Tenzing’s tribe angered by polygamy, polyandry slur in Nepal

KATHMANDU - 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 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 the government to ensure that in future, books on Sherpas are written by scholars who know their subject.”

Sherpas are also objecting to the popular image of the community as porters.

“Sherpa comes from two Tibetan words meaning a people who settled in the eastern part of Nepal,” Ang Tsering adds. “But many dictionaries indicate that the word means porters. When we go to Europe, we are humiliated by foreigners who, on hearing our surnames, say, oh, you are a porter.”

There are at least 500,000 Sherpas living in 26 of Nepal’s 75 districts.

The diaspora also lives in the US, Europe and India. Of Tibetan origin, the Buddhist Sherpas migrated to Nepal, the birthplace of the Buddha, in several phases.

Now, they are also targeted for their religion and ancestry.

“Nepal’s media has been writing about the Buddhist monasteries in Nepal stocking arms and training monks and nuns to fight China on the order of the Dalai Lama,” says Ang Tsering.

“It is regrettable that people are spreading such lies when Buddhism advocates pacifism.”

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)