In all eras, on all continents, all poetry, prose, myth and legend draw inspiration and the terms of expression by referencing to things man sees and experiences. The raw materials of human reflection are the sea, the sky, the moon, stars and sun, the winds, rain, snow, fire, ice, the valleys and the mountains. Each seems to take on a common elemental power and character regardless of the source culture.
The positive God source is the heavens above, while the negative god source is the underworld, below. To be closer to the gods is to ascend. The mountains are the residence of the gods or the bridge to that realm. For instance, in classical Greek culture their pantheon of gods resided on Mount Olympus, while Hades, the gods’ nemesis, lived underground. In religious studies the technical term for this cosmic mountain concept is axis mundi, the axis or hub of the universe, “a sacred place deemed to be the highest place in the world and perhaps identified with the center of the world and the place where creation first began.”¹
The Tibetan people have lived on the high plains north of the Himalayan chain for millennia. The mountains, both as reality and metaphor, are inextricably woven into their lives, customs, culture and religious heritage. Looking south to the Himalayan curtain, one mountain ferociously plumes and lords over all others, and as such was recognized by the Tibetans as the axis mundi of their world by naming it Qomolungma, Goddess Mother of the World. Reinhold Messner, the first man to climb the mountain solo and without supplemental oxygen quotes a poem from the 12th century by Milarepa, a famous Tibetan monk, as using the name Qomolungma with reference to the mountain.²
By the mid 19th century Britain had extended its empire to include India. With a 30 year effort entitled The Great Trigonometric Survey of India, the new colony had been measured to within a fraction of an inch from the high tide line at the southern tip to the foothills of the Himalaya. Almost as a sport, or afterthought, the surveyors, barred from entering the Kingdom of Nepal, set there surveying devices’ sites on the lofty peaks of the Himalayas and made readings from six stations on the Indian plane between 75 and 150 miles from the mountains.
In 1852, after years of sightings and hand trigonometric calculations to the 17th decimal point, Radhanath Sikdhar, the excited head of the survey’s ‘computing’ department, reported to his superior officer, “Sir, I have discovered the highest mountain in the world!”. This statement although presenting a somewhat misleading implication, because the mountain was obviously well known to the Tibetans and Nepalis, as well as to the Indians, was saved intact and used as a headline in London (but not in Nepal or Tibet which had closed their borders to all foreign influences).
After a cursory investigation into the indigenous name of the mountain, during which the word Qomolungma had been reviewed but rejected as not adequate for such a significant geographical point, the British decided to honor the man who had been the second Surveyor General of India, George Everest, by naming the mountain after him. There was an objection by the Asiatic Society in Bengal which was ignored because of the more pressing problem of the Indian Mutiny which broke out around the same time and demanded attention. These were heady days for the scientific revolution, of which the survey was a cutting edge example and was characterized by the notion expressed in the following quote, “Talk of Great Spirits was so much childish superstition, exactly the kind of foolishness that was being properly swept aside by the onward rush of technology.”³
Other examples of British naming conventions exist in their now released Indian colony. Place names such as Bombay were used in cities where the original names were deemed too awkward. Bombay had, prior to the British colonization, been called Mumbai, and now, again after over 150 years, a plebiscite of the inhabitants has determined it will be called Mumbai once again. The British colonial city Madras is now Chenai. The British colonial city Calcutta is now Kolkata. There are dozens more.
In Alaska, the tallest mountain in North America, for a century called Mount McKinley, has recently been changed back to the name the original Athabascani tribes called it, Denali, the High Place. Ansel Adams, after making his most beautiful photograph of the mountain accompanied it with this succinct and poignant verbal observation:
“I prefer the Indian name, Denali, instead of Mount McKinley, and Denali is now the official name of the park, though not of the mountain. It was a chauvinistic characteristic of our nation to attach political names, quite often insignificant in history, to the glorious features of our land: Presidents, senators, governors, prospectors, sheepherders, and a few scientists are represented in the highlands, lowlands, deserts, and shores of our fifty states. Native American designations are in the minority on our maps. The fact that this is the highest peak in North America(20,600 ft) is a statistic with which the Original Inhabitants were not concerned, but the impressive presence of the mountain undoubtedly evoked a deep religious response.” *4
The issue with respect to Everest is very similar to those Adams describes with respect to Mount McKinley. The Tibetans, approaching from the north, see the mountain as a cathedral, the abode of the Goddess Mother. The British, approaching from the south, see a snowcapped mountain, the remnant of geological cataclysm. The Tibetans make reverent pilgrimages of contemplation and purification. The British launch military style ‘assaults’ on the mountain to conquer it, and when they finally do, Sir Edmund Hillary, the first British ascender, famously declares, “We knocked the bastard off!”
The Tibetans and the British approached the mountain from diametrically opposed directions both physically and philosophically. The British scoffed at the Tibetan tradition and obscured the goddess of the mountain by covering her with the nominal shroud of George Everest thereby changing the meaning, the uses, and our perception of the mountain. This act of naming-over the existing name isn’t just a not-so-subtle and simultaneous form of identity theft, but an act of character assassination by which an intellectually and emotionally flat secularization is substituted for rich and thoughtful spiritual tradition.
Our general use of the term Mount Everest for the mountain the Tibetans have called Qomolungma and the Nepalis have elected to call Sagarmatha, The Stick that Churns the Ocean of Existence, denies the respect owed to their cultures and traditions while visiting their countries to see this great mountain.
Some will say that the Everest naming tradition is too old to change but an error, or lie, oft repeated makes it no more true. Further, I have been able to find no legal basis or precedent for any one nation unilaterally assigning place names and applying them to locations within the borders of other sovereign nations.
Cultural sensitivity has changed dramatically since the 1850s. An act like naming a very remote mountain after a significant British citizen was at that time accepted without question, just as taking burial relics from distant colonies and displaying them in British museums seemed fine. But in the 21st century, nations that were once British colonies are requesting, even demanding, the repatriation of their cultural heritage - and the British have returned some objects but progress will be aided as the tide of public opinion endorses the repatriation process.
Dr. Senta German of the Montclair State University in New Jersey(USA) has written extensively on the subject of repatriation of looted or stolen art and has stated:
”Cultural objects belong together with the cultures that created them; these objects are a crucial part of contemporary culture and political identity.” and “To not return objects stolen under colonialist regimes is to perpetuate colonialist ideologies that perceived colonized peoples as inherently inferior(and often primitive in some way).”
Naturally, I think the British should view their naming of the world’s tallest mountain as a similar act of unilateral appropriation of foreign property that was of questionable legality to begin with and similarly they should gracefully return the mountain to its rightful owners by relinquishing their naming tradition.
Finally, in this postmodern period, with our vastly improved access to information and our newly developed appreciation for cultural diversity, to embrace the indigenous names of the mountain would be to endorse the validity and empowerment of this rich but gentle heritage which these cultures have been wholly incapable of asserting by themselves on a raucous international stage.
Namaste and Tashi Delek
1)The Crystal Horizon, Rheinhold Messner, 1989 Mountaineers Books, p. 134 2)History of Religion v2, Mircea Eliade 3)Landscape and Memory, Simon Schama, 1995 Alfred Knopf, p398 4)The Making of 40 Photographs, Ansel Adams, 1984 Little and Brown Co. 5) Khanacademy.org online course At Risk Cultural Heritage Series, Senta German, Ph.D *In September of 2015, President Barack Obama announced that Mt. McKinley would thenceforth be officially named Denali.