Bidder to Return Aleut Mask to Tribe

A bighearted bidder from California paid $40,000 for a carved wooden Aleut mask so she can return it to the Alaskan tribe, which had pleaded unsuccessfully with the owner not to sell. A second Aleut artifact, however, was pulled from Sotheby’s auction by the owner, who said he doubted whether the tribe could protect the piece. The tribe had sought the two artifacts for a museum it is trying to establish. “I am almost speechless,” said Allison A. Young, the cultural heritage director of the Aleut/Pribilof Islands Assn. Inc. of Anchorage, who was in tears when the mask was rescued by the benefactor she had only just met.