PARIS: A US charitable foundation said Wednesday that it was the anonymous bidder that paid $530,000 for 24 Native American masks in a Paris auction and will return them to the Hopi Nation in Arizona and the San Carlos Apache tribe.

“These are not trophies to have on one’s mantel,” said Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, director of the Los Angeles-based Annenberg Foundation. He added: “They do not belong in auction houses or private collections.”

Twenty-one vividly colored masks made of leather, horsehair, wood and feathers bought at Monday’s auction are being returned to the Hopis and three hood masks to the San Carlos Apaches.

It was a happy ending for the Hopi tribe following a series of legal setbacks in efforts to delay the sale of the masks, arguing that they represent ancestral spirits and shouldn’t be sold.