Maria Elisabeth Heyde, née Hartmann, (19 April 1837 in

Paramaribo Paramaribo (; ; nicknamed Par'bo) is the capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 241,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname's ...

- 6 April 1917 in

Schönebeck Schönebeck (), officially Schönebeck (Elbe), is a town in the district of Salzlandkreis, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the left bank of the Elbe, approx. southeast of Magdeburg. For much of the twentieth century it was noted ...

) was a Surinamese-born German missionary, diarist and translator.

Life

Heyde was the daughter of Johann Gottlieb Hartmann and

Maria Hartmann Maria (sometimes Marie) Lobach Hartmann (11 December 1798 – 30 December 1853) was a German-born Moravian missionary in Suriname. Maria Lobach ( Sorbian: ''Marija Lobakojc'') was born to a Sorbian family in Turnow, Lower Lusatia. She married ...

, German Moravian missionaries who were based in Suriname. At the age of seven, the family moved to Germany, where Maria attended the Moravian Brethren boarding school in Kleinwelka. After finishing her studies she began a post teaching at the same school. At the age of 22, Heyde travelled to Tibet (now northern India) with missionary August Wilhelm Heyde, whom she married in

Kyelang Kyelang (also spelled Keylong) is a town and the administrative centre of the Lahaul and Spiti district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, north of Manali via Atal Tunnel and from the Indo-Tibetan border. It is located along the Mana ...

, in Lahaul province, now

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...

in November 1859. The couple settled in Kyelang and raised a family with three children (four had died). Frequently alone with the locals, with her husband off on long missionary journeys, Heyde learned to speak and write in Tibetan. She documented her life in her diaries, writing about her husband's travels, local customs and agricultural practices, and a knitting school which she established for girls. She taught the girls how to weave and knit, and enforced a strong code of personal hygiene. She returned to Germany with her husband in 1893 after a 44-year period in Tibet, and translated two books of Moses into Tibetan. After the death of her husband, she relocated to

Gnadau Gnadau is a village and a former municipality in the district Salzlandkreis, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 September 2010, it is part of the town Barby. It was founded as a settlement of the Moravian Church , image = AgnusDeiWindow.jpg , ...

to live near her son Paul's family, and died on 6 April 1917 at his home in

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heyde, Maria 1837 births 1917 deaths Protestant missionaries in Tibet German Christian missionaries German diarists German women diarists German people of the Moravian Church German translators German women writers Writers from Paramaribo Surinamese women writers Missionary linguists People related to Lahaul and Spiti district