Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
For serious historical scholarship on the Sherpas and mountaineering, see Sherri Ortner's book, Life and Death on Mt. Everest: Sherpas and Mountaineering.
Ortner is fluent in the Sherpa language.
The Sherpas were dead, two more victims of an attempt to scale Mt. Everest. Members of a French climbing expedition, sensitive perhaps about leaving the bodies where they could not be recovered, rolled them off a steep mountain face. One body, however, crashed to a stop near Sherpas on a separate expedition far below. They stared at the frozen corpse, stunned. They said nothing, but an American climber observing the scene interpreted their thoughts: Nobody would throw the body of a white climber off Mt. Everest.
For more than a century, climbers from around the world have journeyed to test themselves on Everest's treacherous slopes, enlisting the expert aid of the Sherpas who live in the area. Drawing on years of field research in the Himalayas, renowned anthropologist Sherry Ortner presents a compelling account of the evolving relationship between the mountaineers and the Sherpas, a relationship of mutual dependence and cultural conflict played out in an environment of mortal risk.
Ortner explores this relationship partly through gripping accounts of expeditions--often in the climbers' own words--ranging from nineteenth-century forays by the British through the historic ascent of Hillary and Tenzing to the disasters described in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. She reveals the climbers, or "sahibs," to use the Sherpas' phrase, as countercultural romantics, seeking to transcend the vulgarity and materialism of modernity through the rigor and beauty of mountaineering. She shows how climbers' behavior toward the Sherpas has ranged from kindness to cruelty, from cultural sensitivity to derision. Ortner traces the political and economic factors that led the Sherpas to join expeditions and examines the impact of climbing on their traditional culture, religion, and identity. She examines Sherpas' attitude toward death, the implications of the shared masculinity of Sherpas and sahibs, and the relationship between Sherpas and the increasing number of women climbers. Ortner also tackles debates about whether the Sherpas have been "spoiled" by mountaineering and whether climbing itself has been spoiled by commercialism.
|
|
klk
Trad climber
cali
|
|
For serious historical scholarship on the Sherpas and mountaineering, see Sherri Ortner's book, Life and Death on Mt. Everest: Sherpas and Mountaineering.
i'm familiar with ortner's work, although i don't know her well, personally.
the work is ethnographic rather than historical. not a bad thing, but that means that it tries to give a mostly synchronic snapshot of sherpa culture at a given time. in this case, sherpa culture at more or less the period in which she did most of her fieldwork several decades ago.
because of the difficulties posed by language, and the problems with archival sources, we are a long, long way off from having any sort of historical work on the everest region that approaches the sort of scholarship we routinely write on the alps or even on east asia.
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
That there are no archives is all a part of the inequality of the relationship. Sherpa is an unwritten language so all we have are ethnographic interviews based on memories from the Sherpa side and the well publicized western accounts of the past 100 years.
|
|
10b4me
Ice climber
Happy Boulders
|
|
Ortner also tackles debates about whether the Sherpas have been "spoiled" by mountaineering and whether climbing itself has been spoiled by commercialism.
No doubt in my mind that climbing Everest has been spoiled by commercialism
|
|
klk
Trad climber
cali
|
|
That there are no archives is all a part of the inequality of the relationship. Sherpa is an unwritten language so all we have are ethnographic interviews based on memories from the Sherpa side and the well publicized western accounts of the past 100 years.
indeed-- historical research in peripheral and colonial areas, and especially for folks not well-represented in state archives, is extraordinarily difficult. and it gets even tougher when even the literature based on the regional activities of the major states is also thin-- very few sinologists work on that portion of china, for instance. and the south asian literature, which can be very rich, is mostly focused farther south. a history of the everest region, to be comparable in coverage to the sort of history we'd expect for, say, the alps, would require someone competent in mandarin, hindi, english, german, and french as reading languages, and some familiarity with a variety of local, spoken languages and cultural traditions. and that's assuming one could even get into the chinese archives.
i was trying to point that out for an audience unfamiliar with the literature.
i suppose a climbing analogy might work better-- the difference between writing histories of the everest region and writing histories of the alps is a bit like the difference between free-climbing on el cap and trying to free climb on a bad part of baffin.
|
|
thirsty
climber
|
|
I reject the commercialization of climbing despite its financial benefits to various overseas locals who don’t have much money and local climbers who don’t have much enthusiasm for other work. I think that one positive thing the whole climbing community could do is to vocally embrace the ethic that climbing isn’t really climbing if you aren’t self-sufficient. A guided climb is like hiring a prostitute but worse, because sex without love might not be ideal, but it can satisfy some natural appetites, whereas climbing without making your own decisions (as an individual or as part of a team that may have more experienced members) only falsely satisfies a vanity ego drive. There will always be room for instructional work teaching people techniques they might use in doing their own climbs. I have done a good amount of guiding myself, justifying taking people up peaks at the end of several days of technical instruction by telling myself and them that the ascents were also instructional, seeing how things unfolded and what decisions were made. However, at this point, I don’t think that justification flies. There are too many clients who are not aiming for their own accents and who think they have climbed something when they were guided. There are too many guides selling ascents rather than instruction. I advocate land managers and the climbing community coming together to reject guided ascents and for-profit organizations. I support non-profits with a focus on stewardship and instruction being allowed use of those public land resources. I support the instructional / guiding community structuring courses so as to eliminate peak ascents, although partial climbs could still be done with a focus on breaking down what you are doing and why rather than reaching any particular point on a route, although that will obviously be the focus when the clients go off to do their own real climbing. (I would also ask all the organizations and individuals to reject tipping, as it perverts education and instruction into a service.) I understand that some organizations that focus more on personal growth than high end technical alpinism or high altitude mountaineering use ascents as a component in the process as an achievement in learning how to push oneself, work with others, etc… That’s fine and great for routes of a pitch or two or three, but from what I have seen, once you move those groups to bigger mountain objectives where you have to bring in a cadre of guides to get them to the top, the participants are taking responsibility for a lot less and it is just an endurance event for them. It sells courses, but I don’t think it actually contributes that much to the core goals and purpose of those courses.
|
|
G Zeus
Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
|
|
You could have stated your opinion without disparaging sex workers.
|
|
Deekaid
climber
|
|
Paragraphs, man, paragraphs.
Looks interesting but too hard to read.
|
|
Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
|
|
What of the Maoist influence in the Solo Kumbu and their extractions form the local guides and porters?
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
^^^ Unless you are trolling I don't believe the Maoists operated there in
any meaningfull manner. I'm sure Jan will put us right.
|
|
Amber.C
climber
|
|
You might not have all the facts wrong coz, but that's a pretty selective interpretation of them.
Let's try this on for size:
If I were climbing on a steep face without a rope and someone who is roped up pushed me or otherwise touched me, you can bet some I'd have some choice words for them, especially if my biggest infraction was stepping gingerly over top of the leader's rope while he was above me climbing. While I've made a choice to be ropeless on the face, my life is literally at stake from the slightest mistake, and you want to push me? Cultural differences be damned, you can bet I'm going to swear at you.
Now imagine you're on some route like Liberty Ridge or V-Notch here in the states. A guided party is doing there thing, taking up the route, and you are soloing. It's a wide ridge and you can climb parallel and at a distance, but near the exit you have to step over the leader's rope. You do so, after having made sure all along that you minimize the other group's exposure to falling ice. For this interference, someone tries to push you off the face. And then, when you get down, the leader and 99 of his buddies assault you. That sound cool to you?
I have to imagine everyone here has, at some point, stepped over a leader's rope near the belay to do some variation, to pass, or what have you. And most of you who have climbed in the mountains on ice know that falling ice is part of the gig; you expect people to be careful about hitting you with ice, and you appreciate people who go far out of their way to avoid hitting you. And when they have to climb over top of you, you hope they're not over top of you when you're leading, and you hope they're careful. Sounds to me like exactly what these guys did (in my equally selective interpretation of the facts as coz), and they got sh#t for it. Doesn't make much sense to me.
|
|
Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
|
|
there are a number of things that are becoming clear in this incident.
1. Setting the ropes on the face is dangerous work. All the expeditions on the mountain had a meeting to assure that the sherpa involved would not have to worry about others around them, so they could concentrate on their work.
All expeditions agreed to this.
2. The three were informed of this as they climbed, and asked to turn around by both westerners and sherpa.
3. The three ignored these safety measures.
4. The three crossed over above the sherpa team, and dislodged ice that hit a sherpa, causing the sherpa team to retire for the day.
5. The three took ropes that did not belong to them, and fixed them in place to camp 3, in an action that took over the function of the sherpa team, without permission of other expeditions.
6. On open radio lines, the three radioed challenges to fight, to sherpa, laced with profanity, and demanded a meeting with sherpa.
7. While surrounded by a hundred sherpa, the three proceeded to insult and demean the sherpa.
8. violence erupted.
9. The three were protected by 3-4 people, one of which I know personally, so I look forward to a FIRST HAND objective account.
I don't know what the current standard is, but I'd be surprised if anyone here had someone climb above them in dangerous conditions, when asked not to, dislodged missiles that came down and injured your party, and would not aggressively assert themselves.
Is it because Sherpa are lesser people that they should not respond the same way?
|
|
klk
Trad climber
cali
|
|
ken, as i understand it, numbers 1, 2 and 3 are apparently not settled. certainly one possible outcome from this is that no one will ever again be allowed to go to c3 until the official sherpa team has finished rope fixing for the commercial expeditions.
chad kellogg's blog:
http://www.explorersweb.com/kellogg7/
and a partial, eng. lang. version of the russian team's view:
http://www.explorersweb.com/kellogg7/
|
|
Amber.C
climber
|
|
What is becoming clear is that some people are reading one account and drawing conclusions from it.
If you read only Steck or Moro's accounts, they seem to be completely reasonable people who were unduly assaulted for doing nothing.
If you read only the account from Alan Arnette's blog (the letter from AAI, which is "the sherpa's view") you think these guys are ass holes who knew what they were doing, endangered everyone, sh#t on Nepalese culture and then threw punches to round it all out.
If you actually read multiple accounts, it's not at all clear who is at fault, and blanket assertions like those made by Ken seem rather silly. Many of those things you think are "becoming clear" are actively disputed and are not at all clear.
|
|
Amber.C
climber
|
|
klk, both your links go to Kellogg's story. Is there a link to the Russian one that you can share?
|
|
abrams
Sport climber
|
|
Seriously the Nepalese are not like us wimpy westerners. Just a few weeks
ago in Katmandu men, women and children ran out of they homes in mass to attack a Himalayan mountain leopard that crept into town for breakfast.
They did not run away. They ran towards it. Many got clawed and bitten. Police trying to clear the melee for a clear shot also got shredded.
And after the leopard was dead. Did they just shake hands and calmly go home letting animal control dispose of the dead cat? Of course not!
In Katmandu the still screaming mob drags the leopard through the streets where everyone gets a chance to kick, stomp and punch the f%ck out of the dead animal.
warning graphic images
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2306999/Police-shoot-dead-leopard-attacked-9-people-suburbs-Kathmandu.html
|
|
TYeary
Social climber
State of decay
|
|
Ken, it will be interesting reading for sure.
Klk, "certainly one possible outcome from this is that no one will ever again be allowed to go to c3 until the official sherpa team has finished rope fixing for the commercial expeditions." Wouldn't be surprised. That won't bode well for those wishing to climb in fast, lightweight style, under their own steam.Chad's blog was insight full for sure.
TY
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!