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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Bia Agent Sews Up Case Of Vanishing Vestments Man Charged With Trafficking In Robes Worn At Tribal Masses 100 Years Ago

Arizona Republic

To the residents of the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, the 100-year-old Roman Catholic garments are of priceless historical and spiritual significance.

But a Star Valley man had a price in mind, federal agents said.

Unfortunately, Rodney Tidwell had the wrong buyer in mind, an undercover investigator for the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

In a federal grand jury indictment Tuesday, Tidwell was charged with illegally trafficking in 19th-century robes and vestments used in Masses at the Pueblo of Acoma.

Tidwell also is accused in the indictment of conspiring with Ernest Chapella of Keams Canyon of illegally selling more than 20 Hopi ceremonial masks, sacred objects called “spiritual friends” that are used in religious ceremonies.

Government investigators said that between 1995 and November 1996, Chapella lived on the Hopi Indian Reservation and was a maker of Hopi ceremonial masks. Chapella supplied Tidwell with the contraband masks, the indictment said.

The trafficking of such Native American cultural items is prohibited by the federal Archaeological Resource Protection Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Tidwell was convicted in 1995 in New Mexico for illegally trafficking in Native American objects and artifacts, the indictment said.

In an affidavit, BIA agent John Fryar said he met with Tidwell in June when he was shown a set of priest robes and vestments that Tidwell claimed came from the Acoma Pueblo.

Tidwell told the undercover investigator that the items were from the Pueblo revolt time period beginning about 1680 and that he had obtained them from a woman who lived on the Acoma Reservation near Gallup.

Later that month, Fryar said, he purchased the items in Gallup from Tidwell for $3,000. Fryar later discovered that Tidwell had purchased the robe and vestments from the woman for $100, and that she used the money to buy groceries.

Fryar had the garments authenticated by two experts. The indictment says that the robes, vestments, and other liturgical items were used in the celebration of Mass, and were said to have belonged to Catholic priests who died during the Pueblo revolt.

However, Marion Rodee, curator of Southwestern Ethnology of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, told Fryar that based on the patterns and styles of the fabrics, the robe and vestments are from about the 18th century.