Kathmandu, Aug. 23: The Sherpas of Nepal, the hardy mountaineering people made famous by Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, the first man to summit Mt. Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary, are demanding that the Nepal government stop their vilification as a people given to many, and even incestuous, marriages.
“(Then) Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru honoured Tenzing,” says Ang Tsering Sherpa, former minister and a prominent member of the Sherpa community in Nepal. “But Nepal doesn’t have a single statue of Tenzing. Though the Sherpas have put Nepal on the map of the world with celebrated Everest heroes like Tenzing, Babu Chhiri Sherpa (who climbed Mt. Everest 10 times) and Apa Sherpa (Everest legend who climbed the peak 20 times), our community is depicted in derogatory terms.”
The fresh protests started this month after a new high school textbook for sociology described the Sherpas as practising polygamy and bigamy. It also said Sherpa first cousins married among themselves and uncles were allowed to marry nieces.
“This is not the only book that vilifies our community,” says Mr Kishor Sherpa, chief of the Nepal Sherpa Student Forum that has asked the government to withdraw all such erroneous books. “There are several other books that project wrong images, including Sherpas indulging in polyandry with a woman allowed to have several husbands. We want all such books to be burnt...and books on Sherpas be written by scholars who know their subject,” he said.
Sherpas are also objecting to the popular image of the community as porters.