Yak, Nak, Crossbreeds, and Cattle

Khumbu Sherpa pastoralism is primarily based on the herding of a set of different varieties of cattle (chungma ), as shown in table 10. For many generations it has been especially characterized by the keeping of yak, particularly the female nak. In recent years households in some villages (especially in Nauje, Khumjung, Kunde, and Thamicho) have begun keeping increasing numbers of yak-cattle crossbreeds and cows. Since 1957 the number of nak has declined by nearly half (from 2,061 in 1957 to 1,121 in 1984), and today yak and nak constitute 58 percent of Khumbu cattle rather than the 79 percent share they comprised. in 1957. Yet they remain the most numerous and the most valued large livestock in the region. Yak and nak have long been an important symbol of wealth and the keeping of a large herd confers considerable status on its owner. They are prized not only for their economic and social utility but also out of appreciation for their beauty.^[1]

Yak herding is a central facet of subsistence in much of highland Asia. The great, shaggy, black, brown, multihued, and occasionally white bovines are one of the most distinctive and widespread residents of the high, alpine lands of the Great Himalaya and the vast expanses of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. Yak herding is important virtually wherever there are Tibetans or their close cultural cousins, from the higher reaches of the Himalaya across Tibet to the high country of Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan, and even beyond in an arc encompassing Mongolia, the Mongol-inhabited Lake Baikal country of Siberia, some Kirghiz (Kyrgyz)-inhabited areas of Xinjiang and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, and portions of the Pakistan-administered Karakorum range. Most of

the world's yak graze the high country of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. In Qinghai Province alone there are 4,920,000 yak, by one estimate a full third of the world yak population (Zhang et al. 1987:88), and in the Tibetan Autonomous Region there are more than an additional four million head of stock (Yan 1986:241). Another 700,000 are herded in one Tibetan-inhabited county in southwest Gansu, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (Li 1986:133). The Himalaya supports far fewer head. The entire range may be the home of fewer than 100,000 yak, and estimates of the number of yak in Nepal range from fewer than 9,000 to somewhat more than twice that (Brower 1987:202 n. 1).^[2]

Yak are not likely to be confused with anything else in Asia.^[3] Large-bodied, long-haired, long-horned and humped, yak are one of the world's most physically distinctive cattle types. Domestic male Nepalese yak attain a size of 230 to 360 kilograms and females from 180 to 320 kilograms (Brower 1987:166), rather smaller than the 1,000 kilograms that wild yak are said to sometimes reach but still a large animal in comparison to other varieties of Himalayan and Tibetan cattle. They are also notable for the deep, grunting, staccato bellow that gave them their Latin appellation Bos grunniens ("grunting cattle") as well as for their heavy coats. This coat ends in a distinctive fringe of long hair on the legs and flank and is complemented by an extraordinarily bushy tail—so striking that yak tails were accepted as tribute gifts by the Chinese imperial court and were in demand as a trade good in India for use in Hindu temples.^[4]

Yak are superbly suited to year-round life at high altitudes. They can endure altitudes and harsh weather in which cattle or crossbreeds could not survive and are even able to thrive in the cold of a Khumbu winter. They do not require stabling even at 5,000 meters in January. In midwinter yak are able to forage in snowy country by seeking out patches of ground that the wind has swept free of snow or by pawing through the snow to feed off quiescent grass. Sherpas believe that yak are so much creatures of the heights that they will sicken and die if taken to altitudes of less than 3,000 meters during the warm-weather months. Below 3,000 meters they are thought to succumb rapidly to "low-altitude sickness," a malady Sherpas associate with both altitude and unhealthy water sources. Research on yak physiology has found that they are physically adapted to cope with high-altitude conditions. Besides their heavy coats they have larger lungs and thoracic cavities than other cattle, and their unusual blood composition may also enable them to adapt more effectively to high-altitude conditions (Brower 1987).

Yak and nak provide a number of valuable products and services.^[5] Both males and females provide meat that Sherpas prize above all other. Like other Tibetan people Sherpas do not subscribe to Hindu beliefs

about the sanctity of cattle and have no qualms about eating beef.^[6] Before the 1960s old animals were culled each autumn and winter, slaughtered, and butchered by itinerant specialists of the lowest social status who came for this purpose from Tibet. After socioeconomic change in Tibet during the 1960s these butchers ceased coming to Khumbu and culling was virtually abandoned.^[7] One Tibetan butcher, however, is now living in Khumbu and occasionally practices his craft. Some Sherpas suggest that the problem with culling cattle today is not so much the absence of butchers as it is the need to avoid offending government officials who reside in Nauje.

More important to subsistence than yak meat is nak milk. Of its many uses, the most important is the production of butter (mar ). Some milk is also processed into cheeses, including both a soft cheese (shomar ) that is consumed fresh and spread on potato pancakes and a dried, hard cheese (churpi ) that is a valued trail food. Butter is perhaps most often consumed in tea, for it is an essential ingredient of the basic beverage of the region, the solcha or salt tea familiar across the Tibetan culture region. The making of butter is also an important strategy for storing milk, for little fresh milk is available in the region other than in summer. Butter is much preferred over cheese in this respect and it can be kept nearly year round in Khumbu's cool climate, sometimes wrapped in skins for insulation. Yak and nak manure is also regarded as an important resource, both for fertilizer and fuel, and for many families fertilizer is the most crucial contribution of yak to the domestic economy. Both male and female yak provide hair that is shorn, spun with drop-spindles by men and women, and woven into chara , a heavy material that has many uses. Hides can be used as boot soles. And both males and females are used as pack animals and some have been trained as draft animals.^[8]

Yak and nak also can provide income. Surplus meat, dairy products, and manure are bartered and sold locally. Butter is an acceptable currency with which to hire agricultural day laborers and formerly, according to oral traditions, was used to pay taxes to Tibet. Yak-hair chara are sold in Khumbu and in other nearby Sherpa regions. Considerable income can be earned from hiring out pack stock or from training stock to pull a plow. Trained teams are rare and many farmers pay a good deal of money to hire plow-teams and their drivers. And the breeding and sale of nak-cattle crossbreed calves has historically been so lucrative that it was probably the most important factor in the regional prominence of nak.

Khumbu Sherpas keep a small number of common cattle of a Tibetan variety known locally as kirkhong (Bos taurus ). These today number fewer than five hundred (Brower 1987:169,171). Despite their relatively thick coats Tibetan cattle are not hardy in Khumbu winters and must be

stabled in the lower stories of village houses and fed considerably more winter fodder than yak or nak require. Most of the stock kept in Khumbu are cows (kirkhong pamu ) that are valued for their milk and manure. During the past twenty years, as the standard of living has increased with tourism development, it has become increasingly popular for families to keep a cow or two to provide milk for their household. The small number of bulls (kirkhong lang ) play a vital role in Khumbu pastoralism, for they are bred to nak to produce the crossbreeds for sale to Tibet and to Shorung Sherpas.

The crossbreeds that are bred in Khumbu from nak mothers and Tibetan bulls display a combination of traits reflecting their parentage. In general they differ from yak in size, coat, and their lesser fitness in extreme high-altitude conditions (particularly in winter). The males, known as dimzo (or dim zopkio ), are highly valued as draft and pack animals whereas the females, known as dim zhum (or dzum ), are considered excellent milch stock.^[9] Fürer-Haimendorf reported that zhum yield more milk per lactation than nak, although it is not as rich. According to his information Khumbu crossbreeds produce about ten kilograms of butter per year per head compared to the nak's seven kilograms per year per head.^[10] Crossbreeds herded in Shorung were said to yield twice as much butter as those pastured in Khumbu (Fürer-Haimendorf 1975:50). It should be noted, however, that higher milk yields for Khumbu zhum compared to Khumbu nak may reflect differences in fodder feeding and the relatively greater parts of the year that the zhum are herded in the lower-altitude areas of Khumbu. Zhum could not survive, much less yield large amounts of milk, in the conditions in which nak live.

Tibetans have long practiced yak-cow crossbreeding. Tibetans along the eastern fringe of the Tibetan culture region, for example, gave such crossbreeds in tribute to the Tang emperors of China (Schaffer 1963:74). In some parts of Tibet, however, crossbreeding is not conducted due to a belief that the forced cross-species mating is offensive to local gods such as yul lha and lu.^[11] The Tingri region just to the north of Khumbu is one of the areas where crossbreeds are valued and used, but are not bred. This has provided Khumbu herders with a major market for crossbreed dimzo calves and a complex trade developed in them still continues today on a limited scale. Dim zhum, considered finer milk producers than nak, although less hardy, have long been sought after by Shorung Sherpas and in the past twenty years have begun to be kept by Khumbu Sherpas in large numbers to provide family milk supplies.

In recent years a third form of crossbreed has been important in Khumbu. This is the urang zopkio , the male offspring of lower-altitude pamu or palang pamu (Bos indicus ) cows and yak. Urang zopkio are not bred in Khumbu, but are purchased at considerable expense from lower-

altitude areas including Shorung, Kulung, and Pharak. They have become important in Khumbu as plow animals and especially as a source of pack-stock income from tourism.^[12] Their value in trekking work reflects the importance of the airstrip at Lukla as a tourist entrance to the area. Sherpas do not like to take yak down into the low-altitude reaches of the Dudh Kosi gorge in order to reach the Pharak airstrip. But they have no hesitation in taking the low-altitude-fit urang zopkio to Lukla, and the crossbreeds are also capable of making the haul through Khumbu to the foot of Mount Everest. The increase in the number of zopkio since the mid-1970s has been the most spectacular recent change in Khumbu pastoralism. By 1984 18 percent of all Khumbu cattle were zopkio and the great majority of these were urang.^[13] They now far outnumber yak.

Sheep and Goats

Sheep and goats have also long been a component of regional livestock keeping. Both are valued for their hair and wool, their meat, and their manure.^[14] According to oral traditions sheep were an element of early Sherpa pastoralism in Khumbu, and goats may also have been raised here for centuries. But for at least the past hundred years both have been raised on a far smaller scale than nak and during the past forty years regional numbers have not far exceeded 1,500.^[15] Today there are perhaps 500 in all (Brower 1987:171) and a flock of 30 head is considered large. Only a Tibetan variety of sheep is kept. The wool and meat of the Tibetan sheep are far preferred to those of the less hardy Himalayan varieties that Gurungs once herded each summer in Khumbu. These sheep must be fed fodder in the winter, but they do not need to be stabled at the altitudes of the main villages. The Khumbu lack of emphasis on sheep keeping contrasts strikingly with high-altitude pastoralism in

northwestern Nepal (Goldstein 1974, 1981; Goldstein and Messer-schmidt 1980; Rauber 1982), Tibet (Ekvall 1968; Goldstein and Beall 1990), and Mongolia, where sheep are the most numerically important form of livestock.^[16] Sheep also outnumber yak in Nepalese high-altitude pasture areas to the immediate south and east of Khumbu. Most families who keep yak or other cattle do not also herd sheep, and sheepherding is primarily a pursuit of relatively poor households that cannot afford other stock. The lack of interest in the region in sheep keeping seems to reflect a cultural attitude rather than either a perception that the region is poor sheep country, as Fürer-Haimendorf (1979:13) and Brower (1987:171) have suggested, or a lack of interest in sheep products. Wool, dried sheep meat, and dried fat are imported from Tibet and bring high prices.

As far back as Sherpas can remember goatherding has been conducted on an even smaller scale than raising sheep. In 1983, when goat keeping was banned in the area as a conservation measure, there were fewer than 300 head, most of which were kept by non-Sherpa, blacksmith families.^[17]