Investigators search for Native American items stolen decades ago in New Mexico

San Francisco Chronicle​

2 days ago

This May 19, 2025 photo provided by the Pueblo of Santa Ana Tribal Historic Preservation Department shows a bowl that was returned to the pueblo earlier this year after being stolen decades ago from the tribe's ceremonial village in Santa Ana Pueblo, N.M. (Pueblo of Santa Ana Tribal Historic Preservation Department via AP)
Pueblo of Santa Ana Tribal Historic Preservation Department/AP
This undated photo provided by Ross Frank in August 2025 shows a war shield that Santa Ana Pueblo investigators are trying to locate and return to the Native American tribe as part of a cold case involving dozens of items taken during a series of burglaries decades ago at the pueblo's ceremonial village in New Mexico. (Ross Frank via AP)
Ross Frank/AP
Santa Ana Pueblo Tribal Historic Preservation Department staff members, from left to right, technician Thomas Armijo, director Monica Murrell and coordinator Jarrett Lujan pose for a photograph in front a map in Santa Ana Pueblo, N.M., on Monday, June 30, 2025.
Susan Montoya Bryan/AP
Cultural resources coordinator Jarrett Lujan with Santa Ana Pueblo's Tribal Historic Preservation Department meets with colleagues near Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, on Monday, June 30, 2025.
Susan Montoya Bryan/AP
A historic marker provides details about the ceremonial village near Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, on Tuesday, June 3, 2025.
Susan Montoya Bryan/AP
A gate blocks access to tribal land in Santa Ana Pueblo, N.M., on Tuesday, June 3, 2025.
Susan Montoya Bryan/AP
Santa Ana Pueblo Conservation Officer William Woody points to images of a war shield that was stolen from the tribe's ceremonial village decades ago, during an interview in Santa Ana Pueblo, N.M., on June 26, 2025
Susan Montoya Bryan/AP
Cultural resources coordinator Jarrett Lujan with Santa Ana Pueblo's Tribal Historic Preservation Department, left, and colleague Thomas Armijo talk about a cold case involving the theft of sacred and culturally significant items decades ago during an interview in Santa Ana Pueblo, N.M., on June 26, 2025.
Susan Montoya Bryan/AP
SANTA ANA PUEBLO, N.M. (AP) — The decades-old case file describes a medium-sized bowl crafted at Santa Ana Pueblo more than a century ago. Handed down over generations, this pottery piece adorned with dark red triangles was used for making bread.
The bowl is among nearly 150 antiquities stolen from the Native American community's ceremonial village during a series of burglaries that started in the summer of 1984. War shields, traditional clothing, moccasins, willow baskets and woven rugs were taken — all items that would fetch favorable sums given their rarity.
End-of-Summer Sale! 25¢ for 3 months. Save on access.
End-of-Summer Sale! 25¢ for 3 months. Save on access.
ACT NOW
Federal authorities and tribal police in New Mexico eventually busted the thieves. Pleas were entered, punishments doled out and the case was closed. Inexplicably, authorities never pursued recovery of the stolen items.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Now, the pueblo's historic preservation and repatriation experts are partnering with a tribal conservation officer who once served as the top cop for the federal Bureau of Land Management to crack this cold case, one irreplaceable item at a time.
Little to go on
Picking up the trail has not been simple. Memories fade, and digging up old documents is a monumental task.
Case files provided by the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs have helped, but key pieces of evidence are missing, including Polaroid photos found during a search of a suspect's home. The original reports contain only limited descriptions of the stolen items, further complicating the search.
The team has spent months combing through auction catalogs, gallery websites and even Pinterest and Instagram posts. A northern New Mexico antiquities dealer purchased some of the items decades ago, not knowing they were contraband. A breakthrough came when his family opened up his ledgers detailing acquisitions and sales.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The investigators started to connect dots, tracing the journey of the bowl across four decades through sales records, interviews and an out-of-print Santa Fe gallery publication. The most recent purchasers returned the bowl after learning its story.
Family members gathered this summer inside the tribal council room to be reunited with an heirloom they thought they would never see again. The bowl was sitting on the table; it was real. Disbelief gave way to tears.
Pueblo Gov. Myron Armijo described the moment as wonderful but emotional. For pueblo people, a sacred item is like another person — living, breathing and intertwined with their identity.
'You can't put a dollar amount on what was taken,' said Armijo, whose family home was among those burglarized 40 years ago. 'They were taking war shields, drums, pottery and many other items that meant so much to our community. It just really hurt the pueblo.'
Under cover of darkness
The first burglary happened in early August 1984, about a week after the pueblo northwest of Albuquerque celebrated a feast day, a rare occasion when outsiders are welcomed inside to watch traditional dances and share food.
According to case files and court records, the thieves treaded stealthily through desert scrub and sandy washes at night to the secluded pueblo at the edge of the Jemez Mountains.
Over 10 months, the thieves targeted homes and traditional society houses in the village that had been added to the national list of historic places a decade earlier.
'Picture these guys stealing blankets, filling them up with pots, everything they could carry,' said William Woody, the conservation officer helping with the investigation.
As the thieves fled, they dropped some items along the road. A rancher found other artifacts that had been stashed in the desert to be recovered later.
A nighttime sting ended the scheme in May 1985. Court records identify an Albuquerque antiquities dealer as the ringleader and some of the hired hands as members of Laguna Pueblo, another Native American community west of Albuquerque.
Federal investigations found other New Mexico pueblos were also targeted.
New Mexico is home to 19 pueblos, many situated along the Rio Grande where their ancestors settled after migrating from Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico and Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado. Pueblo people maintained their homelands throughout the Spanish conquest centuries ago and later as the United States made its westward expansion.
Unlike other pueblos, Santa Ana — known as Tamaya in the Keresan language spoken there — did not sell its pottery to people outside the community. Because of its rarity, Santa Ana pottery sold for comparatively high values during the 1980s, according to the tribal historic preservation office.
No place in the commercial market
Investigators say many of the stolen items are directly related to traditional activities, meaning they qualify as sacred objects under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Those more than a century old qualify as antiquities protected under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act.
NAGPRA has opened up more opportunities for tribes to reclaim culturally significant items from museums, universities and other institutions over the last year, and Congress passed legislation in 2022 to prohibit the export of sacred Native American items.
But the export law has yet to be implemented, and tracking items through auction houses and private collections can be difficult because descriptions are often incorrect or intentionally misleading, according to Shannon O'Loughlin, CEO of the Association on American Indian Affairs.
'These are items that were part of another culture's religion, life ways, ways of being, things that hold close to our identity and that are part of our story and our relationships with one another,' said O'Loughlin, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
The association, which monitors auction houses around the world, has this year identified more than 200 auctions selling 13,900 potentially sensitive items tied to Indigenous nations in North America.
Not giving up
At Santa Ana, the mission is simple — to bring home as many of the stolen items as possible.
'We know they're out there,' said Armijo, the pueblo governor. 'We're not giving up.'
Atop the list is a buffalo hide war shield decorated with a pair of horns and rays of alternating colors — symbolism still revered by the pueblo.
After reviewing ledgers kept by Larry Frank, an author and Native American art expert in northern New Mexico, the team discovered the shield had been listed for sale at a gallery in New York City. The gallery posted a picture of the shield online in 2021, saying it was from Jemez Pueblo, not Santa Ana, and noting the shield had been acquired by a Canadian collector.
Donald Ellis, the gallery's owner, told The Associated Press via email that Frank had the shield for more than two decades and that there were no claims or concerns regarding its provenance when the gallery acquired it in 2005.
'The shield was acquired in good faith, from a credible and reputable source,' Ellis said.
He said his gallery reviews all available documentation for the work it acquires and consults with experts to identify gaps in ownership history, but that it can be difficult to establish the provenance of Native American pieces from the 19th century and earlier.
Ellis said he didn't fact-check the Instagram post about the shield being sold to a Canadian collector and that he has no information on its current whereabouts.
Jarrett Lujan, a cultural resources coordinator with the pueblo, said his grandfathers taught him about passing along traditions to the coming generations. That means he must bring back the stolen pieces of Tamaya culture for his daughter and others.
'That's all we're looking for,' he said, 'to empower them and encourage them to keep the culture alive.'