LONDON, DEC 25: Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who accompanied Edmund Hillary, the first everester in 1953, was a Tibetan and not a Nepali, according to a new book.While Hillary and the expedition's leader Lord Hunt both believed that the Sherpa had been born in a remote mountain village in Nepal, a new book "Snow in the Kingdom" by American mountaineer Ed Webster claims that not only was Tenzing born in Tibet, but he spent much of his childhood there. The world's most famous Sherpa was not really a Sherpa at all.Even after Tenzing's death in 1986, the truth was considered too sensitive to disclose, not least for fear of embarrassing the Indian government which had supported Tenzing after his ascent. It would have handed a propaganda coup to the Chinese authorities in the Tibetan capital Lhasa that a "Chinese climber" was the first to climb Everest.But now Webster has been given permission by the family to reveal the truth about Tenzing's real origins.Throughout his life, Tenzing remained vague about his background. In his autobiography, "Tiger of The Snows", he obscured the truth of his childhood without quite denying it, telling ghost-writer James Ramsey Ullman that he grew up in the village of Thame, in Nepal. In fact, his parents migrated there during the early 1920s after a period of financial hardship and debt to a local Tibetan governor.Tenzing, however, was more forthcoming about his birthplace. He said "I was born in a place called Tsa-Chu, near the great mountain of Makalu, and only a day's march from Everest." Tenzing also explains that when he was born, his mother had been on a pilgrimage to the nearby monastery at Ghang La, the name of Tenzing house in Darjeeling.When Tenzing climbed Everest in 1953 he was hailed by the Nepalese government in Kathmandu as a local hero who happened to live in India. Nepal's fledgling constitutional monarchy feared political domination by the new Indian republic and both countries saw great propaganda value in claiming Tenzing, the first humble born Asian of the modern era to achieve global fame, as their own.Tenzing's caution about revealing his true origins was partly explained by his political wrangling. "After we climbed Everest," Hillary said, "and Tenzing was invited to England, we were really in a jam because Tenzing had no passport."The crisis was averted only when the Indian Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, stepped in and personally ensured that Tenzing received an Indian passport-something for which the Nepalese authorities never forgave him. Nehru became Tenzing's patron and authorised the establishment of a mountaineering school in Darjeeling, which Tenzing helped to run.
