PORTLAND, Maine — The FBI is trying to find the person who posted online advertisements saying he had 2-century-old “Maine Indian scalps” that he wanted to sell to white people.
The FBI executed a search warrant last month at Yahoo Inc. for information related to two e-mail addresses linked to the Craigslist postings, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Portland.
It is illegal to traffic in Native American remains. Kirk Francis, chief of the Penobscot Indian Nation, had reported the ads to state and federal officials.
The seller offered six scalps and related artifacts from a private family collection said to have been obtained by bounty hunters in the 1700s. Back then, bounties were offered for Penobscot Indians or for their scalps, Francis said.
If the scalps exist, Francis said they should be returned to the Penobscot reservation in Maine and given a proper burial.
“These are human beings that were murdered under genocidal policies” he said.
An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.
