Farewell to Yak and Yeti ? - The Sherpas of Rolwaling Facing a Globalised World

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About the Book As small boys, we were very shy about meeting tourists crossing through our valley,» expedition sardar Ngawang Yonden Sherpa recalls. But at their heels, we enjoyed walking in the footprints that their heavy mountain boots left in the muddy ground, just to experience under our bare feet the feeling of the profiles of their rubber soles and imagine walking in their sophisticated mountain shoes.0 That was in the 1960s. The Sherpas of Rowling Valley in Eastern Nepal still lived from breeding yaks and cultivating potatoes. They followed a seasonal cycle of transhumance from the winter settlement at 3,200 metres to the high pastures above 5,000 metres.

Today agro-pastoral livelihoods have given way to a highly successful engagement in the globalised mountaineering tourism of the Himalayas, organized from an urban base. This book attempts to trace this transformation. Life stories, extended into reflections, allow the reader insights into the perceptions and feelings of the Rowling Sherpas regarding this profound change.

About the Author RUEDI BAUMGARTNER first visited the Rowling Valley in the 1970s in order to conduct his doctoral field research. He later assumed various long-term assignments in bilateral development cooperation. In 2008 he retired as Co-Director of Studies at NADEL, the Center for Development and Cooperation at the Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He continues an active interest and engagement in development cooperation, particularly in Nepal. Foreword Ngawang Tensing Lama

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Rued Baumgartner for writing this book on Rowling. Since his first visit in the 1970s, he has remained close to Rowling, and kept himself fully up, to date with the life of our community. This book is the fruit of his longstanding research. It is without doubt an authentic documentation of the history of the Rowling people, and the changes that have taken place in their livelihoods. For the younger generations, this book will thus serve as a valuable source of historical study.

Spiritually, Rowling is a very significant place. According to Buddhist tradition, it is a 'beryl, meaning sacred, hidden valley blessed by Guru Padmasambhava. Our ancestors well understood the spiritual importance of Rowling and maintained a rich culture despite being materially poor., In the past few decades, however, due to the trend of urban migration, Rowling’s culture and spiritual practices have come under threat. Following my appointment as religious head of Rowling, my main goal has been to revive the spiritual practices and culture in the valley. Accordingly, since 2011 I have been running a monastery school where children receive free education on both religious and modern subjects. The Dumji festival, where we honor and celebrate Guru Rinpoche's birth on the lotus flower, has recently been revived, while a plan to renovate the old monastery in Beding has also been initiated.

Today, many of the younger Rowling generations are being born in the city. Most of them attend modern schools. As a result, they lack knowledge of their history and origins, and are gradually losing their sense of belongingness to the place of their ancestors. This book will be instrumental in preserving the history of the Rowling valley. It will help connect new generations with Rowling’s rich history and tradition. What is more, it very much reflects my own vision of a prosperous, harmonious, and spiritually and culturally rich future for Rowling.

I wish Rued Baumgartner all the best with his future endeavors.

Preface The manuscript of this book was on the desk of the Vajra Publishers at Kathmandu, ready for printing, when the disastrous earthquake of 25th April 2015 struck Nepal in the middle of the day. When the dust had settled over the debris, the order of priorities had rightfully shifted to immediate concerns. Fate spared Rowling any human losses - unlike countless other mountain communities. Moreover, the end moraine of the huge and potentially very dangerous glacier lake of the valley withstood the shocks of the earthquake - to the immense relief of everybody living downstream. Yet massive after- shocks have continued to rock the valley and numerous houses collapsed under the impact of severe and extensive landslides.

Rowling is a remote valley in the shadow of Gaur Shankar, the holy twin - peaked mountain on the Tibetan border. "If you are seriously interested in how an authentic Sherpa community copes with up-coming Himalayan mountain tourism, go to Rowling Valley!" With these words, Andreas Child, then head of the Swiss Association for Technical Assistance in Nepal, directed my attention to Rowling. This was way back in 1974. The valley was all of eight full trekking days from the Lamosangu bus stop on the road to Lhasa. I am still grateful to Janice Sacherer, the American anthropologist who then had just returned from this hidden place with her field notes on Rowling’s cultural ecology. She generously shared her findings and her local contacts.

On my first field visit, my younger brother Fred, whose study focused on the trekking groups passing through the valley, accompanied me with his wife. My collaborators at that time were Dawa Jangbu Sherpa and Phuntsok; they helped me earn the respect of the community, thus enabling me to work productively. I was both glad and fortunate to be able to count on the support of Dorjee Lhakpa, a young Rowling Sherpa. Today, Dawa Iambus Sherpa is chairman of a Nepalese helicopter company, while Phuntsok runs his family's Tibetan carpet-weaving enterprise. After a fateful expedition accident, Dorjee Lhakpa was compelled to return to traditional agro pastoralist.

Little did I anticipate that, almost 40 years later, I would return to that same community in order to trace it’s amazing transformation from an agro-pastoral existence based on potato cultivation and yak herding in the 1970s to a community now widely recognized for the outstanding performance of its mountaineers on the world's highest peaks. This publication attempts to shed light on the long and arduous journey of Rowling Sherpas, women and men, into today's globalised world. While exploring their changing livelihoods, this study also seeks to do justice to the endeavors of earlier generations who transformed the remote and harsh valley into a home and refuge.

Whilst globalization confronts all of us with unforeseen challenges and risks, it also opens up promising opportunities. Like their Sherpa neighbors in Humbug, the Rowling Sherpas certainly took advantage of the chances generated by the rapid expansion of Himalayan mountain tourism. Yet the multifaceted accounts of the changing livelihoods of Rowling Sherpas also reveal that farsighted community members are increasingly concerned about maintaining their Sherpa identity, respecting the religious sanctity of the Rowling Beryl, and maintaining a bond with the valley of their origin.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages