Batik cloth, Java, late 19th and 20th century. Cotton cloth with resist dye technique pattern. Museum Purchase

The Ethnographic Collections

Native North American Ethnographic Collections

Among the holdings of the Oakland Museum of California's History Department are approximately 6,000 artifacts relating to North American Indians. The largest group of objects relates to Native peoples of Northern California, which includes lithics as well as raw and processed materials used by indigenous peoples. The History Department also curates objects from other regions, including the Arctic, Northwest Coast, Southwest, Plateau and Great Basin, Subarctic, Great Plains, Southern California, and the Eastern U.S.  The collection holds one of the finest collections of California baskets anywhere.

	Ethnographic Slideshow

Most of the artifacts in the museum's North American collection originate from the History Department's predecessor institution, the Oakland Public Museum. Between 1908 and 1915, founding curator Charles P. Wilcomb conducted collecting expeditions throughout Northern California and further north to British Columbia in search of objects documenting the lives of Native peoples of the Pacific Coast of North America. The collections developed by Wilcomb—particularly those of California—represent a full range of material culture associated with the region's indigenous peoples, including baskets, dance regalia, clothing, tools, weapons, and raw materials. Since Wilcomb documented the locations and names of people associated with the artifacts, museum curators are sometimes able to connect collection objects with contemporary descendants of Wilcomb's informants.

Supplementing objects purchased from Native people and other collectors, Wilcomb also acquired artifacts for the Museum through donation. Over half of the Oakland Museum of California's current ethnographic collection was either acquired by Wilcomb or given to the museum by donors he cultivated. Since Wilcomb's premature death in 1915, the museum's ethnographic collections have grown gradually, primarily as the result of continuing donations.

Contemporary Native American Art Collection

Today, the Oakland Museum of California's collecting interests include material culture and and artworks made by California Native peoples working in both traditional and contemporary media. In recent years, the History and Art departments have acquired works by Harry Fonseca, Frank LaPena, George Blake, Brian Tripp, Elston Bill, and Ennis Peck. For its 25th Anniversary, the Museum established a new collecting initiative focusing on contemporary Native American Art. A major donation to the museum of 62 works by Nisenan Maidu artist Dalbert Castro launched this interdisciplinary collection.

Through the Oakland Museum History Department’s Scholar-in-Residence Intern Program, artists, social scientists, and cultural resource persons have special access to museum collections and staff and are involved in public programming, gallery design and  interpretation, and provide lectures, docent training, and inform school programs. Residencies are individually structured to meet the scholars’ interests.

Pacific Regional Ethnographic Collection

Dance shield, Massim culture, Trobriand Islands, Melanesia, late 19th century. Carved and painted wood. Collected by Dr. John Rabe. Museum Purchase

The Oakland Museum of California's Pacific Regional Ethnographic Collections represent a broad spectrum of cultures. While some artifacts in the collection are notable for their high artistic achievement, others are significant for illustrating the diversity of everyday life among Pacific Island cultures. Consisting of approximately 3,400 artifact and photographs collected since 1900, the collection includes approximately 1,098 artifacts from Polynesia, 739 from Melanesia, 484 from Micronesia, 67 from Australia, 488 from the Philippines, and 348 from Indonesia.

The 1,028-object Rabe Collection forms the centerpiece of the museum's Pacific collections. A San Francisco dentist, Dr. John Rabe left for tropical climates circa 1887, where he spent six years traveling to Micronesia, Polynesia, Melanesia, Australia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. The Rabe collection is notable not only for its breadth and scope, but for the quality of associated documentation--Dr. Rabe's notes include information relating to cultural attribution, location, and use of many of the objects.

Documentation, Preservation, and Access

Over the years, the museum has undertaken major projects to improve the preservation, documentation, interpretation and utilization of ethnographic collections. Among them were National Endowment for the Humanities collection documentation projects for both the North American and Pacific Region ethnographic collections. The museum will be soon rehousing the collections in the new, state-of-the-art California Collections Resource Center in South Oakland. The museum utilizes the ARGUS System of Computerized Collections Management whereby researchers and visitors can have simultaneous access to catalog information and images of the artifacts. Color slides exist for the majority of artifacts in these collections and staff have begun the long process of digitizing the images. Collection research is scheduled by appointment. Additionally, collections can be accessed through the ARGUS system on a walk-in basis on Thursday afternoons at the Online Museum located in the Library of the History Department. For questions or further information about the Oakland Museum's ethnographic collections, contact:  Dr. P. Christiaan Klieger, Interim Chief Curator of History, 1000 Oak Street, Oakland, CA 94607, 510/238-3845; 510/238-6579 (fax).