How I almost went to jail for five years
Recently a friend of mine decided to sell the antique Indian headdress she kept in a Perspex box in her house. I was baffled by this decision as it was a thing of great beauty and she did not need the cash. But she had made up her mind: she was moving house and the headdress had to go.
I asked how she had acquired it in the first place:
“My grandparents picked it up at a train station in the 1930s,” she said. “They used to travel around the South West and the Indians would come to the platforms to sell things. So they bought the headdress. They probably didn’t pay much for it, either.”
It was, apparently, a Navajo war bonnet, a headdress of great symbolic power. War bonnets could only be worn by individuals who had performed brave deeds in battle, and they also conferred protection upon the wearer. Since this example contained at least thirty feathers, its original owner must have been an exceedingly brave man. And yet at some point his descendants had been reduced to such destitution that they had surrendered this sacred object for a couple of bucks. Such was the esteem in which Indian culture was held in those halcyon days of yore.
Anyway, since I know a little about antiques, and a lot about obscure and unusual things, my friend asked for help in placing a value on the bonnet. “I saw one on eBay going for $1800,” she said, but otherwise she had no idea.
I spent a few hours online searching different auction websites for prices. But soon I noticed something curious. I couldn’t find any old headdresses- only replicas made by living artists. A shiny, new war bonnet made out of fluffy turkey feathers by a 35-year-old Navajo single mother went for $400-700. But what about an ancient one that may have actually been worn into battle against the nefarious White Man, or an enemy tribe? Surely that would be worth a lot more…
Since information was hard to come by, I sent an email to the man who runs the Austin auction house, complete with pictures attached: “What do you think this headdress would fetch at auction?” I asked.
“Is the artist’s name written on it?” he replied.
“It’s not a replica,” I answered. “My friend’s grandparents bought it a long time ago.”
“Is it made of eagle feathers?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Is that important?”
“Yes- selling eagle feathers is highly illegal,” he replied.
And then he sent me a link to an astonishing story about a man named Leighton Deming who had owned Geronimo’s headdress. It had been in his family for five decades. Then, after trying and failing for twenty-five years to donate it to museums he had decided to sell it for a million dollars. Eventually Mr. Deming found a buyer, but when the day came in October 1999 for money and feathers to change hands, it turned out that the buyer was the FBI, and that he was at the center of a sting operation. Suddenly surrounded by 10-12 agents wielding M-16s, Mr. Deming was informed that selling eagle feathers was a federal crime punishable by five years in jail and a $250,000 fine. Geronimo’s headdress, meanwhile, contained 48 golden eagle feathers.
Mr. Deming pointed out that since Geronimo had received the headdress as a gift in 1907, the bird had been dead for many years- definitely since before the sale of golden eagle feathers was declared illegal in 1962.
But that made no difference, the legal reasoning being that people who own a damaged headdress might be tempted to restore it by cheekily plucking fresh feathers from a living (and endangered) eagle’s behind. Although he thought this reasoning was absurd, Mr. Deming did not want to dedicate years of his life to a legal fight and plead guilty to a lesser charge of “unknowing bartering,” for which he received a six-month suspended sentence.
The next time I was in my friend’s house I compared the pictures of a golden eagle’s tail feathers in a book with those in the headdress. They looked the same to me. The sale was canceled.
Now when I started to tell you this story, I thought the moral was going to be about the unintended consequences of well intentioned but poorly written laws. Looking back, however, I can see several morals and there may be a few more in there that I’m not even aware of. I’ll leave it to you to extract the one you like most.
I would like to say this, however: don’t go selling any antique Navajo war bonnets until you’re absolutely sure they don’t contain eagle feathers.
Originally published at the mega awesome RIA Novosti site
Latest posts by Daniel Kalder (Posts)
- Book Review: Retroworld (plus, why I hate Star Trek) - April 3, 2014
- A very expensive fungus - October 16, 2013
- The secret rituals of history’s most creative minds - October 9, 2013
- Apparently we are all getting very old - October 3, 2013
- Vasily Grossman: from Stalingrad to toilet trouble - August 28, 2013
Print This Post
Daniel, good post, thanks for sharing. Most people probably don’t even know about the Dine and feathered war bonnets – an item more commonly associated with plains Indians to the east and northeast.
And you’re right – they were highly regarded, and not parted-with easily … though they were occasionally presented as tokens of respect. There’s a photo of a bonnet being presented to Charles Lindbergh, during a stopover in Albuquerque.
If the bonnet REALLY must go, and your friend doesn’t need the cash, she might consider donating it – Mr. Deming’s attempts to donate notwithstanding. The Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, Arizona, would be a natural choice. But I would also like to put a plug in for the Maxwell Museum of Antropology at my alma mater, UNM.
Daniel, another thought … she could always present it as a gift to the friend who did that research for her, and saved her a run-in with the Feds!
;-)
Jeff-
I think the gift is a good idea, probably the best one. Even donating is not always easy- apparently after Gernimo’s head dress was confiscated two tribes laid claim to it and a big legal battle broke out. There are complex laws governing Indian artifacts.
Reminds me of a draft-dodging technique i read about, supposedly in use during the Viet Nam war era. You allegedly could get yourself tossed in jail (and avoid going to Nam) by swearing an affidavit confessing that you had conspired with a friend to kill a bald eagle. Didn’t matter if you didn’t know a bald eagle from a thanksgiving turkey; the reasoning was, since it’s illegal to actually kill the bald eagle, conspiracy to kill one was equally an offence. What was that about laws and asses…..
You could just walk around the windmills in Altamont pass and pick up Golden eagle feathers all day long… guess the Feds should be putting the people responsible for the windmills in prison…..
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/06/wind-turbines-blamed-for-mass-slaughter-of-protected-golden-eagles/
… that’s an interesting point: would a war bonnet made out of those feathers also be illegal? Probably yes, although nobody prosecutes the windmill owners.
Daniel: Just saw your article. I think you have pinned it down very well. I like the article and you have very closely described what actually happened. Thanks.
You may be interested in “Two Years: The Curse” of course Geronimo. Look in Amazon.com/Books/Leighton Deming
Lots of history in that book, may find in fascinating. Must tell you that the book is fiction, but lots of information too. Leighton