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 journ-eyed
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.
