Oak Native American Ethnographic Collection
Oak Native American Collection
About the Collection
The Oak Native American Collection is on permanent loan from the private collection of Jim and Vanita Oelschlager. The collection contains customary and contemporary Native American art and objects, and ancestral belongings.
Institute staff are working with our Advisory Council and other Indigenous cultural experts to assess our collections and ensure we are working ethically and in compliance with the newest NAGPRA guidelines. Enacted in 1990, NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) is Federal Law that protects Indigenous human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony. Revised regulations went into effect in January 2024.
Much of the Oak Native Collection has been taken off display while we consult with cultural experts. Select items are on display now as part of our Unsettling the Museum installation.
Institute Speaker Series
The 2024-2025 Institute for Human Science and Culture Speaker Series featured Indigenous experts and scholars discussing the historical collecting practices that brought ancestral belongings into museums and private collections; efforts to reconnect collection items to their communities of origin; and the reparative work of reclaiming communities’ cultural objects.
The final talk in the 2024-2025 Institute Speaker Series was held on May 28, 2025. Full recordings of all four lectures are now available online.
The Institute Speaker Series was funded by Ohio Humanities and presented in partnership with Summit Metro Parks.