Tigers of the snow and other virtual Sherpas : an ethnography of Himalayan encounters / Vincanne Adams.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Adams, Vincanne, 1959-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sherpa (Nepalese people).

Ethnology--Nepal.

Ethnology.

Nepal.

Physical Description:

xiv, 304 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1996.

Summary:

Sherpas are portrayed by Westerners as heroic mountain guides, or "tigers of the snow", as Buddhist adepts, and as a people in touch with intimate ways of life that seem no longer available in the Western world. In this book, Vincanne Adams explores how attempts to characterize an "authentic" Sherpa are complicated by Western fascination with Sherpas and by the Sherpas' desires to live up to Western portrayals of them. Noting that diplomatic aides at world summit meetings go by the name "Sherpa", as do a van in the U.K. built for rough terrains and a software product from Silicon Valley, Adams examines the "authenticating" effects of this mobile signifier on a community of Himalayan Sherpas who live at the base of Mount Everest, Nepal, and its "deauthenticating" effects on anthropological representation. This book speaks not only to anthropologists concerned with ethnographic portrayals of Otherness but also to those working in cultural studies who are concerned with ethnographically grounded analyses of representations. Throughout Adams illustrates how one might undertake an ethnography of transnationally produced subjects by using the notion of "virtual" identities. In a manner informed by both Buddhism and shamanism, virtual Sherpas are always both real and distilled reflections of the desires that produce them.

Contents:

Introduction: Lament for Pasang 3

Chapter 1 Sherpas in Mirrors 39

Chapter 2 Making Modern Sherpas 79

Chapter 3 Buddhist Sherpas as Others 121

Chapter 4 The Intimacy of Shamanic Sherpas 171

Chapter 5 Seduction and Simulative Power in the Himalayas: Staying Sherpa 206

Conclusion: Virtual Sherpas in Circulation 233

Appendix A Khentse Rinpoche Lecture, Tengboche, 1987 243

Appendix B Excerpts from "The Stages of Repelling Demons Based on the Heart Sutra, the Summary of the Vast, Intermediate, and Condensed Mothers," / Donald S. Lopez, Jr. 247

Appendix C Musings on Textuality and Truth 251

Appendix D Production/Seduction 257.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [289]-297) and index.

ISBN:

0691034419

0691001111

OCLC:

32508078