Tawfiq Canaan and Gustav Dalman: German Orientalism and the Native Informant

Canaan was influenced both by German Orientalism as well as by the work of Gustaf Dalman, the Lutheran theologian and ethnographer.Dalman also relied extensively on Canaan's research but treated him largely as his native informant.This essay attempts to show how Canaan's ethnography evolved in a different direction to Dalman's as well as those of his contemporary European scholars associated with the Palestine Exploration Fund.Canaan learned from Dalman how to treat biblical parallels with caution and skepticism.His examination of peasant lore weighed these practices -from building to herbal medicine to religious beliefs and practices -in terms of their own internal logic as a reflection of a society "in transition" to modernity.As for his political frame of mind, Canaan was distinctly opposed to Dalman's notion of Germany's manifest destiny in the Arab East and, most likely, he abhorred the use of aerial photography and ethnography to further the aims of German imperial plans for Palestine.