Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Going Native
Amy dug her heels into the side of Laddie, the horse she was riding. Her long, dark brown hair streamed behind her as Laddie galloped along the pine-tree-lined trail. At first she hadn’t wanted to leave Bangalore, but now that she was out of the city it felt good to be free. She was almost looking forward to the change of climate at Kotagiri, a hillstation retreat three thousand feet up in the Nilgiri Hills, where English people liked to go to relax and get away from the monsoon rains that fell during April and May.
As she galloped ahead, Amy looked back at the rest of the party she was traveling with. The group had just rounded a corner and come into sight. And what a sight they were! Her three fellow missionaries were being carried in sedan chairs—chairs with long poles on either side that were carried on the shoulders of eight servants. Behind the sedan chairs came Saral, carrying a light load of clothing, and then twelve other servants, all big, strong men, and all laboring under the burden of a box or a trunk, the missionaries’ luggage. The servants were transporting everything from badminton rackets and nets to a matching set of folding chairs. Already, on the trip up to Kotagiri, Amy had passed one family with a piano being carried on a bullock cart, and another family with an iron bathtub among its vacation equipment.
Amy turned her attention back to the trail ahead. The procession behind her represented everything she didn’t like about India. It took thirty-six servants to transport four English people and all of their “necessary” belongings from Bangalore up to the hill station of Kotagiri so the missionaries could have some rest. Don’t the servants need rest a hundred times more than we do? Amy quizzed herself as she rode on. She longed to live life simply, free from morning and afternoon teas, handiwork circles, and cricket matches. She wanted to be free to reach out to Indian people. She wanted to get to know them as individuals and not just as servants. But how could she do this? She was an Englishwoman surrounded by Indian servants. The English weren’t supposed to treat Indians as anything other than servants.
As she rode along smelling the wonderful oils from the pine trees and listening with delight to the sounds of a thousand birds, she came up with an idea. Why not move in with an Indian family? After all, she could learn the Tamil language far more easily and get to know Indians much better if she lived among them. As she turned the idea over and over in her mind she could see only one problem, but it was a big problem. “Going native,” as identifying too closely with the local people was known in the missionary community, was greatly frowned upon. A person who went native was considered to be letting down the whole mission by giving up “civilized” English traditions. Such action was seen as nothing less than shunning Queen Victoria and the empire. Still Amy couldn’t get the idea out of her mind. But how could she make it work? What she needed was someone who was well respected in the English missionary community who would support her in her plan. The trouble was, Amy didn’t know anyone who thought living like a native was anything less than crazy.
Finally she arrived at Kotagiri, and straightaway she was in the middle of another problem. Problems seemed to follow Amy wherever she went. She just couldn’t get used to being an empire lady. Her problem this time was that Kotagiri was a favored destination for the English, including missionaries, precisely because there were so few Indians there. The Indians who were there were mostly servants who knew their place and kept well out of sight whenever possible. Amy had brought Saral with her, but she treated her not as a servant but as a friend and assistant, just like she’d treated Misaki San in Japan. Amy expected to share her room with Saral during her stay in Kotagiri, but the very idea was outrageous to the other English folk. Gossip quickly spread around Kotagiri that there was a small Irish upstart in town. People wanted to know who she thought she was, upsetting the whole social order of Kotagiri so she could have an Indian friend stay with her.
Finally, Amy gave in, and Saral stayed with the other servants. But the experience greatly disturbed Amy. It was not easy for her to see barriers between Christians. Yet her disappointment sparked in her the desire to someday find a way to break down such barriers.
While in Kotagiri, Amy continued to spend her six hours a day studying the Tamil language, just as she’d done in Bangalore. When she wasn’t studying, she would explore the surrounding hills with Saral. But as they explored, Amy began to find that walking long distances made her very tired. Her body was letting her down again. Since coming to India, her health had deteriorated, and most of her coworkers told her they didn’t think she’d last a year in India. Despite her weakened body, Amy was determined to build up her strength and prove them all wrong.
After several days in Kotagiri, Amy and Saral traveled on to another hill station called Ootacamund. The English called the place “Ooty.” (Some people who couldn’t afford to stay there called it “Snooty Ooty.”) Amy couldn’t wait to get to Ooty, not because she needed any more pampering by servants, but because there was going to be some Keswick-style meetings held there. One of the scheduled speakers was Thomas Walker, chairman of the Church Missionary Society in India, the society that oversaw the work of the Zenana Mission with whom Amy worked in Bangalore. Amy looked forward to hearing him speak. Everyone seemed to have something good to say about Thomas Walker. Actually, everyone referred to him as Iyer Walker, Iyer being an Indian term of respect. Iyer Walker was a veteran missionary and could speak the Tamil language better than most native Indians. He also knew more about the history of southern India than any other English person.
From all she’d heard about him, Amy thought she had a pretty good idea of what to expect as she made her way to the meeting where Iyer Walker was to speak. She imagined him to be elderly, perhaps a slightly younger version of Robert Wilson. Amy tucked her Tamil grammar book under her arm, just in case Iyer Walker turned out to be a boring speaker. That way, she could pass the time more usefully by studying her grammar.
Amy never opened the grammar book during the service, but her eyes were certainly opened. Iyer Walker was nothing like she’d imagined. He was a young man, about thirty-six years of age, only seven years older than Amy. He had jet black hair with not a hint of gray, and when he spoke, there was only one word to describe his speech—a very modern word—electrifying. Amy listened to everything he said, wondering how a man so young could be so wise. As she listened, in one corner of her mind, Amy had another thought. Maybe, just maybe, Iyer Walker was the person to convince to support her plan to live with an Indian family. Everything Amy wanted to do in India seemed to fit in with what Iyer Walker was saying in his address.
At the close of the meeting, Amy rushed forward to introduce herself to Iyer Walker. From his raised eyebrows, Amy could tell he’d already heard about her. It was hot and stuffy in the tent where the meeting was being held, and so Iyer Walker and his wife invited Amy to take a stroll with them in a nearby rose garden. After discussing the sermon topic for about ten minutes, Amy got up the courage to ask Iyer Walker her question. “Mr. Walker,” she began, her eyes looking down at the ground. “I’m trying to learn the Tamil language as quickly as I can, but I’m frustrated. I would like to learn faster. I think I could learn more if I lived in a mud hut with a Tamil family and talked to them all day in Tamil instead of English.” She looked up. Iyer Walker didn’t say anything. “What do you think?” she pressed him.
“You wouldn’t survive there for very long,” he said bluntly.
“I’d rather burn out in a Tamil house than rust out on a mission compound,” Amy replied defensively.
“That’s just what might happen to you,” Iyer Walker said without a trace of humor in his voice or on his face.
Amy couldn’t believe it. She’d thought Iyer Walker would agree with her. But instead he’d made rude comments about her plan. She decided she didn’t like him one bit. He had too many opinions! Things were not going at all as she had planned. Maybe, somewhere deep inside, Amy realized she’d met her match. Iyer Walker was just as stubborn and opinionated as she was. And they had one thing more in common, though neither of them knew it at the time. They were both about to make major decisions that would link them together in ministry for the rest of their lives.
Iyer Walker had been chairman of the Church Missionary Society in India since 1885, but he’d finally had enough. The job seemed to offer only endless paperwork and the occasional chance to speak at a conference. He knew the frustration Amy was feeling, though he didn’t tell her so at the time, perhaps because he was a senior missionary who wasn’t supposed to feel that way. Like Amy, he had come to India to live among the people, not to work in a stuffy office all day seeing mostly white faces. He was ready for a change.
By the end of the week, when the meetings in Ooty were over, Amy had softened some in her view of Iyer Walker. It was a good thing she had, because Iyer Walker made her an interesting offer. He could see Amy was not doing well with all the restrictions of a traditional missionary setting, so he asked her if she would like to come and live with him and his wife and learn the Tamil language from them. He would arrange everything with the Zenana Mission Society if she said yes. The longer Amy was away from Bangalore, the less she wanted to go back, so she agreed to move in with the Walkers. The day Amy moved into the Walkers’ home, Iyer Walker himself was moving out of his mission office. He had resigned as chairman. So the Walkers and Amy Carmichael both began new chapters of their lives on the same day.
Iyer Walker had long dreamed of having a band of evangelists who would travel throughout the Tirunelveli district of southern India. The Tirunelveli district was located in the center of the southern tip of India, about an equal distance inland from the Gulf of Mannar to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It was separated from the Arabian Sea by a range of high mountains called the Western Ghats. Iyer Walker had decided it was time to make his dream there a reality, so along with Amy, the Walkers moved into a small town in the district, called Pannaivilai.
By the end of July 1897, when they were finally settled into the simple bungalow that was their new home, Amy was well on her way to mastering the difficult Tamil language. The Walkers had proved to be good teachers.
During her first year living with the Walkers, Amy had come to realize that Iyer Walker was indeed just as stubborn as she was. The two of them came to an arrangement that allowed them to work together and tell each other what they were thinking without hurting the other’s feelings. This was a good thing, because they both had plenty to say to each other. Also during her first year in Pannaivilai, something happened that Amy would remember as a warning for the rest of her life. It involved a fifteen-year-old girl named Pappamal.
Pappamal lived in a nearby town called Palamcottah, the center for Christian activity in the region. Pappamal had heard the gospel message and had told Amy she wanted to become a Christian. Of course, this meant having to make a very difficult decision for everyone concerned. If Pappamal became a Christian, she would have to be smuggled away from her family because there was no doubt they would try to have her killed. It also would mean considerable hardship for the missionaries. With each conversion of a high-caste person, a wave of nasty persecution followed. The entire Hindu community would leave no stone unturned to make life difficult for the Christians. The people would force mission schools to close, vandalize churches, beat up missionaries, and file endless lawsuits. By helping Pappamal, the missionaries would be hurting themselves. Still, after the Christians at Palamcottah had weighed the situation, they decided that if Pappamal had the faith to “defect” from Hinduism, they would do whatever it took to keep her safe, regardless of the consequences.
It was decided that Amy would smuggle Pappamal away to Ooty, where an Indian woman who was a Christian would look after her. It was a dangerous journey as they tried to avoid people along the way. Thankfully, they both made it safely, and Amy was thrilled to have played a part in rescuing a girl from Hinduism. She decided such acts were what missionary life in India was about.
Meanwhile in Palamcottah, trouble was brewing. Once word got around that Pappamal had left her family and broken caste, hardly anyone would speak to the missionaries. Indian parents pulled their children out of school, while other Indians declared they would rather die than visit the medical clinic run by the missionaries.
Farther north in the mountains at Ooty, the Bible woman, as most Indian Christian women were normally called, was faithfully watching over Pappamal, watching a little too closely for Pappamal’s liking, as it turned out. One night the Bible woman was sure she had seen a man loitering around Pappamal’s window. The next morning she quizzed her, and a very different story from the one Pappamal had told the missionaries came tumbling out. No, she wasn’t a Christian, and she didn’t want to become one. What she wanted was to be married to a man from another caste. Of course, her parents would never allow it, so she and her boyfriend had come up with a plan. Pappamal would say she’d become a Christian and would escape from her house to be with the missionaries. The couple had hoped the missionaries would then smuggle her out of the area. So far their plan had worked perfectly. Once Pappamal was out of the area, her boyfriend would declare himself to be a Christian also, and then they would get married. But that part of their plan was not going to work, not if the Bible woman had anything to say about it! She was furious that Pappamal and her boyfriend had, for selfish reasons, endangered the lives and the work of missionaries in and around Palamcottah. She sent a message to Pappamal’s father right away, telling him he could come and get his Hindu daughter. Pappamal’s father sent a return message saying he didn’t want to see his daughter anymore. But the Bible woman would not give up. She marched Pappamal all the way back to Palamcottah herself and left her sitting on her father’s doorstep.
Returning Pappamal didn’t end matters, however. Pappamal’s parents filed a lawsuit against the missionaries, claiming, because Pappamal was under sixteen years of age, that they had “seduced” a minor. Pappamal herself filed another lawsuit against the missionaries, claiming she had been kidnapped by them and held against her will. The whole mess took more than a year and a lot of time in court to straighten out. Some Hindus never forgave the missionaries for their “seduction” and “kidnapping” and kept their children well out of reach of the Christians.
Amy watched as the whole situation unfolded. She was amazed at how easily she and many others had been taken in by a trick. How did it happen? She asked herself over and over. As she thought about it, something inside her told her it wouldn’t be the last trick that would be played on her. She decided that in the future, she had better keep her eyes open and her wits about her.