Sherpas through their Rituals

Ortner, Sherry B.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511621796

Cited by 262 publications

(61 citation statements)

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“…Since the time of Sherpa settlement in the Solu-Khumbu area, they have never been genetically isolated, as there has been almost constant immigration of Tibetans into the area, and, conversely, they have contributed to the overall present population of Nepal by emigration. 2,3 It has been established that in the Jirel tribe (East Nepal), 30% of genes are of Sherpa origin. 15 Indeed, the diversity in the human genome may introduce the "ascertainment bias" in the comparison between the Sherpas and the non-Sherpas in Kathmandu in terms of genetic polymorphisms 16 .…”

Section: Settings and Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the beginning of the last century when Sherpas were first employed by British expedition teams to Mt. Everest, 2,3 their extraordinary mountaineering prowess and hardiness have brought them recognition in mountaineering circles. A variety of studies have investigated their morphology and physiology, [4][5][6][7][8] demonstrating that they adapt to and perform at high altitude so well that they are rarely affected by acute or chronic mountain sickness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Adaptation to High Altitude in Sherpas: Association with the Insertion/Deletion Polymorphism in the Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Gene

Droma

Hanaoka

Basnyat

et al. 2008

Wilderness & Environmental Medicine

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Objective-Sherpas are well known for their physical strength at high altitudes. They adapt to high altitude so well that little acute or chronic mountain sickness has been documented in them. The possible genetic basis for this adaptation is, however, unclear. The objective of this study was to elucidate the genetic background underlying this characteristic among Sherpas with respect to the angiotension-converting enzyme (ACE) gene. Conclusions-These findings suggest that the over-represented I allele of the ACE gene in Sherpas might be one of the fundamental genetic factors responsible for maintaining physiological low-altitude ACE activity at high altitude, which may have an advantageous physiological role in adapting to a high-altitude environment. Methods-We2

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Section: Settings and Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation to High Altitude in Sherpas: Association with the Insertion/Deletion Polymorphism in the Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Gene

Droma

Hanaoka

Basnyat

et al. 2008

Wilderness & Environmental Medicine

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show abstract

“…Individuals arriving for a feast make use of their culture's entire range of objective and subjective criteria to determine status on the basis of age, gender, skill, wealth, birth order, and genealogy, in which servings, the order of serving, the serving size, and even seating arrangements reflect a host's assessment of guests' relative rank order (cf. Logan et al 2012, p. 236;Ortner 1978;Volkman 1985, p. 92). Hosts may become harried as they attempt to curry favor with the highest-ranking arrivals while assuaging slights perceived by those who have been bumped from their prior rank position in the feasting occasion's status hierarchy (see, e.g., Ortner 1978, p. 75).…”

Section: The Feast Day: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…89;Helwing 2003;LeCount 2001, p. 936;Volkman 1985) or incorporated into secular activities of community-building (Bushnell 1997). The anthropological literature on ritual is vast but can be encapsulated as follows: rituals are elaborate, programmed events that are designed to solve problems through the acknowledgment of and adherence to a prescribed sequence of activities (Ortner 1978). They also are physical manifestations of human energy that often incorporate distinctive material goods, as well as involving multiple types of activities, such as song along with dance (Tambiah 1985, p. 128).…”

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confidence: 99%

Feasts and Their Failures

Smith

2014

J Archaeol Method Theory

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Archaeologists often interpret the physical evidence for large-scale consumption of food and beverages as the remains of feasts that successfully enhanced personal reputations, consolidated power, or ensured community solidarity. However, ethnographic accounts illustrate the potential for "feast failure": people may or may not contribute, may or may not come to the feast, may or may not be satisfied, and may or may not repay the feast-giver in labor or obeisance. Because they involve so many logistical and material components before, during, and after the event, feasts almost always exhibit some shortcomings. These failures paradoxically provide both hosts and guests the opportunity to demonstrate their managerial skills, a factor that would have been increasingly important with the development of multiple and overlapping groups at the inception of social complexity. The use of failure-prone events as testing grounds for social integration also may explain the increased amount and diversity of feasting behavior over time.

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“…What other incentives might there have been for supporting the saṅgha? Insights into this question have been hampered by the 'theological' or 'passive' model of Buddhism, which regards the saṅgha's participation in social relations as a distortion of its original position as a body of renunciates concerned solely with individual enlightenment (Conze 1975;Ortner 1978).…”

Section: Buddhism Urbanization and Monarchical Statehood In The Gangmentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaeologies of Buddhist propagation in ancient India: ‘ritual’ and ‘practical’ models of religious change

Shaw¹

2013

World Archaeology

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This paper assesses the degree to which current 'ritual' and 'practical' models of religious change fit with the available archaeological evidence for the spread of Buddhism in India during between the third and first centuries BC. The key question is how Buddhist monastic communities integrated themselves within the social, religious and economic fabric of the areas in which they arrived, and how they generated sufficient patronage networks for monastic Buddhism to grow into the powerful pan-Indian and subsequently pan-Asian institution that it became. While it is widely recognized that in time Indian monasteries came to provide a range of missionary functions including agrarian, medical, trading and banking facilities, the received understanding based on canonical scholarship and inadequate dialogue between textual and archaeological scholarship is that these were 'late' developments that reflected the deterioration of 'true' Buddhist values. By contrast, the results of the author's own landscape-based project in central India suggest that a 'domesticated' and socially integrated form of Buddhist monasticism was already in place in central India by the late centuries BC, thus fitting closely with practical models of religious change more commonly associated with the later spread of Islam and Christianity.

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Sherpas through their Rituals

Cited by 262 publications

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Adaptation to High Altitude in Sherpas: Association with the Insertion/Deletion Polymorphism in the Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Gene

Adaptation to High Altitude in Sherpas: Association with the Insertion/Deletion Polymorphism in the Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Gene

Feasts and Their Failures

Archaeologies of Buddhist propagation in ancient India: ‘ritual’ and ‘practical’ models of religious change

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