Lo, the Poor Indian

American Indians are on the warpath against cheap Japanese imitations of tribal handicrafts. From the Southwest, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the National Park Service have received complaints about Japanese versions of Navaho beadwork, Zuni jewelry, Hopi kachina dolls (painted wooden dolls representing Indian deities). From the Northwest have come reports of made-in-Japan totem poles and ivory carvings. The Japanese imitations sell for as little as one-fifth Indian prices. Up until last year, the Park Service had a regulation against sales of foreign-made handicrafts by concessionaires in national parks, but the ban was lifted in keeping with the Eisenhower Administration's policy of freer trade. The Indians protest that the imported beadwork is phony. But the Navaho craftsmen themselves work with factory-made beads imported from Italy and Czechoslovakia.

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