Hilma Granqvist

by Sofia Häggman (translation Katarina Trodden)

Hilma Granqvist (1890–1972) was the first woman in Finland to earn a PhD in practical philosophy. In the 1920s and ‘30s she conducted a detailed ethnological investigation in the Palestinian village of Artas. Her ground-breaking methodology and the unexpected results that she presented met with resistance at the University of Helsinki, and she was ultimately barred from defending her dissertation and from accepting a lectureship there. While her work was soon forgotten in Finland, Palestinians still pay tribute to her.

Adolescence and education

A brooding teenager with a profound interest in people

Hilma Natalia Granqvist was born in Helsinki on July 17, 1890. Both her parents, Karl Oskar Granqvist and Ida (née Storck), came from the rural municipality of Sibbo but were living in Helsinki where Karl Oskar owned a transport company. Hilma was their first child. Her brother Valter was born two years later, in February 1892, and the youngest sibling, Gunnar, was born in 1895. Hilma was close to the eldest of the two brothers. His moral and financial support were to be instrumental to Granqvist’s academic career.

Judging by her early diaries, Granqvist appears to have been a precocious and serious young woman. She confessed that adolescence was a difficult period and that she was prone to brooding. Her favourite pastimes were reading and writing. But she was also observant and she had a keen interest in people. Inspired by her mother’s stories about her Sibbo friends, Granqvist wrote a number of essays on which she based her ideas for a string of radio features that she later tried to sell to the Finnish broadcasting corporation.

Despite her love of writing she never did well at school in that subject; her best subjects were geography, history and religion. She was interested in religious and existential topics from an early age, but always from the point of view of an outsider.

Granqvist enrolled at the Svenska fortbildningsläroverket in Helsinki in May 1911, and in the autumn of that year she began her studies at the Ekenäs teachers’ college for women. At Ekenäs she befriended the author and artist Helena Westermarck. It all started with her getting a summer job in June 1912, but it soon developed into a close friendship that also included Helena’s brother, the prominent anthropologist Edward Westermarck.

A force against doctrine and belief in authority

Hilma Granqvist graduated in the spring of 1914, but she only taught for a few years at various schools in Helsinki before enrolling at university in the autumn of 1917.

Her first year at the University of Helsinki was a dramatic one that saw the outbreak of revolution in Russia, the Finnish struggle for independence and civil war. The university closed, and Granqvist was not able to begin the courses in philosophy, pedagogics and psychology she had been looking forward to. During her time at university she was able to both earn a living and stay in touch with the educational system by teaching.

Granqvist was now able to get deeper into the religious issues that had interested her as a young girl. She was especially interested in the way religious instruction was conducted within the Finnish school system.

In spring 1921, Granqvist earned her Master of Arts degree with her thesis Skolan och religionen (Religion in Schools), a subjective call for reform of religious instruction in schools. She also wrote a pamphlet entitled Det religiösa problemet i nutiden, (The Problem with Religion in Our Time), which criticized the clergy in a way that angered many, especially within the Church.

Granqvist’s tutors at university were nonetheless impressed by her thinking and her ability to express her ideas. Gunnar Landtman, pro tempore professor of practical philosophy, saw in her a potential research student, and he suggested that she read for a PhD. He even gave her a subject he thought would suit her: women in the Old Testament. Granqvist was later to mock the idea of being given a typical “woman’s subject”, but she diligently embarked on the task. Since opportunities for research were limited in Helsinki, she transferred to the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin in the autumn of 1922 where she remained for just over a year.

The road to Palestine

The year she spent in Germany was pivotal for Granqvist’s future work. In Berlin, she encountered a very different approach to academic research. She was not always able to hide the fact that she had begun to see the methods used by her professors in Helsinki as obsolete.

In Berlin she also came into contact with scholars who studied present-day Palestine as a source in understanding society at the time of the Old Testament. These scholars considered Palestine and the Near East as unchanging and unaffected by Western progress, and they used the natural landscape and archaeological finds as proof of the historicity of the biblical stories. Even the people themselves were seen as participants in some kind of living tableaux. Granqvist duly believed that she would be able to understand the women of the Old Testament by studying contemporary life in Palestine.

As she was surrounded by scholars who regularly visited the Holy Land, Granqvist soon dared to dream of travelling there herself in order to study the women of the Bible in their rightful environment. Her brother Valter and the German professors all enthusiastically encouraged her, and Helena and Edward Westermarck too appreciated the value of conducting field studies in Palestine.

However, Granqvist’s mentor, Gunnar Landtman, was not convinced. He quickly realized that the journey would lead her astray from the path he had planned for her, and that she would for ever bear the stamp of a field ethnologist, which was not a respectable merit in his opinion. It was also a question of money. It immediately became clear that the trip would have to be organised through a German university since the University of Helsinki was unable to provide either the encouragement or the funding.

In the end, Granqvist was taken on by Professor Albrecht Alt in Leipzig who enrolled her in his basic course in cultural history at the German Institute in Jerusalem (Deutsches Evangelisches Institut für Altertumswissenschaft des Heiligen Landes). Granqvist was enthusiastic, but two problems had to be overcome: the course was open only to men and she would have to raise the money herself to travel there. Professor Alt solved the former by procuring a special permit for Granqvist to become the first woman to participate in the course. The second problem was solved by a travel grant from the student nation Nylands Nation in Helsinki.

The first journey to Palestine (1925–1927)

New friendships are forged in the international city of Jerusalem

After having travelled through Germany, Austria, Italy and Egypt, Granqvist finally arrived in Palestine at the end of summer in 1925. Jerusalem was not large, but it was a surprisingly international city, and she was soon mixing with archaeologists, theologists and ethnologists from all over the world. She found a well-connected friend in Signe Ekblad, director of the Swedish school in Jerusalem, who had a wide contact network among the local population as well as among the expats.

Being the only woman on the course did not worry Granqvist in the least. On the contrary, she enjoyed the attention paid to her by her peers. She called them the “archaeologists-theologists”, a suitable name for scholars who, with Bible in hand, were digging to discover the history of the ancient Israelites. One of them, Leonhard Rost, came to be especially close to Granqvist. His genuine admiration for her and his intense courting was the beginning of a close friendship that lasted many years.

The village of Artas

In order to be able to conduct her own field work, Granqvist needed to find a community where the culture described in the Bible had survived in its purest form. She found it in Artas, a village near Bethlehem. It was believed at the time that it was especially among the Muslim peasant population the culture of the ancient Israelites could be found. The rationale was that the Muslim peasants were deeply connected to the land and not inclined to move away. Artas was populated solely by Muslims and therefore perfect for Granqvist.

Another advantage to Artas was the presence of a woman with European roots. Louise Baldensperger was the daughter of a missionary from Elsass. “Sitt Louisa” had lived in Artas all her life and she was highly respected among the villagers. She was a natural and vital link to a conservative society where outsiders were regarded with suspicion. As Sitt Louisa’s lodger, Granqvist – who was known in the village as Sitt Halime – soon won the confidence of the villagers. It did not take long before she was received in their homes and became a frequent visitor to circumcisions, weddings and funerals.

A change of focus and the beginning of a conflict

After only a few days at Artas, Granqvist realized that it would be impossible to study the village from a biblical perspective. She decided to instead study the community on its own merits, focusing on marriage traditions and wedding rituals.

Gunnar Landtman strongly discouraged this unexpected change of events. In his view, Granqvist’s proposed study of marriage rituals was too empirical for a doctorate, and he doubted whether it would be accepted by the University of Helsinki. Landtman had clearly expected a project more limited in scope, a field study with the ultimate purpose of confirming the opinions of the established academic community, not a completely new field based on hitherto unknown material. Granqvist’s ideas were simply too new and too different for a Finnish university.

At a safe distance from Helsinki, and with enthusiastic support from the Westermarcks, Granqvist took no notice of Landtman’s warning and proceeded according to her own plan. A clash was inevitable.

The conflict was not only played out between Granqvist and her supervisor, but also between her new approach to academic research and the traditional approach practiced by senior professors at her alma mater. The professors represented an influential, male academic community against a single, female scholar. The chances of her winning the struggle were slender from the start.

One hundred years of marriage

Due to Edward Westermarck’s loyal support, Granqvist was able to find the courage to stand up to her supervisor. But she did not always agree with Westermarck, and she was not afraid of criticising the evolutionary tradition he represented. In her view, he went too far in his generalisations in the seminal work History of Human Marriage. While Westermarck told the story of marriage throughout the history of humankind, Granqvist chose to only study marriages in Artas, a village of no more than 500 inhabitants.

The method she developed at Artas did not only involve observations; she took an active part in the life of the community she observed. A few years earlier, the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski had used a similar field method in the Trobriand Islands. Malinowski is considered the first to have practiced the ground-breaking method of “participant observation”. Granqvist developed a similar approach in Palestine, but her work never gained the international recognition that Malinowski enjoyed.

Granqvist disliked generalisation. Instead, she did her best to describe everything she observed in minute detail. She collected comprehensive statistical data of every marriage in Artas as far back as the villagers could remember – which was more than 100 years. As a result, she was able to prove that theory differed considerably from reality. While previous scholars had come to the conclusion that marriages between cousins was the norm among Muslim peasants, Granqvist was able to show that it was in fact not as common as previously thought; at least not in Artas.

Granqvist was highly ambitious. Her study on marriages and wedding rituals was only the beginning; she went on to collect data on child births, circumcisions, childhood, child rearing, death and funerals until she had covered every aspect of the life cycle in Artas.

The use of photography

Granqvist was one of the first ethnologists to use photography in the field. There was no shortage of photographers working in the Holy Land in the 1920s, but where others chose biblical motifs, Granqvist photographed people and events that were relevant to her research. She took hundreds of photographs in Artas, most of them of women.

These photographs constituted an important part of her research. She paid a great deal of attention to detail, and she did not allow her subjects to pose in front of the camera. Instead of reducing the women to an exotic, anonymous decorative element, the way other photographers did, she included their names. Although Granqvist’s technical skills as a photographer did not come close to those of professional, her images form part of a unique collection that documents a Palestinian farming community in the 1920s.

Well informed depictions of the life of Artas women

Granqvist was well aware of how unique and valuable her research was. There was only one problem – she spoke little Arabic. Initially Sitt Louisa acted as her interpreter and translator, but Granqvist soon learned enough of the local dialect to be able to work independently. She also found a language tutor, and she made sure all her citations were checked by experts. This did not prevent others, especially her colleagues in Helsinki, to scoff at her use of Arabic. Today, her field notes are considered a valuable source of information about the Artas dialect.

Granqvist’s books about Artas were later criticized for using only unprocessed information without providing either analyses or conclusions, yet they were well received. Reviewers were especially positive about her innovative method and the unusual topic. These books could only have been written by a woman with access to the female domestic sphere, someone who was able to win the women’s confidence.

The women of Artas were not only study objects. Granqvist felt at home in the welcoming atmosphere and she found a family in Sitt Louisa and her two informants, Alya and Hamdiya.

Unsympathetic professors and a postponed doctorate

Granqvist left Palestine in February 1927 and returned to Helsinki. She felt that opposition against her research was growing within her department, and in early spring 1929 she described the situation as a “silent struggle” between her and the professor of oriental literature, Knut Tallqvist. She was looking forward to defending her dissertation, so she could return to Artas on a travel grant she had been awarded from the American Association of University Women.

Granqvist was therefore “completely crushed” when Gunnar Landtman in March 1929, after conferring with Knut Tallqvist, informed her that she would not be allowed to defend her dissertation because it was “purely descriptive” and the material was “uninteresting”.

In her despair, she turned to Edward Westermarck. He invited her to come and stay with him in London until the gentlemen in Helsinki came to their senses. She spent the spring of 1929 at the London School of Economics where she participated in Westermarck’s seminars and was able to discuss her research, both with other students and with “kings” like Malinowski.

The end of a friendship

Later that year Granqvist left London for Berlin where she after some deliberation accepted Leonhard Rost’s offer to translate her dissertation into German, “for old times’ sake”. It was a time-consuming job, but Rost never once complained about it. This meant that his letter dated November 23, 1929, came as a shock. In it Rost expressed his desire to be cited alongside Granqvist as a co-author. Granqvist was furious, and she broke with Rost. She decided to instead publish her dissertation in English to avoid the risk of Rost claiming shared ownership of the text.

The second journey to Palestine (1930–1931)

Political unrest and personal problems

The break with Rost was upsetting, and it was a relief to return to Palestine in January 1930. A lot had happened since Granqvist’s previous visit. Protests against an influx of Jewish immigrants were building up and sectarian violence was growing in intensity. Granqvist became involved in politics, and on one occasion she participated in a rally led by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

The situation at Artas was comparatively calm, and to Granqvist it was like coming home. She had collected most of her data during her first visit and was now able to settle down to work. She even had time to write academic papers as well as articles for newspaper in both Finland and Sweden. She also kept a detailed journal, illustrated with photographs, that she sent home to her mother and to Valter.

But she was not entirely at peace. Although still preoccupied with Leonhard Rost she found an even greater adversary in Aapeli Saarisalo. He was conducting research in northern Palestine, and during Granqvist’s absence he had begun to take an interest in Artas. He had even interviewed Louise Baldensperger about marriage rituals. Saarisalo was a new, dangerous competitor to worry about.

By spring 1930, Granqvist had still not received any information about whether she would be allowed to defend her dissertation at the University of Helsinki. The situation had become unbearable. She was torn between Edward Westermarck’s positive response and Knut Tallqvist’s scathing criticism, which was communicated to her through Landtman.

Support for the Swedish American Colony in Jerusalem

One welcomed distraction from Granqvist’s own problems was the dramatic disintegration of the American Colony in Jerusalem, a religious sect whose members mostly came from the village of Nås in the Swedish province of Dalarna. She had first read about them in Selma Lagerlöf’s novel Jerusalem, but in the autumn of 1930 Granqvist was presented with a completely different narrative via the photographer Lewis Larson, a former member of the sect.

Larson led a breakaway faction and was able to give evidence of abuse of power, double-dealing and an informant culture behind the impeccable façade. This new information did not tally with Selma Lagerlöf’s description of the group’s “ancient Christian message of love”. Granqvist felt compelled to dig deeper, and she began work on an article about the colony.

During the winter of 1930–1931, Granqvist was also able to make shorter trips to other parts of Palestine and neighbouring districts. At the end of December, she travelled by train to Egypt with her friends Signe Ekblad and Signe Weding. They spent three weeks visiting Cairo, Asyut, Luxor, Aswan and surrounding areas. It was a relaxing and productive trip, but Granqvist showed little enthusiasm for the ancient monuments. She was more interested in the bazars of Cairo and the Abu el-Haggag celebrations at Luxor.

A series of setbacks

A doctorate and a turned down lectureship

Granqvist returned to Finland in March 1931. After an agonizing wait over the winter, she finally gave up hope of being allowed to defend her dissertation in Helsinki. Through the intervention of Edward Westermarck, she was instead able to present Marriage Conditions in a Palestinian Village at Åbo Akademi on January 13, 1932. She only included the first four chapters – over 350 pages – of her comprehensive study. The remaining chapters were published in a second volume in 1935.

Her study won great acclaim, especially abroad, and Granqvist was looking forward to continuing her work. She focused on a lectureship at the University of Helsinki as it would provide both an income and continued research.

Granqvist knew that it would not be easy. Her previous application for a university grant at Helsinki was turned down because she had earned her doctorate at Åbo, so she clearly needed to present impeccable qualifications. She therefore began a paper on women and honour culture in Palestine, but she was never satisfied with the result. Parallel to this, she revised the vast body of research on child bearing and rearing that she had collected at Artas.

Granqvist took great pleasure in continuing to work with the material she had collected at Artas, but it generated no income. Then, in March 1933, a position that seemed to be made for her became available – a directorship at the teaching college for women at Ekenäs, which she herself had attended. She was understandably disappointed when the position was given to a less qualified candidate.

The struggle for a lectureship

Following the disappointment surrounding the directorship, Granqvist abandoned teaching in order to focus on her lectureship application. She published her two early papers on religious instruction, and she collected testimonials from internationally renowned scholars.

She finally submitted her application for a lectureship at the University of Helsinki at the end of February 1935. It was discussed intermittently at the historical-philological department for over a year. It was shelved time and time again, and it was passed round among the professors; no one wanted to deal with it.

One especially low point can be found in the minutes of one of these meetings at which Aapeli Saarisalo’s mentions Granqvist’s lack of Arabic language skills. Saarisalo was never officially asked to provide an opinion, but this did not prevent him from judging not only her language skills; he also put forward unfounded accusations of professional misconduct.

Granqvist’s supervisor, Gunnar Landtman, features prominently in her own notes from 1935. He had been making intimidating telephone calls requesting her to withdraw her application. She assumed that Knut Tallqvist was the man behind both Saarisalo’s and Landtman’s malice.

Finally, on February 1, 1936, after much arguing and many reservations, the historic-philological department cast their votes in favour of declaring Hilma Granqvist “academically competent for the lectureship in Sociology”. A week later she gave her inauguration lecture, which she passed with flying colours. Her case was then handed over to the Chancellor who would formally appoint her.

It had already been announced in the Helsinki newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet that Granqvist was now a docent when the Chancellor without any further explanation turned down the application. Hilma Granqvist was never to hold a lectureship at the University of Helsinki, nor at any other educational institution. Consequently, she never had any students that would have been able to continue her research.

The dark years 1936–1939

The struggle for the lectureship cast a shadow over 1935. The only consolation was an exhibition of Granqvist’s photographs from Artas at the Stockmann department store, which opened at Easter the same year. It was a great success, and several newspapers published feature articles about her extraordinary life and research. The same photographs were also exhibited at a conference at Göttingen in the autumn.

It was at Göttingen that Granqvist first became aware of the political developments in Germany. She was deeply shocked when witnessing the humiliation of some Jewish guests at a restaurant, and she was forced to reconsider her admiration for everything German.

Four years later, she heard Adolf Hitler speak at a rally in Munich. She neither defended nor condemned his message. Instead, she tried to understand how his mind worked and found parallels to the way the Israelites strove to maintain purity of their race in the biblical stories. Despite taking note of the posters with anti-Jewish slogans and realising that there were fewer Jewish shops than before, she never seriously considered the consequences of Hitler’s ideas about ethnic cleansing.

Two more sad events occurred at the end of the 1930s. Helena Westermarck passed away in 1938, and the following year Granqvist was informed about the death of Sitt Louisa.

Then, at long last, there was some good news: she had been awarded third prize in a popular science contest organized by the Swedish publishing house Åhlén & Söner. Her submission was based on her life and research at Artas. It was published in 1939 under the title Arabiskt familjeliv (Arabian Family Life).

Spending the Winter War with the Jerusalem Colony

The popularity of Arabiskt familjeliv encouraged Granqvist to continue to write for a more general audience. She set her scholarly articles aside and focused on her book about the Swedish religious community. The manuscript was one of only a few items she took with her when the Winter War broke out in Finland and she abruptly had to leave Helsinki. While war was going on, back in Sibbo she delved into her notes from Jerusalem.

The result was a major critique of Selma Lagerlöf’s novel Jerusalem. Granqvist found many errors related to the fact that Lagerlöf had failed to consider the religious and historical context. She also accused the author of adding an exotic “varnish”, “like on a painting”, to her narrative by modifying the characters. This was common among authors that were writing about the Holy Land, but it conflicted with Granqvist’s desire to portray each individual according to his or her own merits in order to show the rich variation of reality.

In the summer of 1940, Granqvist travelled to Nås in Dalarna where she interviewed relatives of the Jerusalem sect, so she could form an accurate opinion of them. On her way back to Finland she unsuccessfully tried to sell her alternative version of their story, Drömmare och fantaster i verklighet och dikt (Dreamers and Visionaries in Life and Fiction), to a number of publishing houses in Stockholm.

Palestine – a spiritual home (1941–1972)

Living with and writing about children

During the Continuation War in Finland, Granqvist remained in Helsinki working on the material she had collected on the children of Artas. It was divided into two volumes for the sake of clarity. Work proceeded slowly, and she had to take a break while volunteering at the evacuation of Sjundby Farm at Porkala after the 1944 armistice.

Times were hard in Finland after the war. Even Granqvist, who was used to a simple life, confessed to Signe Ekblad that they “lacked everything”. The problematic situation within the publishing industry was just as painful for her (especially when it came to books about Palestine). Birth and Childhood among the Arabs finally appeared in 1947, and Child Problems among the Arabs came three years later, both published by publishing house Söderströms. Children were very much part of Granqvist’s everyday life too, as her nephews and nieces gathered around her to hear stories about Palestine.

Palestine was constantly on Granqvist’s mind; she anxiously followed news reports on the war and the displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians following the proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948. She wrote extensively, gave talks about the fate of the Palestinians and she regularly sent part of her small income to Artas.

The last journey to Palestine

Granqvist returned to Palestine for the last time in the spring of 1959 with the help of a travel grant from the Elin Wägner Foundation. When she arrived in Jerusalem, she could hardly recognise the city as many houses, even entire blocks, were gone. The Jerusalem Colony was dissolved and the buildings they had occupied had been converted into a hotel. The modern world had arrived at Artas, which was now populated by a new generation of villagers. It was a sad return, only a few “old women” remembered her.

Granqvist was deeply shocked about the resignation and despair she encountered in the Palestinian refugee camps. In a radio broadcast soon after her return to Finland she expressed her dismay at the way people in Finland continued to close their eyes to the plight of the Palestinians.

During her last journey to Palestine, Granqvist worked on a book about death and burial traditions she called “The Book of Death”. She had not forgotten Saarisalo’s condemnation of her language skills, and she made sure that all her citations were checked by experts.

A peaceful existence

By late spring 1959, Granqvist was back in Helsinki, making slow progress on “The Book of Death”, which was finally published in 1965 as Muslim Death and Burial. It was to be her last book. She continued her research on honour traditions, but she often had to take a break due to ill health, and she never published her results. She had saved it to the very end because the material was incoherent, much of it relied on second-hand information and it was not of the same scholarly interest as her own material from Artas.

After Granqvist’s brother Valter sudden death during a business trip in 1960, she continued to live nextdoor to his family on Ulfsbyvägen in Helsinki. She shared her home with Dagmar Eklund, with whom she was able to enjoy visits to the cinema, good books and walks.

Death and legacy

Shelved book projects and hopes for a research student

At the end of her life, Granqvist organized her work notes, book manuscripts, letters and articles in second-hand office binders. It was a large archive. She planned to revise her journals from her visit to Palestine in 1930–1931 with a view to publication, and she selected photographs for a book. Both projects were abandoned, although several of the photographs she had selected were published after her death by Karen Seger.

In 1969, the Palestinian anthropologist Widad Kawar proposed a translation of Granqvist’s books into Arabic. She was flattered and pleased, but nothing came of it. The first Arabic translation of Marriage Conditions came as late as in 2015.

In 1970, Granqvist contacted the British anthropologist Shelagh Weir in connection with an exhibition of Palestinian costumes in London. They began a correspondence, and in early 1972 Weir was awarded a grant that enabled her to travel to Helsinki. At long last, Granqvist would be able to take on a research student. But time caught up with her yet again, and she died at home on February 25, 1972.

Shelagh Weir went over to Helsinki to help organise the archive that Granqvist had explicitly donated to science. Her books, field notes, photographs, manuscripts and work-related correspondence was transferred to the Palestine Exploration Fund in London. Her private correspondence and material in Swedish, which was deemed hard for foreign scholars to grasp, is now part of the collection of Åbo Akademi University Library.

No regrets

When Hilma Granqvist looked back at her life in old age she did so with a sense of satisfaction, despite all the setbacks. She never regretted the decision she made at Artas in 1925: to study the life in a Palestinian village from the inside and would have stayed longer if she had been able to afford it. Although only having spent a few years there, the village was always on her mind.

The Palestinian research was Granqvist’s calling. It gave her great pleasure, but also enemies, especially among colleagues that lacked the courage and the determination to stake out a new path and who jealously blocked every step of her academic career.

Granqvist’s research was in many ways unique and innovative. She quickly became aware of the importance of participating in the society she studied, and she was the first to focus on the lives of Palestinian women. By recording detailed statistical data, she was able to debunk old hypotheses and misconceptions, and she was able to prove that reality was very different from received knowledge about the community she studied.

Despite all this, Hilma Granqvist was soon forgotten in Finland. She became the unfortunate victim of a paradigm shift, which meant that instead of being saluted for her ground-breaking work, she became associated with Edward Westermarck and an obsolete school of thought. Among European scholars she was also often viewed as a representative of the bible-based ethnographic research she was so strongly opposed to.

But Granqvist has not been forgotten in Palestine where they still pay tribute to her memory. In Artas, as late as the 1980s, elderly villagers remembered a blonde Sitt Halime arriving over the hills from Bethlehem. War and occupation have rendered her comprehensive research of a disappearing community more important than she could ever have hoped for. This is why she is still respected and remembered in Palestine.

Hilma Granqvist was not interested in either status or fame. She was satisfied with having found her calling in her own corner of the world:

It was wonderful to have a village of my own, where I belonged, a corner of my own in the Holy Land. The intensity of feeling and novelty passes. But I still find pleasure in driving to Artas and being greeted by the first Artas men and Artas women I meet along the road. They are one’s friends. They are one’s own. I know their story.

(Journal entry, September 12, 1930)