A Glimpse of Another World: a Journey Through Western Tibet (1938)
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A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER WORLD: A JOURNEY THROUGH WESTERN TIBET (1938) F. BAILEY VANDERHOEF, JR. EDITED WITH A FOREWORD BY JOSÉ IGNACIO CABEZÓN THIS PUBLICATION IS A JOINT PROJECT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA AND THE SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF ART. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. FOREWORD In the spring of 1938, two young American explorers, Wilbur L. Cummings, Jr. (191401943), and F. Bailey Vanderhoef, Jr. (b. 1913) set off on an expedition into Tibet. Leaving from the small Indian hill station of Kalimpong, they crossed the Himalayas – their principal goal, to document the religious art and the famous “lama dances” at the monastery of Palkhor Chöde, located in the city of Gyangtse in western Tibet. Their photos of the yearly festival of the unveiling of the monastery’s famous massive silk tangka appeared in the June 12, 1939 edition of Life magazine, some of the first color images of Tibet to appear in the American popular press. Mr. Vanderhoef later compiled a narrative of the journey. This is the document that you have before you. Written in a lively and engaging style, it brings to life the details of this amazing trip in a manner that is characteristic of the travel narratives of the period. It is in many ways a unique document. I have edited Mr. Vanderhoef’s memoirs, but apart from standardizing the phonetic rendering of Tibetan words, adding some hyperlinks, and correcting a few minor factual details, I have avoided substantially changing the manuscript. My decision to edit with a light hand was a conscious choice on my part, believing that the chief value of this document lies in the fact that it is a record of one individual’s views and impressions of a journey undertaken at a specific point in history. Some of the factual details of Mr. Vanderhoef’s book would undoubtedly have to be corrected in light of contemporary scholarship, which has obviously come a long way since 1938. A few of the hyperlinks will hopefully serve to provide the reader with a bit more up-to-date information. Some of the author’s views in this work – his opinions about Himalayan peoples, Tibetan religion, Tibetan art, etc. – are, by today’s standards, somewhat dated. But we must remember that this chronicle was written seventy years ago: when the British still controlled India, when scholarly writing about Tibet was scarce, and when European and American attitudes about “the Orient” in general, and Tibet particular, were very different from what they are today. As a window into an American explorer’s impressions of the peoples, cultures and landscapes of Tibet and the Himalayas, however, Mr. Vanderhoef’s memoirs provide us with a richness of detail that is rare to find among travelogues. Instead of viewing this text as a registry of facts, I encourage the reader to see it as a window into the experiences of its author at this very specific point in time. From this perspective, the memoirs provide us not so much an objective, scholarly perspective on the people and things that the traveler encounters, but rather the subjective viewpoint of the traveler himself. The book is not so much a factual lens focused on Tibetan culture as it is the image of Tibetan culture as this is reflected (and refracted) on the surface of the mind of a young American explorer with very limited access to scholarly knowledge about Tibet. But perhaps I overstate my case by emphasizing the subjective, since some of Mr. Vanderhoef’s descriptions and photo-documentation – from the headdresses worn by women in Western Tibet, to the interior of temples, to the Tibetan art of papermaking – are indeed interesting ethnographic contributions in their own right. However one chooses to read this document, I can guarantee the readers that they are not likely to get bored, for Mr. Vanderhoef has an evocative way Vanderhoef ii _______________________________________________________ of presenting his travels that captures people, places and even the flora and fauna of the region in a most vivid way. A Glimpse of Another World: A Journey Through Western Tibet is being published to celebrate the opening of an exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art from April to August of 2008. That exhibition, A Tibet Expedition 1938: Selected Gifts from Two Explorers, commemorates Mr. Vanderhoef and Mr. Cummings’ gifts of paintings, sculpture and ritual objects to the museum, a collection that comprises an important part of SBMA’s permanent Tibet collection. These objects were brought back from the trip documented in these pages, and some of them are specifically mentioned here. The publication also coincides with a special academic quarter focusing on Tibetan and Himalayan art at UC Santa Barbara, made possible by a grant from the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation. In the 2007/2008 academic year, the Rubin Foundation generously funded an initiative at UCSB to increase undergraduate exposure to Tibetan and Himalayan culture, especially its great artistic traditions. This funding allowed for a Tibetan artist in residence, the Ven. Yeshi Dorje, during the spring quarter. It also brought Dr. Christian Luczanits to the University, where he taught a course on Tibetan and Himalayan art history. As part of this initiative, moreover, a select group of UCSB students toured the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, where they saw the artifacts that Mr. Vanderhoef and Mr. Cummings brought back from their trip. These students also received special tutorials on Tibetan and Himalayan art, and they subsequently shared their knowledge with students in the Santa Barbara public schools in the form of class presentations and workshops. This joint venture between a university, a museum, and a philanthropic organization – all in the service of the community – represents for me a model of inter-institutional partnerships. I consider myself lucky to have been a part of this collaboration. Finally, I would like to thank the individuals who have worked to make this publication a reality: first and foremost, Mr. F. Bailey (“Billy”) Vanderhoef, himself, who so graciously agreed to the publication of the work and to the dissemination of his important collection of photographs in digital form. Special thanks also go to Susan Shin-tsu Tai, Elizabeth Atkins Curator of Asian Art at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Susan took time out of her busy schedule to arrange for me to meet Billy during a pleasant summer afternoon in 2007, an afternoon whose memory I will long cherish. Susan also continued to serve as a liaison between Billy and those of us at UCSB who were working on his memoirs. Thanks as well to Ms. Pam Melone, Billy's caretaker and longtime family friend, for her help with various details along the way. A number of different students and colleagues have also played a role in this publication. Joy Davis created the maps found in the Appendix. Rohit Singh worked on the scanning, digital conversion and initial proofing of the document. Paul Hackett, Janet Rockwell, and Michael Cox helped to proof the final document. I would like to thank all of these individuals for their contributions. José Ignacio Cabezón UC Santa Barbara March, 2008 CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER WORLD 1 CHAPTER TWO VISION OF THE SNOWS 13 CHAPTER THREE INTO THAT OTHER WORLD 20 CHAPTER FOUR HISTORY 33 CHAPTER FIVE ACROSS THE PLATEAU 42 CHAPTER SIX BALLET OF GODS AND DEMONS 58 CHAPTER SEVEN WE REACH OUR GOAL 62 CHAPTER EIGHT LAMAISM 68 CHAPTER NINE SAGA DAWA 77 CHAPTER TEN STRANGE SIGHTS, STRANGE TEMPLES 89 CHAPTER ELEVEN TIBETAN ART 96 CHAPTER TWELVE MORE CEREMONIES AND A DISCOVERY 101 CHAPTER THIRTEEN MORE PARTIES AND SOME GOOD LUCK 107 CHAPTER FOURTEEN WE EXPLORE GYANGTSE 116 CHAPTER FIFTEEN HAIL AND FAREWELL 125 APPENDIX 128 1 A Journey Through Western Tibet _______________________________________________________ Chapter One A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER WORLD There I stood looking out of the window of one of the upper rooms of a house in Kalimpong, a small border town in Northern Bengal. How I came there must wait, for it is more important that I explain why. Perhaps, if I just describe what I saw through that window, it will in some measure explain what had drawn me half way around the world, for to me there were many things beckoning: mystery, beauty, adventure; but there is no point in just saying so. I must describe it all. I remember it was a large window, running all across one end of the room, and before this window stood a table bearing a shallow bowl of spring flowers. The thin curtains stirred in the fresh night air and billowed inwards. Outside, the world was flooded with moonlight. Twinkling and immeasurably high and calm against the stars was the white peak of Kangchenjunga, between withdrawn ghostly clouds. Beside me, the crystal pennants of a candlestick stirred in the breeze and tinkled against each other, as though to give voice to the cold vision of the snows. Behind that snowy rampart I knew was Tibet, strange and dark with its veil of mystery stretching far into the north across barren plateau and guardian mountains. It seemed the greatest human presumption to think of venturing beyond those snows. As far back as I can recall, I had always wanted to go to Tibet, and I can remember, during the years away at school, how Bill Cummings and I had planned a thousand times the trip we should some day take. Then, for a time, our lives ran apart, and although we had never quite forgotten our mutual desire, its accomplishment seemed extremely remote. But, in the fall after Bill got out of college, luck played right into our hands, and almost before we knew it, our dreams had begun to be a reality.