Sherry B. Ortner - Life and Death on Mt. Everest

Life and Death on
Mt. Everest

SHERRY B. ORTNER

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright 1999 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,

Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,

3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY

All Rights Reserved

The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows

Ortner, Sherry B., 1941

Life and death on Mt. Everest : Sherpas and

Himalayan mountaineering / Sherry B. Ortner.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-691-00689-X (cloth : alk. paper)

1. MountaineeringEverest, Mount (China and Nepal)History.

2. Sherpa (Nepalese people) I. Title.

GV199.44.E85078 1999

796.5220954914dc21 99-31247

www.pup.princeton.edu

eISBN: 978-0-691-21177-0

R0

For my families

TIM AND GWEN

DADDY AND MEL

Kinship matters

ix

xi

xiii

PHOTOGRAPHS

FIGURE

MAPS

(All maps by Thomas W. Cuddy)

Like most books, and certainly most of mine, this one has a long history and has accumulated a long list of debts. I wish to thank most profoundly the following agencies and people for the many things they have done to make this project and book possible.

For money (sine qua non): The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation (Grant No. BNS8206304), and the University of Michigan (Faculty Assistance Fund and Faculty International Travel Fund).

For detailed comments, close readings, and other kinds of major critical help and advice in the creation of this book: Arjun Appadurai, James F. Fisher, Harka Gurung, Peter H. Hansen, David Holmberg, Mary Murrell, William H. Sewell Jr., Timothy D. Taylor, and one anonymous Press reader.

For interviews and other assistance in Nepal (1990): Mr. Banskota (Ministry of Tourism), Elizabeth Hawley, Ang Nyimi Sherpa, Lhakpa Ongju Lama, Pemba Lama, (Col.) James Roberts, Ang Kami Sherpa, Ang Karma Sherpa, (Takto) Ang Karma Sherpa, Ang Nyima Sherpa, Ang Nyima Sherpa (Nauje), Ang Pasang Sherpa, Ang (Tsak) Pasang Sherpa, Ang Purwa Sherpa, Ang Rita Sherpa (f.), Ang Rita Sherpa (m.), Ang Tshering Sherpa, Apa Sherpa, Au Norbu Sherpa, Lhakpa Gyelzen Sherpa, Lhakpa Norbu Sherpa, Lobsang Tsering Sherpa, Mingma Tenzing Sherpa, (Jiri) Norbu Sherpa, Nyima Tsering Sherpa, Pasang Sherpa, Pasang Nuru Sherpa, Pasang Temba Sherpa, Pema Sherpa, Pertemba Sherpa, Phu Dorje Sherpa, Sangye Sherpa, Sonam Gyalchhen Sherpa, Tsultim Sherpa, and Urkyen Sherpa.

For valuable readings of chapters and pieces of this book: Lila Abu-Lughod, Vincanne Adams, Laura Ahearn, anonymous reviewers for SINHAS (Studies in Nepali History and Society), Eberhard Berg, Emily Chao, Nancy Chodorow, Elaine Combs-Schilling, Coralynn Davis, Clifford Geertz, Stephen Greenblatt, Liisa Malkki, and Abigail Stewart.

For diverse smaller, but nonetheless indispensable, contributions: Arlene Blum, Pat Cahill, Brot Coburn, Tom Cuddy, Michael Fahy, Michael Falter, Lindsay French, Barbara Kaplan, Gwendolyn Ida Ortner Kelly, Mountain Travel/Sobek Himalayan Library, Lars Rodseth, Jessica Sewell, Ruth Shamraj, Robert Yale Shapiro and Harrison White, Ang Rita Sherpa of the Himalayan Trust, Pemba Tsering Sherpa, Tara Susman, Timothy D. Taylor, and Joan and Will Weber.

For their years of friendship, and for their personal support in Nepal in 1990: Mingma Tenzing Sherpa, Pasang Lhamu Sherpani, (Tawa) Dorje Sherpa, and Ang Gyelzen (A. G.) Sherpa. (Ang Gyelzen Sherpa, whom I have known since he was ten years old, and whom I was fortunate to count as a good friend, died in a plane crash as this book was going into production. He was a young man of incredible charactersmart, kind, hardworking, generousand his death at the age of forty-two is a terrible tragedy.)

For domestic love, support, and distraction: Gwendolyn Ida Ortner Kelly, Timothy D. Taylor, and Paddy the Cat.

Deepest thanks to all.

I have used real names throughout this text except when noted. I have only changed or omitted names when I was concerned that the party might be embarrassed by what I had written or quoted.

A different version of is forthcoming as The Making and Self-Making of the Sherpas in Early Himalayan Mountaineering, in Studies in Nepali History and Society.

A different version of was published as Thick Resistance: Death and the Cultural Construction of Agency in Himalayan Mountaineering, in Representations 59 (summer 1997): 13562.

A different version of was published as Borderlands Politics and Erotics: Gender and Sexuality in Himalayan Mountaineering, in S. B. Ortner, Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture, 181212. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.

In May of 1996, eight people in three different parties died in a storm on Mount Everest. It was not the worst Himalayan mountaineering disaster in history, but it received enormous public attention, perhaps the most since the time in 1924 when George Leigh Mallory disappeared with another climber into the mists near the summit of Everest and never returned. It was Mallory who had said that he wanted to climb Everest because it is there.