Karin Hissink

Karin Hahn-Hissink (4 November 1907 – 23 May 1981) was a German anthropologist whose research on the mythology of peoples living in the eastern lowlands of Bolivia is considered an important contribution to the field. For a quarter of a century, she was a curator at the Frankfurt Ethnological Museum (now the Museum of World Cultures), and she also worked at the Frobenius Institute.

Early life and education Karin Hissink was born in Berlin to Hertha Hissink, who came from a wealthy German family. Her father, Jack Hissink, was Dutch and worked for AEG. She had a brother, Jan. In her youth, she was a member of a women's group of glider pilots. She lost her entire family during World War II.

Hissink studied archaeology and ethnology at LMU Munich (Germany), at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), and at the Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany). She wrote her doctoral dissertation on the use of masks as facade decorations on ancient buildings of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. She obtained her doctorate in 1933 from Frederick William University and then worked for a year as a volunteer at an Ethnological Research Institute that was affiliated with the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.

Career In 1934, Hissink moved to Frankfurt, where she took positions at the Institute for Cultural Morphology (renamed the Frobenius Institute in 1938) and the Ethnological Museum (now the Museum of World Cultures).