Western officials to vie for aboriginal artifacts at auction

Western Canadian museum officials and historians have expressed alarm at an upcoming New York auction.

A Sotheby's auction of aboriginal art and artifacts collected from across Canada and the U.S. is scheduled to take place in New York Monday as part of the spring auction season.

Beaded dresses, pouches and moccasins made by the Cree, Nakota and Blackfoot Indians, as well as knives, beaded sheaths and a finger-woven Mtis sash, will cross the auction block.

The items, which originated in Western Canada, were gathered by a Scottish earl named James Carnegie during a visit in 1859.

The collection is valuable because the pieces are in excellent condition and the history behind them was well documented by Carnegie, who kept a journal about his finds.

One piece in particulara beaded, animal-skin dress that Carnegie traded "on the spot for rum" has an estimatedsale price of $175,000 USto $225,000 US.

The collection "is quite rare if you look at other objects that are offered for sale at this same auction," Susan Berry, a curator at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton, told CBC News.

"You'll find that there isn't that kind of documentation with them. It just really enhances their value a great deal."

Berry would like to bring the items back to a museum in Western Canada and is trying to raise the funds to buy the collection at the auction.

However, some worry that the pieces may be too expensive.

David Meyer, an archaeology professor at the University of Saskatchewan, wrote a letter of support for Berry, butthe Western Canadian pieces could fetch approximately $1 million on Monday more than most museums could afford.

"It's very doubtful that Saskatchewan with its rather limited provincial resources could do too much," Meyer said.

If Berry is unsuccessful at bringing the collection back to Western Canada, she said she'd likethe pieces to remain together so historians can continue to document the pieces and their origins.