David,
I have looked at the Arts-Crafts act again and my opinion is exactly
as you have described, the act does not limit the sale of native made
articles to only native people...which by the way might be a too severe
restriction. Many native craft people i know work on commission and sell
their stuff to vendors who are non-natives to sell for them. If you go
to the main plaza in Sante Fe you will see native craft people selling
goods directly that they made and you can talk to them about it. But if
you go into the stores in Sante Fe, you will also find non-native people
selling native made goods either on commission or after having paid a flat
fee to the maker. If sales where restricted to only native vendors, they
would have to be selling their own products (which many do in Powwows and
"art fairs") but it might also restrict the outlets.
The Lakota got around this in an interesting way, they formed a concession
with the US Park Service and if you go to the park stations in the Bad
Lands, you will see that they sell native made goods there for the Lakota
even though the people who work their are not all Lakota (some are)...i
asked about this when there recently and they all said (Lakota and non-
Lakota) that yes, everything was Lakota made and a percentage of all sales
went to the Lakota craftspersons). This issue of having outlets for selling
goods is a problem and lots of non-native dealer travel to the rez to buy
crafts and then sell them as "authentic" native made (with tags for the
tribe). The best way to buy is directly from the artisan...but according
to the A&C Act it is not illegal for non-natives to sell *authentic*
native made goods with legit tags on them.
Yosah