Hedvig Posse
Hedvig Posse (8 August 1861 – 22 December 1927) was a Swedish missionary in South Africa, linguist and hymn writer.[1] She was one of the “most prominent translators and recorders of Zulu music and oral history”, who translated number of stories, fairy tales and poetries from Zulu to Swedish.[2] With the "aim of replacing traditional songs with Christian texts", she also translated Swedish hymns into Zulu.[3]
Biography
Born on 8 August 1861 in Stockholm, Sweden, Hedvig Posse was the daughter of Swedish well-known author Betty Ehrenborg-Posse and his wife Baron Johan August Posse, who was a lawyer and parliamentarian.[3] She didn’t receive any formal education, but was privately taught by a tutor at her home. In 1887, she applied to Svenska Kyrkans Missions (SKM), expressing her interest to be a missionary in South Africa. Between 1887 and 1897, she worked at Oscarberg's mission station, located at Rorke's Drift, in the northern part of Natal province (now called as KwaZulu-Natal). Her assignments included teaching Zulus in schools.[1]
Her good economic standing helped her to take independent decisions in terms of initiating different activities including the building of a health centre, called as Bethany Mission Hospital, at Dundee Coalfields, coal town in Natal.[4] Her involvement in healthcare was considered as a pioneering work of missionaries at that time, which later became part of SKM.[1] She was trained at the Huguenot Seminarium in Wellington, South Africa (Now part of Huguenot College), a specialized training institute for female missionaries. She briefly served at the North American mission station of Inanda.[3]
During her service as a missionary, she involved in documentation and translation of Zulu songs, producing water-colour paintings, taking photography and building houses for the locals.[1][5]
She was 66 years old when she died in Uppsala on 22 December 1927.[3]
References
- ^ a b c d Holtrop, P. N. (13 January 2011). Mission Revisited: Between Mission History and Intercultural Theology In Honer of Pieter N. Holtrop. Berlin: LIT Verlag Münster. p. 121. ISBN 978-3-643-90038-8. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
- ^ Záhořík, Jan (8 July 2022). Histories of Nationalism beyond Europe: Myths, Elitism and Transnational Connections. London: Springer Nature. p. 21. ISBN 978-3-030-92676-2. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
- ^ a b c d "Hedvig Amalia Posse". skbl.se. Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
- ^ Holtrop 2011, p. 122.
- ^ Swantz, Marja-Liisa (2002). Beyond the Forestline: The Life and Letters of Bengt Sundkler. Leominster, UK: Gracewing Publishing. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-852-44560-0. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
