Human remains
The story of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine should make us think about human dignity in death and life.
By now, you will have probably gathered that I am not a fan of mainstream media. I read the Times, starting from the chess puzzle and sports pages and glancing through the health stuff, which is rock-bottom quality. I eventually get through to the front page.
A follow-up of the Mallory and Irvine saga today caught my eye. I have followed the story for 40 years or so. Mallory and Irvine were two pioneering mountaineers who disappeared 800 feet below the summit of Everest in 1924. A 100-year fuss has been made of the fact that Irvine was carrying a Kodak pocket camera, and maybe if his body were found, the negatives would still be workable and prove or otherwise that the two had reached the summit of the highest mountain in the world 29 years before the first official successful attempt.
I have always thought the Kodak story a distraction from the heroic efforts of pioneers to conquer adversity dressed in little more than their street clothes. And of the families, they left behind.
Over the years, bits and pieces of the two were found: an ice pick, an oxygen canister and, in 1999, the mummified body of Mallory, who met a terrifying end. While listening to the radio communications between the members of the team who found George Mallory’s remains, I felt revulsion at using terms like “awesome”. The team left him where they found him under a stone cairn they built, but not before taking items such as letters, snow goggles and matches.
Today’s piece reported that a National Geographic expedition found a boot with a sock labelled with Ervine’s name stitched onto it and his foot in the sock and boot. The rest of him should not be too far away. So far, I had neutral feelings. However, further down the page, there’s a picture of an expedition member with the boot and sock in front of him in the background of a snow trench, probably dug for the occasion—a staged shot.
The picture reminded me of that dentist who killed Cecil the lion, proudly posing over its carcass with his firearm to the fore. The report says the expedition had permission to remove the foot in an ice box. Maybe so, but readers could be spared the details. Apparently, expedition members were running around, jumping, and shouting their joy at the find.
Maybe having lived under the Himalayas, having served with one of Irvine’s descendants, being a doctor, being appalled by grave robbing, and being an old fleeced geezer engendered the same revulsion I felt in 1999. And it’s the same disgust I felt gazing at the skull of some poor aboriginal sod displayed in a museum or of a French infantryman in the Waterloo hospital display.
Nepalis believe Everest, or Sagarmatha, is a goddess and Irvine and Mallory should be left where they fell; they belong to the mountain. Human remains should be treated with respect, no matter who they are. If we do not respect the dead, we will have no respect for the living.
A wonderfully written, crisply evocative analogy. We have indeed lost the ancient wisdoms which accorded a mystical respect towards Life. I continually recall C.S.Lewis's 'That Hideous Strength' when observing the headlong dive towards 'science's supremacy'. 'Evidence' must be the most abused word in common language use. You old geezers know its true meaning; subverted widely, it results in the hysterical and triumphant misuse of the visual or auditory, piecemeal fragments reminiscent of the McCarthyist clamour for 'information'.
I Couldn't agree more! However - perhaps, because we don't treat the living (especially the old) with respect, we now also don't treat the dead with respect any longer ...