shallow discourse about fashion-as-art, this one could."

And in her review of the American Antiques Show, "Red, White and Blue Americana Atop a Cultural rainbow," Roberta Smith wrote, "Art fairs come and art fairs go. Ditto antiques fairs. These transient concentrations of expertise, objects , showmanship and not a little obsession survey a given market while encompassing whole swaths of material culture. They also offer random samples of the human rage against time, the drive to make the most of one's environment and time on earth, and the desire, perhaps, to leave something behind.

"The American Antiques Show, in its fifth incarnation, is back at the Metropolitan Pavilion after scheduling forced a switch to the Time Warner Center last year. The latest version has an unusual abundance of excellent material and beautiful displays. Perhaps in keeping with its presenter, the American Folk Art Museum, it is richer in Americana and folk art than in classic American antiques.

Like most fairs, this one is a study in multiculturalism before the fact. It illuminates the migration of motifs, techniques and materials from Europe to the United States, between immigrants and native born and among races and ethnicities. The Navajo blankets on view at Marcy Burns and David Cook became possible when traders brought Germantown (Philadelphia) wool to the Southwest. Meanwhile, the settling of that region is reflected in an exceptional pictorial Navajo blanket from the 1880's at Kelly Kinzle. The bold black-on-red design appears to depict longhorn cattle, their attending cowboys and possibly a cattle brand.

"At Cherry Gallery, specialists in Adirondack and rustic furniture, are floor lamps made of yellow birch tree trunks in the 1920's by Lee Fountain of Wells, N.Y., which bookend a striking birch-bark container incised with figures and trees that the dealers have attributed to Joseph Nicholas, a Penobscot Indian...

"Other standouts on the sculptural front include, at Hill, a cache of parade weapons and painted wood symbols from an Odd Fellows lodge in Ohio and a painted wood figure by the Navajo carver Charlie Willeto. There is an imposing sculpture of an Indian woman in stone at Odd Fellows Art and Antiques and an even better painted-wood cigar figure, also an Indian woman, at Allan Katz."

Hugh Eakin's February 1 New York Times story, "Inca Show Pits Yale Against Peru,"spotlights, as Eakin wrote, a dispute with "all the ingredients of an Indiana Jones movie."

Datelined New Haven, Eakin wrote: "By any conventional measure, Yale's exhibition about Machu Picchu would seem a windfall for Peru. As one of the most ambitious shows about the Inca ever presented in the United States, drawing over a million visitors while traveling to half a dozen cities and back again, it has riveted eyes on Peru's leading tourist attraction.

"Yet instead of cementing an international partnership, the exhibition, which returned to the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale in September, has brought a low ebb in the university's relations with Peru. At issue are a large group of artifacts that form the core of the show, excavated at Machu Picchu in a historic dig by a Yale explorer in 1912. The government of Peru wants all of those objects back.

"Peru contends that it essentially lent the Machu Picchu objects to the university nearly a century ago and that the university has failed to return them. Yale has staunchly rebuffed Peru's claim, stating that it returned all borrowed objects in the 1920's and has retained only those to which it has full title.

"The dispute is inflamed by the swashbuckling exploits of Hiram Bingham III, a Yale professor, aviator and later senator, and the special dispensations he brokered with the Peruvian government to take Inca bones and ritual tomb objects out of Peru. Add a Peruvian president who has made the country's indigenous heritage a central theme of his administration and an Ivy League archaeology department with a towering reputation in the Inca field, and the dispute has all the ingredients of an Indiana Jones movie.

" 'The irony is that for years the collection was just left in cardboard boxes,' said Hugh Thomson, a British explorer who has written about the early-20th-century Yale expeditions to Machu Picchu. 'It's only when they rather conscientiously dusted it off and launched this rather impressive exhibition that the whole issue has surfaced again.'

"For much of the three years since the show first opened at Yale, Peru's claim on the objects has been played out in behind-the-scenes talks in Lima, Washington and New Haven between Yale and the government of President Alejandro Toledo. But in recent months the Peruvian government has taken its campaign public, threatening legal action if the university does not comply with its demands.

"The Peruvian claim has gained additional momentum from a recent wave of disputes about national property issues and the collecting ethics of large American museums. Over the last few months, Italy has pursued an aggressive campaign to recover prized classical antiquities from several American museums, including the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

"Both Yale and the Peruvians say they hope for an amicable resolution, and talks continue. In December, Yale even offered to return numerous objects to Peru and help install and maintain them in a Peruvian museum. Up to now Peruvian officials have not responded to this proposal, saying that recognition of Peru's title to the entire collection must be the basis of any agreement.

" 'Yale is assuming that it owns the collection, and can negotiate with us which objects it wants to return and which it wants to keep,' Luis Guillermo Lumbreras, director of Peru's National Institute of Culture in Lima, said in a telephone interview. 'But that's not what we're talking about.'

"Unlike the cases involving the Getty and the Met - which center on ancient treasures that Italian officials say were dug up by looters in recent decades - the Machu Picchu objects have a far older and more complex history. They were removed during an authorized archaeological dig nearly a century ago; they were inspected by the Peruvian government before they left the country; and even Peruvian officials acknowledge that the objects themselves - which consist largely of bones, ceramic pots and common Inca tools - do not have great aesthetic or museum value.

"On the other hand, Peru did have laws in force at the time governing archaeological finds, and its government in theory had ownership of any artifacts unearthed from Peruvian soil. As a result, the dispute has become something of a test case for the limits of cultural property claims against American institutions.

"At the heart of the controversy is the complicated legacy of Bingham, who stumbled upon Machu Picchu in 1911. Before his arrival, the Inca complex, which occupies a spectacular remote site in the Peruvian Andes, had been unknown to all but a few local farmers around nearby Cuzco.

"Bingham's discovery stirred enormous interest in the site. With the backing of the National Geographic Society, he returned to do excavations in the Machu Picchu area in 1912 and in 1914-15- the two expeditions that are at the center of the dispute.

"Initially, he enjoyed considerable support from the Peruvian government. His early expeditions benefited from a letter of introduction from Lima and a Peruvian military escort; in 1912, he entered negotiations to give Yale an exclusive 10-year concession that would allow it to bring to the United States whatever it found.

"But the negotiations fell through after a formal protest from Harvard that Yale was trying to shut its archaeologists out of Peru. Still, in October 1912, Bingham managed to secure a decree allowing him to take the contents of some 170 tombs he excavated at Machu Picchu. As a condition, the decree stated that Peru "reserves the right" to ask for the return of the objects, but did not state a specific time period for such a request to be made.

"By the time of the second National Geographic expedition, however, Peru had become increasingly hostile to Bingham's activities, and the explorer was accused of spiriting Inca gold out of the country. After that, he did no further work at Machu Picchu, and the material he excavated elsewhere in Peru was subject to a far more stringent 1916 loan agreement of 18 months.

" 'It became very political,' Lucy C. Salazar, one of the curators of the Yale exhibition, said of that era. 'A new indigenous movement was beginning to use the country's Andean roots to legitimize themselves.'

"Yale officials maintain that the university has complied with both the 1912 and 1916 agreements, and that after a series of loan extensions, all of the 1914-15 materials were returned to Peru in the 1920's. The university maintains that it is under no such obligation to return the earlier material from 1912.

" 'Bingham understood that he had the right to keep the objects from 1912 in New Haven for research, and that he had fulfilled his obligations,' Yale said in a statement to The New York Times. Records made available by the National Geographic Society show that about half of the 1914-15 materials were returned to Peru in 1921. But there is no document recording the return of the remaining objects in that expedition, a society spokeswoman said.

"Mr. Lumbreras, the Peruvian culture official, says that Yale returned only "a few bones" in the 1920's, but that there was never any question that the other objects should ultimately go back to Peru.

"He said that Yale had no need for the objects. "After 90 years, Yale has had time to do all the research it wants," he said.

"Yet Yale's recent research on the Bingham collection has been pivotal to cracking the mystery of Machu Picchu, a site whose purpose had eluded scholars for decades. Bingham argued variously that the site was a fabled early capital of the Incas or one of the empire's most important religious complexes where 'virgins of the sun' were regularly sacrificed. Others have speculated about its possible astrological significance. But research led by Dr. Salazar and her husband, Richard L. Burger, a professor of anthropology at Yale and also a curator of the show, suggests that the site was simply one of many royal estates used as a country retreat away from Cuzco, the Inca capital.

"Other researchers, citing the Yale team's extensive scientific work on the burials and the scholarly exhibition it assembled, suggest that Peru's campaign to get back the collection is politically motivated. As the first indigenous Peruvian to hold the office, Alejandro Toledo has saluted the country's Inca heritage, even choosing to have part of his inauguration ceremony held at Machu Picchu in 2001.

" 'There has certainly been some beating of the Inca drum,' said Mr. Thomson, the explorer.

"But others argue that Peru has made great progress in protecting its once-neglected cultural heritage and the collection should go back.

" 'Machu Picchu has tremendous symbolic value to Peru,' said Johan Reinhard, an Inca specialist who is explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society. 'By refusing to acknowledge Peruvian ownership, it may be losing the cultural battle.' "

On February 19, Deborah Soloman of The New York Times interviewed the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Philippe de Montebello on the headlined subject, "Stolen Art?" His comment on digging up American antiquities? "You find Navajo pots and things of that sort."

Q: You're scheduled to be in Rome this week, finalizing the details of the return of a group of looted antiquities that includes the celebrated Euphronios krater, a jumbo-size Greek vase, which has been a centerpiece of the Metropolitan Museum's holdings for more than 30 years.

The world is changing, and you have to play by the rules. It now appears that the piece came to us in a completely improper way - through machinations, lies, clandestine night digging. As the representative of an honorable institution, I have to say no, this is not right.

I wonder what the Italians intend to do with the Euphronios krater now that they have finally won it back from us.

I have no idea.

Perhaps they will sell it to the British Museum for a zillion dollars.

I don't think so. I suspect they're more likely to show it initially as a trophy of conquest in the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, which houses the greatest collection of vases in Rome.

It doesn't sound as if they adore America at the moment.

If you listen to the rhetoric of the Italian cabinet members on television, it's America, it's American buyers who are encouraging looting. They do not appear to be going after European museums or collectors, nor the gulf states, which are buying antiquities en masse.

What I don't understand is why the Italian government is suddenly getting so aggressive about seizing works from the Met and the Getty and other American museums. It's not as if Italy is rushing to return the gilded horses of San Marco, stolen by the Venetians in the 1200's from Constantinople. I don't want to single out Italy. The world has been atomized into a set of political entities. There is a resurgence of nationalism and misplaced patriotism. There is the sense that, "This is our identity." But I can't see how a Greek vase is the identity of a modern-day Italian.

Exactly. On what basis can Italians in the 21st century say that the Euphronios krater, which was created in Greece more than 2,000 years ago, belongs exclusively to the Italians?

If Italy says that an object found on its soil is Italian property, and I buy it, I have bought stolen property.

But art isn't the same as oil or other valuables found in the ground. As the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah argues in his new book, "Cosmopolitanism," art reflects everyone's heritage and shouldn't be hoarded by Italy or Egypt or any country that happens to turn up shards of pottery found on its soil.

Perhaps those countries will realize that the tougher their patrimony laws, the more they are victims of illicit looting. Are you suggesting that allowing countries to prohibit the export of artwork they deem to be part of their national heritage needs to be re-examined? Of course. Can you imagine if every Rembrandt were in Holland and every Poussin in Paris? It is safe to diversify a stock portfolio; it is also safe to diversify the shared heritage of mankind.

That's easy for you to say, because we don't have many antiquities to be dug up in this country. You find Navajo pots and things of that sort. But otherwise, America does not have patrimony laws and you can buy all the Jasper Johnses and Gilbert Stuarts you want and take them anywhere.

On your trip to Rome this week, you'll be arranging to borrow, on a long-term basis, a substitute Greek vase. How will you decide which one to pick?

We have sent, in advance of the negotiations, a list of about two dozen vases that would be appropriate replacements for the Euphronios krater.

But I hear their idea of a long-term loan is only four years, which I suppose will be up for negotiation.

I don't mean four years by long-term. I mean indefinite loans, for the simple reason that you cannot have great works of art perpetually on airplanes shuttling back and forth.

NAGPRA, Kennewick Man and exploration vs. appeasement are basic issues for today's museums and scientists when dealing with ancient (or less than ancient) Native Americans and their artifacts. Edward Rothstein's March 29 New York Times article, "Protection for Indian Patrimony That Leads to a Paradox," was published in a special section on Museums.

Rothstein's story began: "In April 1998, the Army Corps of Engineers dumped 600 tons of boulders and dirt over an area near the Columbia River in Washington where, two years earlier, the oldest known skeleton in North America - dubbed Kennewick Man - had been found.

"If there were other 9,200-year-old bones under the rubble, if there were any other artifacts that might have given clues about events in North America millenniums before written history could provide an account, now they would be safely interred.

"That was just what five Indian tribes in the area preferred. Though the skeleton was found on federal land, the tribes claimed it as ancestral, rejecting assertions that it had no connection to them and refusing to allow scientists to conduct an examination. They insisted the bones be turned over for immediate burial, invoking the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The United States government agreed with alacrity.

"In such circumstances, why stir up more trouble? Better to bury the entire site. The Corps of Engineers said that it was engaged in an act of conservation; it wanted to protect the site from erosion. Its rush, the corps said, had nothing to do with the fact that Congressional bills forbidding it from disturbing the archaeologically important area had just been passed but had not become law yet. It hurried, it said, because salmon protection regulations would have prevented shoreline work after April 15. The dirt-dumping was also supported by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, a federal agency that describes itself as seeking to preserve 'our nation's historic resources.'

"A strange sort of protection and conservation indeed! Don't reveal the past, bury it; don't seek information, protect yourself from it; don't add complications, welcome simplification. But stranger still is that these actions were not really out of character with the impact of the protection act. "

The law requires federal agencies, and museums that have received federal funds, to survey their collections, identify Indian remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and other objects endowed with 'cultural patrimony,' consult with Indian tribes and 'repatriate' them if requested; newly discovered remains could be claimed by tribes showing a 'cultural affinity' with them. The law was meant to provide a form of cultural and material restitution. But beyond any imagining, it also transferred intellectual authority over these objects to the tribes, increased the reluctance of curators to act as autonomous interpreters and diminished the stature of independent scholarship and scientific inquiry.

"In the Kennewick case, scientists sued the government and ultimately won the right to examine the bones, something that is now taking place. (DNA testing has not demonstrated any genetic connection between the skeleton and contemporary peoples.) But museums have taken a different course: they are transforming themselves under the law's pressures.

"According to federal statistics, by 2005, remains of more than 30,000 individuals had been 'deacquisitioned,' along with more than 500,000 funerary and sacred objects. The effects have been profound, not because of the loss of the objects from museums, but because the law enforced a way of thinking about them. In the protection act's version of 'cultural patrimony,' it is not just ownership of an individual object that can be called into question, but the possession of all objects from an Indian culture. The 'repatriation' has also led to consultations in which tribal leaders become involved even in the treatment of objects that are not repatriated, able to help mold their interpretation, to guide research about their pasts and to influence how they are displayed.

"To some extent, this sea change in museum life is part of an international movement advocating for 'aboriginal' or 'native' cultures and formerly colonized nations. This month, for example, Peru announced it would sue Yale University over its claims to ownership of objects related to the exploration of Machu Picchu by a Yale explorer, Hiram Bingham, in 1912.

"The change also involves more than objects. In Australia, as the anthropologist Michael F. Brown reports in his book 'Who Owns Native Culture?,' Aboriginal militants have claimed that images of the emu and kangaroo were the property of the Aboriginal people. Some Australian curators have accommodated Aboriginal demands that female curators can't handle their objects.

"Mr. Brown points out that the Hopis in New Mexico have been trying to restrict and control important historical photographs documenting their secret religious ceremonies; they were made by the Mennonite missionary Heinrich R. Voth at the turn of the 20th century, after he had been given access by Hopi priests. (Later priests have consulted these detailed photographs to try to restore frayed traditions.)

"Sound recordings have also been challenged. In 1907, the ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore set off on a series of expeditions for the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology, ultimately recording 3,000 wax cylinders of songs from 30 Indian tribes. But in a play, 'SongCatcher,' by a White Earth Anishinabe playwright, Marcie Rendon, Densmore's recordings lead to death and despair. 'My songs, my wife, my religion,' the main character accuses her. 'You took them all.'

"As Mr. Brown points out, in such instances even immaterial things - images or songs - are claimed as property; their documentary and historical value is dismissed in theory if not in practice.

"Often, all outsider knowledge is treated as a kind of trespass. The implications of this are troubling. Outsiders' written accounts may have been distorted or false, but they can be examined and put in context, and archaeological and scientific data can lead in new directions. But most aboriginal cultures did not even possess sophisticated written languages, while their oral traditions have been disrupted by trauma, massacre and disease. Insistence on the absolute truth of those traditions, regardless of evidence, turns into a variety of fundamentalism.

"One Umatilla tribal leader, for example, scoffed at suggestions that Kennewick Man was unrelated to contemporary tribes, arguing that the Indians had been the region's only inhabitants and that, in proof, the tribe's oral history goes back 10,000 years: 'We know how time began and how Indian people were created.' The protection act has helped institutionalize deference to this kind of assertion.

"One reason for all these problems, is the brutish past. In his book 'Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology and the Battle for Native American Identity,' David Hurst Thomas, curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, argues that 'the American academic community - led by grave-digging archaeologists - has robbed the Native American people of their history and their dignity.'

"He points out that after the horrific 1864 massacre of hundreds of Cheyenne at Sand Creek, Colo., corpses had their skin removed and were 'carefully crated for shipment eastward to the new Army Medical Museum in the nation's capital.' The bones were exhibited at the Smithsonian and elsewhere.

"Indeed, it may be that one reason why the protection act has been so widely accepted is that its title emphasizes 'Native American graves.' Human remains are the least ambiguous artifacts of the past: their possession is typically the result of murder or theft. Hundreds of thousands of Indian remains are said to be in American museums.

"The law's extension to other objects, though, raises more questions. Though there is a procedure to determine each object's fate, the law is not primarily designed to trace ownership. The presumption is that a museum's possession is a violation. The main issue is whether there is enough 'cultural affiliation' so an Indian claim can be established. Communal ownership and communal grievances become central.

"A sense of grievance is surely justified, but there is also an impulse to try to restore some primal past, one free of looting and abuse, that presumably existed before museums and colonization disrupted the social and cosmic order. One result has been to revivify the old romantic myth of the Indian as a pastoral figure with no active role in the globe's pockmarked history of plunder and enslavement. The Indian is only a passive recipient of its worst injuries. Tribal conflicts, slavery and wars, evidence of pre-colonial migrations - all the complications of historical actors are stripped away. The myth reigns.

"Even exhibitions must now provide a form of repatriation: if, in the past, museums had erred with a limited understanding of tribal perspectives, now they are heading in just the opposite direction, pressured by tribal consultations, the threat of repatriations, and a desire to transcend past guilt. A tone of self-promotion can come into play.

"This is the dominant tone, for example, of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. Tribes tell their own stories, not because they are most knowledgeable but because finally, they have control. One tribe, asked to name the 10 most important events in its history, included 'birds teach people to call for rain,' and a recent 'desert walk for health.' 'Honesty, love, courage, truth, wisdom, humility and respect,' are the values promoted by one tribe. 'Respect and sharing of your self is very important,' says another. Any specific sense of tribal history or meaningful description of particular beliefs is difficult to find in the haze.

"Serious scholarly exhibitions also fall prey to these sentiments. An exhibition of early American Indian art last winter at the Art Institute of Chicago, for example, began with the words of a tribal leader expressing how these objects will help his people realize they were descended from 'a wonderful and great culture' - an assessment echoed in other exhibition texts. And if some objects suggested the importance of weaponry, enslavement and 'trophy scalps,' to these ancient cultures, their implications were studiously ignored.

"One reason for the Kennewick Man controversy is that it threatens to upset this model. If the skeleton is not directly connected with contemporary tribes, the very premises of the aboriginal world view, with its nativist claims, and its assertions of unique historical trauma, must be modified. It would imply that Indian tribes had a past that was neither as primordial nor as pastoral as oral histories assert, that other groups had come and gone, and other struggles had taken place.

"Hence, the Indian anxieties over a skeleton. Already, hundreds of less-renowned prehistoric skeletons have been turned over by museums for Indian burial. The lawsuit over Kennewick Man gave hope that perhaps the standard of proof for repatriation would be raised. But there has also been an attempt to establish through fiat what has not been established by fact: last year, Senator John McCain of Arizona, on behalf of several tribes, proposed an amendment to the protection act; it would ensure that ancient remains would automatically qualify as Indian remains, without requiring ancestral proof.

"But that idea, like the premature burial of the site itself, is a sign of how readily contemporary exhibitions and investigations of the Indian past are now characterized by the desire not to fully explore but to fully appease."

In her March 31 survey of New York's Asia Week, "Artistic Treasures Take Manhattan During Asia Week," Roberta Smith mentioned several tribal and Indian art dealers who participated in several of the shows.

"Asia Week is upon New York, and it is bigger than ever," the story began. "Two substantial Asian art fairs have taken over the Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue, at 67th Street, and the Gramercy Park Armory, on Lexington Avenue at 26th Street. And about two dozen special gallery exhibitions are spread around the Upper East Side. Timed to coincide with the fairs and mounted by local and visiting dealers, some are sublime. Quite a few are at a single address - the Fuller Building at 57th Street and Madison Avenue - almost making up a third fair, and a very tony one at that.

"But this year the movable feast that is Asia Week is more in flux than usual, jostled by changes from all sides. These include the exploding economic growth of China, which has created a market there for Chinese art of all kinds, driving up prices and limiting the dwindling amount of top-quality historical material coming to the West. Adding to the overall shortages are the complex issues of legitimate provenance and new attitudes regarding exports.

"Locally, the impetus for it all - the revered uptown International Asian Art Fair, before which Asia Week did not exist - is very much in transition. The fair's purview has been expanded to include art from Africa, Oceania and the Americas, much like its less patrician rival, the New York Arts of Pacific Asia Show. This year's fair also includes unprecedented quantities of contemporary Korean, Japanese and Chinese art.

"Some of the International Asian Art Fair's most respected veteran dealers have not returned this year. The reasons are complex, and a certain amount of eye-rolling about the fair's new shape is inevitable. But often the cause seems to be the dearth of good material or simply individual shifts in ways of working.

International Asian Art Fair

In truth, the International Asian Art Fair is not what it used to be: a place for relatively hushed (given the setting), awe-inspiring, finely tuned presentations of museum-quality works. And it is not what it may someday become. At this point it seems bewilderingly suspended over three quite different alternatives. It could become a fair devoted to the best from a range of non-Western cultures, a fair of contemporary Asian art that is prone to hollow reiterations of past glories, or a routine fair of older Asian material dominated by familiar examples of, say, Tang and Song dynasty ceramics.

".Sandra Whitman is presenting a rare and enormous 17th-century Chinese kilim rug in shades of apricot and white; its four panels are woven with schematic cranes, stenciled with traditional Chinese carpet motifs and bordered by a bold expanse of continuous stripes that, like the kilim technique, reflect the Mongol influence. Uragami Sokyu-Do features Liao dynasty ceramics.

"Several newcomers are contributing exemplary material that is among this year's highlights, like Robert Winter's display of Japanese armor. And Ned Jalbert's stunning display of American Indian masterworks, which includes a carved-stone shaman's figure with an intensely regal, focused face from around 1200 to 1500. The Donald Morris Gallery has joined forces with Jacques Germain, a Montreal dealer, to present a quasi-encyclopedic array of

African figures and masks.

Douglas Dawson's Southeast Asian material includes a vibrant ceramic sculpture of an elephant and rider from 15th-century Thailand - a recent shipwreck find to which nature has added a few barnacles.

Arts of Pacific Asia Show

The New York Arts of Pacific Asia Show is, in its eccentric way, better than ever. The quality is generally up, especially along the central aisles, even if some of the outlying booths have a high-end flea-market feeling.

Although the fair is more thoroughly vetted each year, it remains to some extent a buyer-beware situation. Still, if appearance matters more than provenance to you, the Pacific Asia fair offers a mind-boggling array of covetable stuff for every eye and nearly every pocketbook. The mood is strikingly personal, as dealers follow their tastes and passions, which can be contagious.

Here Asian cultures tend to be defined broadly and mixed with abandon. Thomas Murray, for example, has a monumental house guardian from Borneo and a spare, modern-looking white Japanese futon cover of delicately tie-dyed fabric. It finds a distant cousin in a beautiful if worn two-panel Japanese screen from around 1800 at Galen Lowe whose silver-leaf surface is collaged with calligraphic poem squares and album paintings depicting scenes from "The Tale of Genji." It could almost be by Robert Rauschenberg.

Fuller Building

"Asia Week brings an increasingly impressive flotilla of exhibitions to the Upper East Side, and especially to the Fuller Building. This year's excellent shows can consume several days of careful looking.

In the Galleries

"There is plenty more beyond the Fuller Building. Throckmorton's large selection of cold-painted Tang ceramics - coy court ladies, spooked horses, heavily laden camels and earth spirits - look more impressive if viewed before visiting the fairs."

Shannon Shaw's story (which mentions Bob Gallegos), "Cochiti Pueblo artist credited with revival of ancient pottery style honored on this year's Indian Market poster" appeared in the Santa Fe New Mexican on April 27.

Shaw's story: "The figure's arms stick in the air, with a canteen in his right hand while the left hand makes a fist. A wide grin crosses his face. People will be seeing a lot more of Virgil Ortiz's creation, a monos clay figurine that was chosen as the centerpiece for the 85th annual Santa Fe Indian Market's official poster.

"Monos is a term Ortiz gave to a Cochiti Pueblo style of pottery from the 1800s that he is credited with reviving. It is made from red clay, white clay strip and red clay strip and then painted with black wild-spinach paint.

"Ortiz's 2 1/2-foot man smiles at the sky and has designs of corn - which the Pueblo use in prayer every morning - sun and moon designs and zig-zags for water. Some designs represent different Pueblo families, but the curling mustache above the figure's large smile has come to represent the Ortiz family, he said.

" 'Not a lot of people know about the monos,' said Ortiz, who autographed the poster during its unveiling at La Posada de Santa Fe. 'The pieces were considered false idols (in the 1800s) and were broken and destroyed by priests and other authorities.'

"The figurines are actually caricatures of the life and times that the Pueblo artists experienced during the 1800s, said Robert Gallegos, an Albuquerque collector and a mentor to Ortiz.

Ortiz is a fourth-generation potter, said Seferina Ortiz, Virgil's mother, who taught her son the art of making pottery when he was 6 years old. Ortiz learned last November that he was the winning artist for the poster, said Vivienne Arviso, chairwoman of the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts board of directors. He received total creative control of the project, and until Thursday, many board members didn't know what the piece looked like.

"A poster committee, made up of art professionals and current and former board members, for two months compiled a list of 30 candidates they felt were the premiere Indian artists in the country, said Mateo Romero, a Cochiti Pueblo artist and chairman of the SWAIA poster committee. Shortening the list to 20, they spent hours looking at slides of each artist's work, and Ortiz was a unanimous decision.

"In 1989, Ortiz met Gallegos, who showed him what farmers from northern Mexico called monos, meaning 'pretty, dainty or cute.' The farmers found fragments of pottery heads in their fields and called them monos, according to research he did 12 years ago, Gallegos said.

" 'I had the largest free-standing collection of these figurines, which wasn't that many. There were 27,' he said. '(Ortiz) was really taken by them because, for one, their size. I have one that's 31 inches tall and he was amazed by the balancing of the figure, that they stood on their own.'

"It's not recorded, but Gallegos and others believe traders coming from northern Mexico brought these figurines around Cochiti Pueblo, and they believe they originated with the Aztecs. 'Traders saw these, and they were very popular and had the pueblo make them to be sold,' Gallegos said. 'But the pueblos had the last laugh because they knew they weren't religious at all.'

"Instead, the pueblo incorporated their own designs into the monos that turned out to be caricatures of surrounding non-Indians or the traders themselves, Gallegos said. 'I told (Ortiz) when he first started that there is no difference between you and your ancestors of the 19th century. Everything is the same,' Gallegos said. 'The only difference is that you, as a young Indian man, are influenced by other things going on around you than what your ancestors were influenced by, things such as the traveling circus in which some of the antique monos were based.'

"That is exactly what Ortiz has done. He has branched off from the traditional sense of pottery and has expanded his artistic talents to jewelry and clothing design, in which he collaborated with fashion mogul Donna Karan on her 2003 spring collection. In that collection, designs for water, corn and wild spinach were used on Karan's dresses and skirts.

"Ortiz will be exhibiting around the world this year, including at the Museum Het Kruithuis in The Netherlands next month and a one-man show at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City, from Thursday through Sept. 21. The show will feature new pottery works and couture pieces.

" 'My main focus now is to break out of a mold and to pave the road for the younger generation and show them they don't have to be so afraid to break out of the norm,' Ortiz said."