Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas: An Ethnography of Himalayan Encounters / Edition 1

by Vincanne Adams

Overview

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 terrain 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691001111
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	11/19/1995
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Vincanne Adams is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	xi
	Acknowledgments	xiii
	Orthographic Note	xv
	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,"	247
Appendix C	Musings on Textuality and Truth	251
Appendix D	Production/Seduction	257
	Notes	263
	Glossary of Sherpa Terms	283
	Bibliography	289
	Index	299

Editorial Reviews

"Adams's book promises to be a provocative if not controversial contribution to the field of Himalayan Studies; it should also stir debate among those concerned with ethnography, cultural studies, [and] identity construction."

Journal of Asian Studies

"Adams's book promises to be a provocative if not controversial contribution to the field of Himalayan Studies; it should also stir debate among those concerned with ethnography, cultural studies, [and] identity construction."—Journal of Asian Studies

From the Publisher