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The original was posted on /r/explainlikeimfive by /u/BigBrother700 on 2023-08-11 21:15:02.

So there’s something I never understood about Sherpas in the Himalayas. They lived right near these massive mountains for millennia. For whatever reason, they decided never to summit them. Then along come some Westerners and decide to do it. So the local experts become this professional/ethnic class of hired help, assist Westerners in attaining their fame, and from there on keep being these second class helpers. It’s very strange to me…

1. Any idea why they never made it to the peaks themselves? No need/interest? Technical or logistical limitations (oxygen tanks, for example?)
2. Once interest/fame/money/etc. became associated with all this, why did they continue to be second class to all of it? I get that maybe in the mid-twentieth century racist attitudes and policies kept it that way, but I feel like even today it’s the same thing: Western European leads the way, Sherpas are only their help.

History is rife with examples of colonists using local help for things, or importing second-class help from somewhere else, but this situation always seemed unique to me. The locals were the experts here. Why were they never front and center (for technical reasons and/or social), and still aren’t? This would be to me like someone arriving on a Pacific island, inhabited by master canoers, looking out at another island clearly visible and reachable by them, and then telling them, “hey, let’s go there.”

UPDATE- ok, found lots of useful information here: