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Tenzing Norgay was Tibetan,
not Nepali - new book

While Hillary and the expedition's leader Lord Hunt both believed that Tenzing had been born in Nepal, a new book Snow in the Kingdom by American mountaineer Ed Webster claims that not only was he 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, London's The Observer reported.

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 ghostwriter James Ramsey Ullman that he grew up in the village of Thame, in Nepal.

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.

In fact, his parents migrated there during the early 1920s after a period of financial hardship and debt to a local Tibetan governor.

When Tenzing climbed Everest in 1953, the Nepalese government hailed him 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 then prime minister 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.

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