Hilma Granqvist

Hilma Natalia Granqvist (17 July 1890 Sipoo – 25 February 1972 Helsinki) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish anthropologist who conducted long field studies of Palestinians. She was a student of Edvard Westermarck.

Studies In the 1920s Granqvist arrived at the village of Artas, just outside Bethlehem in the then British Mandate of Palestine as part of her research on the women of the Old Testament. She had gone to Palestine "in order to find the Jewish ancestors of Scripture". What she found instead was a Palestinian people with a distinct culture and way of life. She therefore changed the focus of her research to a full investigation of the customs, habits and ways of thinking of the people of that village. Granqvist ended up staying until 1931 documenting all aspects of village life. In so doing she took hundreds of photographs."

Example of wedding song, recorded by Granqvist "God knows that our outfit today A hundred ‘royal’ robes which we have cut For the bride to whom we are betrothed. God knows – today is our outfit A green and a ‘royal’ [malak] dress we have bought For the bride to whom we are betrothed! Ten jackets [taqsireh] have we bought For the beloved ones in order to appease her" (Granqvist: Marriage conditions in a Palestinian village, vol. 2 (1931), p. 42.)