Thick resistance: Death and the cultural construction of agency in Himalayan mountaineering

Representations

Volumn 59, Issue , 1998, Pages 135-162

  Ortner, Sherry B ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0002020944     PISSN: 07346018     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/rep.1997.59.1.99p0028q     Document Type: Review

References (83)

1. Mike Thompson, "Risk," Mountain 73 (1980): 44-46, 45
2. Sahib is a Hindi term meaning "boss" or "master," or (in address) "sir." Until about the 1970s, the Sherpas used it to both refer to and address the international climbers. The fact that they stopped is part of another piece of this story. But I will continue to use it here as it signals the lingering colonial influence, and the continuing inequality, of the climber-Sherpa relationship, despite the Sherpas' best efforts
3. See Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley, and Sherry B. Ortner, eds., introduction to Culturel Power/History: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory (Princeton, 1994)
4. Clifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System," in The Interpretation of Cultures (1966; reprint, New York, 1973), 125
5. Clifford Geertz, After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist (Cambridge, 1995), 43
6. Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theater State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (Princeton, 1980)
7. For an overview of these and other developments within the context of anthropology, see Sherry B. Ortner, "Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties," Comparative Studies in Society and History 26, no. 1 (1984): 126-66
8. Dirks, Eley, and Ortner, Culture/Power/History
9. Edward M. Said, Orientalism (New York, 1979)
10. E.g., Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, vol. 1, trans. Michael Hurley (New York, 1978)
11. Said, Orientalism, 3
12. Sherry B. Ortner, Sex and Death on Mount Everest (manuscript in progress)
13. Clifford Geertz, "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight," in Interpretation of Cultures
14. Thompson ("Risk," 45) talks about how risk is central to what he calls "the aesthetics of high standard mountaineering." See also Richard G. Mitchell, Mountain Experience: The Psychology and Sociology of Adventure (Chicago, 1983), 156-58; Mitchell tries to distingush between difficulty and danger as motivators in mountaineering and argues that most mountaineers seek the former but not the latter. I was not entirely persuaded by his discussion
15. Bruce Barcott, "Cliffhangers: The Fatal Descent of the Mountain-Climbing Memoir," Harper's, August 1996, 65
16. Thompson ("Risk," 45) questions the idea that the Sherpas have been in it largely for the money. I disagree with him on this point but must reserve discussion for another context
17. As I was working on the first draft of this paper in 1995, the death on K2 of Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen, was reported on the radio; as I was working on the second draft in 1996, I heard about the Everest disaster with which I opened the paper
18. Doug Scott, in "Himalayan Climbing: Part Two of a Personal Review," Mountain 101 (1985): 32, complained about the lack of good information on Himalayan climbing accidents: "Magazine editors have a responsibility to publish details and statistics of accidents as well as success[es] so we would all know what to expect."
19. Arlene Blum, Annapurna: A Woman's Place (San Francisco, 1980), 20
20. Jon Fleming and Ronald Faux, Soldiers on Everest: The Joint Army Mountaineering Association-Royal Nepalese Army Mount Everest Expedition, 1976 (London, 1977), 40
21. Stacy Allison with Peter Carlin, Beyond the Limits: A Woman's Triumph on Everest (Boston, 1993), 206
22. Patrick Morrow, Beyond Everest: Quest for the Seven Summits (Camden East, Can., 1986), 63
23. Claudia Glenn Dowling, "Death on the Mountain," Life, August 1996, 42
24. James F. Fisher, Sherpas: Reflection on Change in Himalayan Nepal (Berkeley, 1990), 146
25. Jim Carrier, "Gatekeepers of the Himalaya," National Geographic, 6 December 1992, 82
26. Chris Bonington, The Everest Years: A Climber's Life (New York, 1987), 246
27. Gabriel Chevalley, René Dittert, and Raymond Lambert, Avant-premières à l'Everest (n.p., 1953), 162, my translation. A brief note on Sherpa names (one could write a whole essay on the subject): Sherpas usually (but not always) have two "first" names (like Mingma Dorji), of which the first (here, Mingma) is usually the day of the week on which the person was born (Mingma means Tuesday) and the second is a more personal name. In addition, some Sherpa children have Ang, which means child, attached to their names, and it may stick with them when they grow up (like Ang Norbu, in the case of this quote). Sherpas do not traditionally have family or "last" names, although in urban or international settings they will normally use Sherpa as a last name, except for members of the Lama clan, who use Lama. And finally, the sahbs often - and not entirely surprisingly - confuse the situation further in their writings, so that it is impossible to know whether the Mingma on expedition A is the same as the Mingma on expedition B, not to mention whether he is the same as a certain Ang Mingma or Mingma Norbu on expedition C. The usage I follow for Sherpa names, then, is to use the full set of names provided in any given text, or by the individual in question
28. Captain John Noel, The Story of Everest (New York, 1927), 157. This is not to say that the sahbs were not remorseful about the Sherpa deaths. That is a separate issue
29. Paul Bauer, Kangchenjunga Challenge (London, 1955), 137, 155
30. Kenneth Mason, Abode of Snow: A History of Himalayan Exploration and Mountaineering (London, 1955), 199. I make no effort to sort the sahbs by ethnicity. The ethnic factor will be considered in Ortner, Sex and Death
31. Bauer, Kangchenjunga Challenge, 157
32. Paul Bauer, "Nanga Parbat," Himalayan Journal 11 (1939): 103
33. Klaus Becker Larsen quoted in Walt Unsworth, Everest: A Mountaineering History (Bos-ton, 1981), 253
34. Reinhold Messner, Everest: Expedition to the Ultimate, trans. Audrey Salkeld (New York, 1979)
35. Ronald Faux, High Ambition: A Biography of Reinhold Messner (London, 1982); Unsworth, Everest: A Mountaineering History, 470; San Francisco Chronicle, 16 June 1978, 25
36. Brigadier-General Charles Granville Bruce, The Assault on Mount Everest, 1922 (New York, 1923), 76
37. Chris Bonington, Everest the Hard Way (New York, 1976), 78
38. Messner, Everest: Expedition to the Ultimate, 86
39. There is of course some variation in Sherpa's reactions. Many probably do react more strongly to the deaths of other Sherpas than to the deaths of sahbs, but Sherpas in general are also famous for forging close personal relations with at least some sahbs on expeditions and some may react as strongly to the death of a sahb they have come to feel close to as to the death of a Sherpa
40. Ortner, fieldnotes, August 1990. At the time of this interview with him he was climbing again but still wanting to stop
41. Blum, Annapurna, 83
42. Ortner, fieldnotes, August 1990
43. Ortner, fieldnotes, Fall 1979
44. For similar arguments about the Tibetans vis-à-vis British Orientalism, see Peter H. Hansen, "The Dancing Lamas of Everest: Cinema, Orientalism, and Anglo-Tibetan Relations in the 1920s," American Historical Review 101, no. 3 (1996): 712-47
45. Sherry B. Ortner, "Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal," Comparative Studies in Society and History 37, no. 1 (1995): 173-93
46. These points are worked out more fully in my article "Making Gender: Toward a Feminist, Minority, Postcolonial, Subaltern, etc., Theory of Pratice," in Sherry B. Ortner, Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture (Boston, 1996)
47. Foucault of course said this too but never developed the point
48. Sherry B. Ortner, Sherpas Through Their Rituals (Cambridge, 1978)
49. See also Vincanne Adams, Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas: An Ethnography of Himalayan Encounters (Princeton, 1996), on the centrality of this structure
50. John Blofeld, The Way of Power: A Practical Guide to the Tantric Mysticism of Tibet (London, 1970)
51. Sherry B. Ortner, High Religion: A Cultural and Political History of Sherpa Buddhism (Princeton, 1989)
52. Ortner, Sex and Death
53. Ortner, High Religion
54. Alexander W. Macdonald, "The Lama and the General," Kailash: A Journai of Himalayan Studies 1, no. 3 (1973): 230
55. Noel, Story of Everest, 160. It is difficult to know, without seeing it, whether the mural meant what Noel thought it meant. In standard Tibetan Buddhist iconography, there is often a naked, human-looking figure being trampled under the foot of a god in his ferocìōus (takbu) aspect, but the naked figure in such cases is normally said to represent a demon being subdued by the god. (Why demons are represented in human form in these contexts is another question.) But Noel's interpretation is not implausible either
56. Tenzing Norgay, Tiger of the Snows (New York, 1955), 24
57. Tenzing was a very religious man, but seems to have held little affection for the monastic establishment and the high lamas. He was sent to Tengboche monastery as a boy, but a monk hit him on the head and he ran away (18). After the Everest triumph, he was approached by monks for a large donation to their monastery, but he refused and turned over some of his earnings to some sort of community fund instead (99)
58. w8. See M. S. Kohli, Nine atop Everest: Story of the Indian Ascent (Bombay, 1969), 102
59. Rick Ridgeway, The Boldest Dream: The Story of the Twelve Who Climbed Mount Everest (London, 1979); I also recorded many cases of Sherpas seeking divinations before expeditions. Lama divinations are always somewhat negotiable. As with medical advice in Western culture, if the recipient is dubious about the outcome, other divinations may be sought, or a lama may be asked to redo the original divination with other suppositions. These kinds of negotiations are another aspect of the Sherpas' agency and lack of fatalism in relation to their religion
60. Thomas Laird, "Mountains as Gods, Mountains as Goals," Co-Evolution Quarterly 31 (Fall 1981): 127
61. See Hansen, "Dancing Lamas."
62. See especially the chapter on offering rituals in Ortner, Sherpas Through Their Rituals
63. Hugh Ruttledge, "ln Memoriam: The Late Head Lama of Rongbuk Monastery," Himalayan Journal 17 (1952): 159
64. Another, though more occasional, issue has been the question of stepping on summits. Sherpas have refused to step up themselves (see Kohli, Nine atop Everest, 188) and have occasionally tried to get sahbs to hold back too; see for example, Jim Curran, K2: Triumph and Tragedy (Boston, 1987), 84
65. Elaine Brook, "Sherpas: The Other Mountaineers," Mountain 101 (1985): 37
66. Kathryn March, "Of People and Naks: The Meaning of High-Altitude Herding among Contemporary Solu Sherpas," Contribution to Nepalese Studies 4, no. 2 (1977): 83-97; Ortner, Sex and Death
67. The Sherpas called the god by a Sherpa/Tibetan name, Nupki Gyelwu, or "Western King."
68. H. W. Tilman, The Seven Mountain-Travel Books (1938; reprint, Seattle, 1983), 473
69. see also Tom Weir, East of Kathmandu (London, 1955), 104-5. I must own up to my own story, from my first fieldwork in 1966, which is quite resonant with Tilman's. The occasion was my first birthday in the field, and Bobby Paul (my husband at the time, and still a good friend and professional colleague) and I decided to celebrate. We bought a chicken and asked our assistant, Norbu (not his real name) to ask a poor Chhetri man who lived in the village to kill it for dinner - not, mind you, to kill it himself. Norbu procrastinated about leaving the house for several hours, and then disappeared for several more hours. He finally returned after dark with the poor dead thing, sullenly plucked it and chopped it up, bones and all, with a blunk kukhuri, so that it was full of bone slivers, and cooked it briefly. My birthday "celebration" consisted of tough bits of treacherous chicken eaten late at night in a by-then very cold house. We never asked Norbu to have anything killed again
70. Bruce, Assault on Mount Everest
71. Ian Cameron, Mountain of the Gods (New York, 1984), 188; Ruttledge, "In Memoriam," 159. The no-killing rule was actually part of the Dalai Lama's permission for the climb. See Hansen, "Dancing Lamas."
72. Andrew Harvard and Todd Thompson, Mountain of Storms: The American Expedition to Dhaulagiri, 1969 and 1973 (New York, 1974), 96
73. Mantras are different from prayers; they are not addressed to gods for a response, but are meant to work automatically, generating both merit and protection directly
74. Peter Boardman, Sacred Summits: A Climber's Year (Seattle, 1982), 116
75. Dick Bass and Frank Wells with Rick Ridgeway, Seven Summits (New York, 1986), 116
76. Puja is the Nepali/Hindi term for any kind of religious ritual. It is now in general use among urban, if not village, Sherpas (replacing the Tibetan/Buddhist kurim). It is often written the British colonial way, with an h at the end
77. Bonington, Everest the Hard Way, 76
78. Blum, Annapurna, 89-90; see also Bass and Wells, Seven Summits, 118
79. Allison, Beyond the Limits, 206. The good effects of the "pujah" on the "team effort" were very short lived. According to Allison, the expedition broke down later into very nasty and self-serving individual behaviors
80. Carrier, "Gatekeepers of the Himalaya," 84
81. The "model of/model for" distinction is from Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System."
82. Al Burgess and Jim Palmer, Everest: The Ultimate Challenge (New York, 1983), 87; Morrow, Beyond Everest, 71; Yuichiro Miura with Eric Perlman, The Man Who Skied Down Everest (San Francisco, 1978), 117
83. This was precisely the opposition and irony that was operating in the Gananath Obeyesekere-Marshall Sahlins debate. See Ortner, "Making Gender."