from the Wall Street Journal
SANTA FE, N.M. -- A tsunami of cheap imported jewelry -- designed to look like authentic Native American art -- is flooding the Southwest U.S., bamboozling tourists, irking law-enforcement officials and infuriating real Indian artists.
Phony Indian crafts have been around for decades, but recently both the quantity and the quality of the fakes have soared, according to Native American artists, veteran retailers and state prosecutors.
The problem appears to be especially acute in tourist towns like this one, which are loaded with jewelry shops and galleries.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Association, a trade group, estimates that nationally, as much as 75% of the roughly $1 billion of jewelry, pottery, rugs and other merchandise sold every year as authentic is not. In the jewelry business, as many as 90% of pieces held out as examples of Native American craftsmanship are fake, according to the New Mexico attorney general's consumer-protection division, which is trying to police the trade along with federal authorities.
But it is extremely hard to tell the genuine goods from the faux artifacts, artists and experts say.
Phony Indian crafts have been around for decades, but recently both the quantity and the quality of the fakes have soared, according to Native American artists, veteran retailers and state prosecutors.
The problem appears to be especially acute in tourist towns like this one, which are loaded with jewelry shops and galleries.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Association, a trade group, estimates that nationally, as much as 75% of the roughly $1 billion of jewelry, pottery, rugs and other merchandise sold every year as authentic is not. In the jewelry business, as many as 90% of pieces held out as examples of Native American craftsmanship are fake, according to the New Mexico attorney general's consumer-protection division, which is trying to police the trade along with federal authorities.
But it is extremely hard to tell the genuine goods from the faux artifacts, artists and experts say.
"I'm going for the cheap stuff, because I can't tell the difference."
Some of the imported jewelry is exquisite, studded with real gems and painstakingly crafted -- only, it is made by Chinese or Thai or Filipino workers abroad, not by Native American artisans. Other pieces are mass-produced with polished bits of plastic that look uncannily like real jewels.
The phony jewelry may be stamped with the forged signature of a well-known Native American artist. It may even be priced like a genuine piece -- hundreds or thousands of dollars for a silver-and-turquoise bracelet, a carved fetish necklace, or drop earrings inlaid with a floral design.
"It's virtually indistinguishable," said Shane Hendren, a vice president of the Indian Arts and Crafts Association. The fakes, he said, "have definitely gotten more sophisticated" and now dominate the Native American crafts industry.
Judy Charley, a Navajo silversmith, said the fakers "are ripping off my people."
Ms. Charley sells her jewelry outside the Palace of The Governors, a state history museum here, under a program that requires vendors to prove their Native American ancestry and demonstrate how they make their wares -- by slicing, drilling, grinding and polishing gems from lumps of raw stone. She and others in the program say the flood of fakes deprives them of income, tramples on their culture and cheapens their reputations.
Importers "stamp my name on jewelry that I've never seen or touched," said Calvin Begay, a noted Native American artist.
Another Native American jewelry designer, who goes by the name Chimney Butte, said of the fakery that "Tourists fall for it, hook, line and sinker. It breaks your heart."
It isn't illegal to copy Native American motifs, for example by manufacturing Navajo-style earrings in Thailand. But by federal law, imported items that "could possibly be mistaken for arts and crafts made by Native Americans" must be marked with the country of origin, so customers aren't fooled. Some states, including New Mexico, also have their own laws against misrepresenting products as Native American craftsmanship.
Bill Keller, who heads the New Mexico attorney general's anticounterfeiting effort, said he was trying to step up enforcement with undercover stings here and in other New Mexico cities.
He has also asked the legislature to bump up penalties; he would like to be able to charge unscrupulous vendors with felonies. "That's the way to get their attention," he said.
This past summer, Mr. Keller settled cases against two retailers in Santa Fe with consent decrees. They didn't admit wrongdoing but agreed to better label their merchandise and pay fines of $10,000 apiece. Attorneys for both retailers said their clients didn't know the jewelry in question was fake.
Authenticity of fine jewelry is crucial to some shoppers, who say they want to support Native American culture and tradition.
But Evie Ausley, a tourist from Los Angeles searching for dolphin jewelry, said she couldn't care less.
"I'm going for the cheap stuff," Ms. Ausley said, "because I can't tell the difference."
Getting The Right Stuff
Experts in Native American art offer several tips for shoppers seeking authentic jewelry:
* Ask the seller about an item's origin, using specific terms. "Native American hand-made" means that an artist fabricated the entire piece from raw materials; "hand-crafted" means the artist put it together using imported or mass-produced parts.
Experts in Native American art offer several tips for shoppers seeking authentic jewelry:
* Ask the seller about an item's origin, using specific terms. "Native American hand-made" means that an artist fabricated the entire piece from raw materials; "hand-crafted" means the artist put it together using imported or mass-produced parts.
* Inquire about the materials used. Turquoise is labeled "natural" if it has not been treated beyond a polish; that's typically the most expensive. Lesser-grade stones are often oiled or dyed to deepen their color. If a gem is described as "stabilized" turquoise, it has been blended with plastics.
* Request a written affidavit about a piece's origin and materials – and save it, along with the receipt. If the item later turns out to be fake, the paperwork will be the key to getting a refund or prosecuting the fraud.
* If you're visiting a pueblo or reservation, don't assume every item for sale is hand-made. Some Native Americans import plastic beads and other lower-quality materials, then hire workers to assemble them into jewelry.
* Consult guides produced by experts. Brochures on distinguishing the genuine from the phony are available from the U.S. Department of Interior's Indian Arts and Crafts Board and from the Council for Indigenous Arts and Culture.
