The largest Native American tribe in the American Southwest won its bid Monday to buy back seven sacred masks at a contested auction of tribal artifacts in Paris that netted over a million dollars, reports the AP.

Objects for sale at the Drouot auction house included religious masks, colored in pigment, that are believed to have been used in Navajo wintertime healing ceremonies.

The U.S. Embassy and officials from Arizona tried to halt the sale on the grounds that the artifacts, which also included Hopi items, are sacred and should be returned to the tribes. The auction house and the French government said the sale was legal and would proceed.