WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. – A set of 11 ceremonial Yei Bi Chei masks has been returned to the Navajo Nation.
Richard M. Begay, Navajo Nation Heritage and Historic Preservation Department manager, said these cultural items are now back home.
He said the donor did not have a complete history of the masks but received them from friends who did not disclose their origins. He said the department receives items like this on a fairly regular basis.
The 11 masks were returned from the San Francisco Bay Area. Begay noted that efforts to retrieve them began in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed their return.
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said these cultural items, particularly the 11 masks used in the Night Way Chant, are vital resources that define the sovereignty of the Diné people.
“As a Nation, our cultural values, ceremonies, and languages remain intact and practiced among our people, and the return of these 11 masks ensures our survival as Diné people,” he said. “I’m grateful to the donor for returning these cultural items that belong to us.”
In addition to the masks, a saddle blanket and traditional basket were given back to the Nation along with historic Diné rugs from another donor.
The last known return of Yei Bi Chei masks occurred in December 2014 when the Navajo Nation sent a delegation to France to retrieve seven masks from a Paris auction house.
At the time, the Nation paid to buy the masks and successfully brought them back on a special mission.
With Yei Bi Chei season underway across the Navajo Nation, Begay said it was the right time to reclaim these culturally significant items.
The Historic Preservation and Heritage Department’s Haataali Advisory Council will be consulted on how to properly store the masks and other cultural items, and whether they will be reused.
“We’ve always said the Navajo people are the true owners of these cultural items, especially masks and other ceremonial items, jish,” Begay said. “And if you’re a collector, or if you collected them purely because they’re collectible items, that’s not appropriate.”
Begay highlighted the importance of returning cultural items to the Navajo people, who view them as integral to their heritage. He also praised the ongoing efforts of the Navajo Nation to preserve cultural heritage, supported by Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren’s administration.
Erik Stanfield, senior anthropologist for the Navajo Nation Heritage and Historic Preservation Department, said the next steps involve navigating decisions following the repatriation process.
“There are a lot of decisions that have to be made after things are repatriated, and that’s part of the complication with all of this,” Stanfield said.
Stanfield addressed the sensitivity of public sharing of information about these items because of concerns about pothunters who might collect culturally significant artifacts.
However, he noted a positive trend: the children and grandchildren of collectors and pothunters are increasingly returning items like the Yei Bi Chei masks to their respective tribes, nations and pueblos.
This growing trend can be attributed, in part, to the Biden administration’s federal rules requiring museums to obtain consent from tribes before displacing cultural items, including funerary objects and human remains.
“It is the younger generations of non-Native Americans, non-Navajos, who are doing this,” Stanfield said. “Not necessarily the people that did it originally, at least in my experience, over many years.”
