around the hut gathered a crowd
the Englishman had made them proud
by taking an Indian wife.
what kinda man he could be
a white skin yet unhesitatingly
embraced a native's life.
they viewed him with awe
to his kin a flaw
living and loving in a thatched house.
he was a bishop's son
that made an alien land his own
and Kosibai, a Gond woman, his spouse.
Verrier Elwin (1902-1964), one of the rare European anthropologists to assimilate into non-European society in order to have a thorough understanding of the other peoples. An Oxford-educated theologian turned anthropologist, born into the family of a clergyman, Elwin joined the Christian Service Society mission to India in 1927. In the course of his proselytising, he converted himself to an ‘Indian’.
Gond, tribal hill people of central India.