Editor: Khaled an Nashef.

 

The Tawfik Canaan collection of Palestinian amulets was bequeathed to Birzeit University by members of the Canaan family in 1995. The collection was protected and sheltered for decades since 1948 and only selected specimens, curated by Gisele Helmecke, were shown publicly for the first time during that exhibition.

The Tawfik Canaan collection of Palestinian Amulets is a testimony to the authenticity and evidence of the richness of Palestinian heritage: the collection echoes a web of interrelated aspects of folk beliefs and social customs. Dr. Canaan acquired the first amulet in the year 1905 and the last one in 1947. It offers a complex scope of narrative data, re-anchoring the fragmented glimpses of the past which Palestinians have brutally lost, and thus shedding light on the issue of identity and assertion of historical and political rights.

Vera Tamari writes in her introduction of the book: " Amulets and talismans are in the minds of many people merely as objects of superstition, fetishes that simple folk resorted to in solving health ailments or as remedies for social or psychological problems. Dr. Tawfik Canaan viewed the amulets differently; he probed and asked questions related to their value as a source of knowledge in the interpretation of the traditions and beliefs of his own people. His impressive collection comprised almost 1400 amulets and other related objects."