Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Spirits of Everest
Chapter 9 states that Everest has spirits inside the mountain that control your fate. My question is would you believe the sherpa culture and be obedient to the spirits of Everest, or would you not believe in anything abstract on the mountain and just go along with your business? What I would do is be obedient to the spirits of Everest because the chapter stated that one of the sherpas, Ngawang Topche died after some of the clients on Scott's team angered the spirits of Everest. It is important to have the spirits on your side when ascending Everest because the final summit push has to involve a lot of luck. But it is your choice to make.
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3 comments:
February 7, 2007
Tommy Rooney
I would obey the “spirits of the mountain” but I wouldn’t fully believe in them. I believe to would be essential to not anger the Sherpas because you would be fully dependent on them, and as Rob Hall stressed “This expedition would not be possible if we did not have Sherpa support”. This would be the only reason I would obey the “spirits of the mountain.”
I would agree with Tommy by obeying the spirits. Even though I am not superstitious I still would because it’s someone culture and you should respect that. Also you don’t want to get the Sherpa’s mad at you because there carrying what you need to survive. The Sherpa’s have a point because in chapter nine when X and Y slept together Ngawang Topche was sick at camp two, and died the next day. This might just have been a coincidence but it still did happen. If I were climbing the mountain I would obey Sagarmatha, and I would not take any chances at upsetting the spirits.
My belief in the "spirits of the mountain" would depend on who I was. If I was a Sherpa, I would definitely believe in it because I would have been brought up with the same religion and it would be my culture. If I was a climber, I would definitely respect the culture of the Sherpas, but I would not go out of my way to do anything for the spirits. I would do as my Sherpas advised me, for example, if I was Scott Fischer, I would request X and Y to stop sleeping together. I also agree that the Sherpas should be respected because they do essential work for the expeditions and nothing should be done to insult them.
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