Congratulations to the Hopi, the Annenberg foundation, the French lawyer who represented the Hopi pro bono, and U.S. embassy officers in Paris. This team brought about the rescue of a number of Hopi sacred objects that were on the auction block in Paris.

When the New York Times reported the rescue, one reader offered a critical comment: “If I were Hopi, and objected to the sale of these artifacts on religious grounds, arguing that it is inappropriate to sell these sacred items for money, I don’t think my concerns would be met by having a foundation buy the artifacts and give them to some particular Hopis or a foundation or something. Doesn’t the foundation’s purchase of these items simply confirm and help create a market for the artifacts? In other words, if it were me, I would object to the sale itself, not to the fact that I can’t afford to buy the artifacts back myself.”

The Hopi did object to the sale and tried every effort to stop the auction, but they were grateful for the result: “We thank the Annenberg Foundation for their good hearts in bringing our Katsinas home to our people where they will be cared for.”

Nevertheless, the critical comment bears some attention. It was repeated by a Bloomberg columnist, who said Annenberg “has legitimized the very situation it means to criticize, making the sacred objects seem fair game.” The columnist added, “The best bet for indigenous people to secure their cultural property is through the legal system, … taking a principled stand….”

The legal framework for protecting cultural property includes most notably the 1970 United Nations Convention on Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which refers explicitly to “the right to maintain, control, protect and develop … cultural heritage.” As the Bloomberg column argues, Annenberg could have “worked with the tribes to acquire the objects through legal mechanisms, [and] created a model that other tribes could follow.”

The problem is that the law is a tricky path. What looks like protection may turn out to be just another form of domination, as with the “trust doctrine” in U.S. federal Indian law, which turns trust law upside down by giving the “trustee” the power to take property from the “beneficiaries.” The Tee-Hit-Ton case in 1955 still stands as the precedent for that outcome.

Perhaps the best thing to say about the Annenberg intervention is that it shows how a combination of cultural pride, political action, legal threat, and money may succeed in changing the climate and context in which art collectors work. It is true that the auction house and sellers gained by the Annenberg purchases, but it is also true that the intervention increased awareness among art buyers and sellers.

Blouin ArtInfo, which bills itself as “the premier global online destination for art and culture,” carried an extensive interview with Sam Tenakhongva, a Hopi cultural leader who was the driving force behind legal action to stop the auction. Tenakhongva did not know of the Annenberg effort until afterwards, but he said it assists in getting people “to discuss and to think.” He added, “The work isn’t over.”

Similar views were expressed in ThinkProgress, another cultural forum, which saw the Annenberg Hopi effort as prelude to “a more difficult and sophisticated conversation about what art should enter the international market, and which, if any, should stay out of it.”

Thus, despite important cautions about participating in auctions to protect cultural property, it seems clear that the extraordinary event of an international foundation moving secretly to restore Hopi sacred objects is a significant marker in the ongoing struggle of Native Nations to guard their cultures. As Tenakhongva put it in the Annenberg press release, “This is a great day for not only the Hopi people but for the international community as a whole.”

For those critics who still say it would have been better for the Hopi to lose the objects and challenge the auction in court, there is a strange bit of history behind at least one of the objects that should give them pause about the efficacy of the law (in addition to the fact that the Hopi did try the legal route on this and a prior auction, without success).

It turns out that one of the items at the auction was a Zuni altar from the collection of Vincent Price, the late Hollywood horror film star who, as it turns out, was also a member and chairman of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the U.S. Department of the Interior. The auction catalog says the altar includes depictions of historical incidents when Spanish gold-seekers and missionaries invaded Zuni lands. It says the altar “makes a strong impression and causes troubling emotions.”

How could such a significant sacred object become part of an “art” collection by a well-known member of a United States agency supposedly devoted to American Indian interests? The answer may be in the Board’s “mission” to “promote … the expansion of the Indian arts and crafts market.”

The U.S. Congress created the Indian Arts and Crafts Board in 1935. Its function and duty is the “promotion of economic welfare of Indian people through the development of their arts and crafts and the expansion of the market for such products.” In other words, from the perspective of the Arts and Crafts Board—and perhaps Price himself—anything that expands the “market” is good for Indians. The auction of Zuni and Hopi objects was a market function. Presumably, under this law, the more Indian “art” that is bought and sold, the better things are.

One may say this is an outmoded perspective, and that a more nuanced approach is needed, to distinguish between “art” and sacred objects. This, in fact, is a key point in the strengthening debate that the Hopi and Annenberg are fostering. It is also a reminder that the legal route recommended by some critics of Annenberg is filled with perils, not least of which is outmoded doctrines and concepts.

The Zuni altar made its way from its homeland to a Paris auction house through the efforts of a person who was proud of his role as a benefactor of American Indian art. In a 1992 oral history interview conducted by the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art, Price said he was interested in bringing attention to “what injustices have been done to American Indians through the lack of interest [in] their art, through the lack of interest in their lives and their problems.”

When the interviewer asked about the “essential connection between art …and an understanding of culture and its identity,” Price answered in the affirmative, but did not engage the issue. We can’t know whether, if Price were here today, he would take a different tack. But we do know that a different tack is necessary, and that the Hopi and their partners are leading the way.