Background

Robert Brainerd Ekvall was born on February 18, 1898, in Gansu, China, where his parents David Paul and Helen (Galbraith) Ekval were missionaries. Ekvall had a sister. His father and his uncle, Martin Ekvall, were the first Christian and Missionary Alliance missionaries in Tibet. After his father’s death on May 18, 1912, Helen Ekvall returned with her children to the United States.

Education

Ekvall was schooled at home by his parents on the China-Tibet border until 1912. From 1913 to 1916 he studied at Wilson Memorial Academy (now Wilson Memorial High School). He obtained his bachelor's degree in 1920 from Wheaton College, and graduated in 1922 from the Missionary Training Institute. Ekvall later did graduate study in anthropology from 1937 to 1938 at the University of Chicago.

Career

Ekvall's career began in 1920, when he became an administrative worker for Western Electric in Chicago for a year. In 1923 he became a missionary teacher and school administrator in China and Tibet, serving through 1941. He served in Indochina as an intern from 1941 to 1943, and then joined the United States Army, serving in Burma and China through 1951. Ekvall joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1951, was recalled to military service in 1953, serving as an interpreter at the truce negotiations in Korea with the Military Armistice Commission, and at the Asian Conference in Geneva. He retired from the Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1958.

Ekvall then became a research fellow and chair of the Inner Asian Research Project for the University of Washington. In 1965 he began to serve as a curator of Asian Ethnology for the Thomas Burke Memorial Museum there. He retired from the University of Washington in 1973.

During his career, Ekvall published fourteen books, including Gateway to Tibet (1938, his first book); Cultural Relations on the Kansu-Tibetan Border (1939); Tibetan Voices (1946); Religious Observances in Tibet: Patterns and Function (1964); The Younger Brother Don Yod: A Tibetan Play Translated (1969, with Norbu, brother of the Dalai Lama); The Lama Knows: A Tibetan Legend Is Born (1979); and his last book, Tibetan Pilgrimage (1987, with James F. Downs). Ekvall contributed numerous essays to anthologies and journals, including Ethnology, Western World and Journal of Asian Studies.

Achievements

• Ekvall is best remembered for his numerous missionary and scholarly works on Tibetan culture, including the most popular of them titled Religious Observation in Tibet: Pattern and Function, Fields On the Hoof: Nexus of Tibetan Nomadic Pastoralism, The Lama Knows/ A Tibetan Legend is Born, and a novel, Tents Against the Sky.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Religious Observances In Tibet

    (Patterns and Function; This book is an attempt to bring t...)

    1964
  • The Lama Knows

    (A Tibetian Legend Is Born)

    1980
  • Gateway to Tibet

    (The Kansu-Tibetan Border)

    1938
  • Tents against the sky

    (A novel of Tibet)

    1954
  • The Younger Brother Don Yod

    (A Tibetan Play)

    1969
  • Tibetan Skylines 1976
  • Cultural Relations on the Kansu-Tibetan Border 1939
  • Tibetan Voices 1946

Personality

Ekvall was fluent in Chinese, Tibetan and French.

Connections

Ekvall was married to M. Elizabeth Fischer on October 26, 1921. After Elizabeth’s death in 1940, he married Eva Kunfi. Ekvall had three children - David, Erik and Karin.

Father:

David Paul Ekvall

Mother:

Helen (Galbraith) Ekvall

1-st wife:

M. Elizabeth Fischer

Son:

David Ekvall

Son:

Erik Ekvall

Daughter:

Karin Ekvall

2-nd wife:

Eva Kunfi