Ox War In Hunza

The History Of Most Beautiful And Difficult Mountain On Earth (RAKAPOSHI)

The history of the RAKAPOSHI is as ancient as man’s gaze.

The highest and most visible mountain, the MOTHER OF MISTS, is part of the imaginary of each person, wayfarer or inhabitant, that has ever set his eyes and foot onto the Hunza Valley [North Pakistan].

Unlike K2 and other mountains of the Karakoram, the powerful bulk of DUMANI has accompanied all the people who have lived or travelled along one of the crucial nodes of the ancient caravan routes that connected East and West, variants of the famous Silk Route.

The valley dominated by RAKAPOSHI is harmonious and powerful, and has cultural and environmental riches. The valley was the centre of the ancient kingdoms of Hunza and Nagar, and Rakaposhi with its SHINING WALL is an unrivalled buttress to the greatest road ever built: the Karakorum Highway.

But RAKAPOSHI itself is one of the most magnificent works that nature has produced. Rakaposhi is an extremely wide mountain, nearly 20 km from east to west, and is the only peak on Earth that drops directly, uninterrupted, for almost 6000 m from the top to the base.

Few people have climbed RAKAPOSHI.

Many people have dreamed of doing it.

First amongst these, was the British art critic William Martin Conway who went in 1896 in order to explore its southern slopes. He did not find any easy access route, but it was the first true mountaineering expedition in Karakoram.

In 1938 another enterprising British explorer, Campbell Secord tried to approach the great mountain from Jaglot, along the West face and tackling the longe NW Ridge up to 5800 m [Secord Peak].

In 1947 Secord returned with one of the patriarchs of world-wide exploration, Bill Tilman [one of the 20th century’s most important explorers, who disappeared in the waters of Antarctica in 1977], to find an alternative route to the same side on the mountain. After having made an attempt on SW Spur reaching quota 6200, Tilman again ascended NW Ridge reaching just over the 6000 m mark.

Exploration of the West face of Rakaposhi was completed in 1954 by an expedition from Cambridge University, led by the Genevan Alfred Tissières, who after having abandoned the umpteenth attempt on the NW Ridge, concentrated efforts on the Kunti Glacier, along the SW Spur that leads to the characteristic Monk's Head (6300 m), which is clearly visible both from north and south. Members of this strong expedition were the Austrians Anderl Heckmair [the first climber on Eiger North face in 1938], Matthias Rebitsch [the great climber and precusor of modern free climbing, famous for his attempt on the Eiger’s North face in 1937 and for the hard routes on Laliderer North face and on Goldkappel] and the English student George Band [the young mountaineer of the expedition that had already scaled Everest in 1953, and who, two years later, was to become the first ascender of the third highest mountain on Earth, the Kangchenjunga].

In 1958, an Anglo-Pakistani expedition, led by Royal Navy captain, Mike Banks, succeeded in reaching the Rakaposhi summit from Monk’s head, following the same route taken by Tilman. On the summit were Mike Banks himself and lieutenant Tom Patey. Banks learnt the lesson from his unsuccessful attempt in 1956 at the head of an Anglo-American expedition. The first ascenders reached the 7788 meters summit without the use of additional oxygen, but both suffered frostbite in their hands and feet.

Almost 20 years passed, before, in 1979, other climbers tackled the infinite ridges of this great mountain and finally reached the summit. Starting from Biro Glacier, a Polish-Pakistani expedition reached NW Ridge and got to the top via a route that was as long as the first route, but much more difficult [the route was repeated in 1988 by a Dutch expedition]. Two illustrious names from Polish women’s mountaineering, Anna Czerwinska and Krystyna Palmowska, took part in this expedition.







In the Seventies climbers turned their attention to the great inviolate walls of the highest summits. The Rakaposhi NORTH FACE, 20 km wide and characterized by huge spurs, was and is one of the most impressive walls that can be climbed. In 1971 and 1973 the German Karl Herrligkoffer [the famous Herr Doctor, organizer of the expedition to the Nanga Parbat of 1970 where Reinhold Messner lost his brother Günther] led two expeditions to the base of North Spur , but the attempt failed for strategic difficulties due to the complexity of the ascension.

It was in 1979 that the sharp North Spur was scaled by a Japanese expedition from Waseda University led by Eiho Ohtani. The seven climbers besieged the mountain for six weeks bridling the spectacular spur with 5000 meters of fixed ropes, distributed on six high quota camps. Ohtani and Matsushi Yamashita did a bivouac at 7600 meters before tackling the difficult cliffs of the final crest. Three very hard lengths, VI (UIAA) and A2, at 7700 meters, had to be surmounted by the two Japanese climbers before reaching the top. Back to the bivouac, it took them two hard days to go back to base camp.







The Japanese ascension passed unnoticed until 1984, when a Canadian team repeated the extraordinary route in the face of inclement weather. After various weeks spent, uselessly, equipping the route, the eight young, strong mountaineers decided to abandon their attempt on the North Spur [at first the Canadian team’s intention was to open a new route on North Face]. A few days before abandoning the mountain, an unexpected spot of good weather made them immediately change their plans. In seven days the three climbers, Dave Cheesmond, Barry Blanchard and Kevin Doyle, attained the summit in semi-alpine style leaving their mark on mountaineering history and in the pages written by the leader, Dave Cheesmond, to describe the difficult ascension, "one of geatest modern Himalayan ascents", defined "the Cassin ridge of the Himalayas" by the first class climber Barry Blanchard. An attempt to repeat this route was made by a Slovenian expedition in 1987, but failed.







In 1985 the huge North Face received another important visit from a strong Austrian team guided by Edi Koblmüller. They aimed at the spur on left of the great wall, the North Spur of East Secondary Summit, where they traced another superb route.

After 20 years from those enterprises on NORTH FACE, Rakaposhi still hides many incognito and is a challenge for the future of mountaineering. Although hundreds of mountaineers are crowded on normal routes of 8000s, and in spite of the poverty of ideas and ethics makes more and more appear a mirage the evolution of mountaineering in terms of exploration, inside and outside oneself, although many speak bad and little write well of contemporary mountaineering, nowadays mountaineering has still ways to explore and poles to discover.

One of these is NW Spur, the longest spur of the world, still unclibed.

Team HunzaHistory

Shamans and mountain spirits in Hunza. (northen Pakistan)

The Hunzakut, a high-mountain people in the western Karakoram mountains of northern Pakistan, possess a shamanistic tradition centered around religious specialists known as bitan. These practitioners inhale the smoke of burning juniper branches, dance to a special music, drink blood from a freshly severed goat's head, enter into ecstatic trances, and converse with supernatural beings. An ethnographic and historical analysis of this little-known shamanistic tradition is offered, focusing on the rituals, beliefs, and practices of Hunzakut bitan, the place of these practitioners in the traditional ritual and politico-ideological apparatus of the former Hunza state, and their role as healers and soothsayers.

Key words: Hunza (northern Pakistan) - shamanism - animal sacrifice - ritual healing - pre-Islamic religious beliefs

Introduction: Hunza, Islam, and Folk Religion






The past physical isolation of the Hunzakut, a high-mountain population in northwestern Pakistan, has been instrumental in allowing them to preserve elements of their pre-Islamic shamanistic religious beliefs. Centered around practitioners known as bitan, this tradition has certain characteristics - such as the shaman inhaling juniper smoke and drinking blood from a freshly severed goat's head - that seem to be unique among South and Central Asian peoples (Sidky 1990, 275-77). This paper examines the particular configuration of rituals and beliefs associated with these bitan, their place in traditional society, and their situation in modern-day Hunza.(1) The data were gathered during anthropological field research in Hunza in 1990 and 1991.






Hunza is located in the far northwestern part of the South Asian subcontinent, in Pakistan's Northern Areas District. This is a high-mountain area where the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalayan ranges have converged to produce a vast network of peaks, valleys, and glaciers. Here is the most massive concentration of high peaks to be found anywhere on earth. Hunza's territory is roughly 7,900 [km.sup.2] and borders Afghanistan and Xinjiang (Chinese Turkestan) to the north, Shinkari and Indus Kohistan to the south, and Kashmir to the east (see map). For centuries Hunza was an independent principality headed by a hereditary autocratic ruler, who was known locally as the Thum, but who also held the Persian title of Mir (Sidky 1993).

In the past, the region's formidable geographic barriers made access to this small mountain kingdom extremely difficult. Travelers from China and northern Afghanistan who wanted to reach Hunza had to traverse the high and extremely dangerous mountain passes of Irshad, Kilik, Mintaka, and Khunjerab, open during the summer months and blocked by snow for the rest of the year. Travelers from Shinkari, Kohistan, and Kashmir did not have to worry about snow, but still faced a treacherous trail zigzagging across steep and precipitous gorges. Incessant rockslides made journeys to Hunza from any direction both terrifying and dangerous, as accounts written by travelers to the area indicate (Clark 1956, 37-38; Schomberg 1935, 95; Shor 1955, 275; Stephens 1955, 155; Thomas and Thomas 1960, 96-97).

From earliest times, the stoic, heroic inhabitants of Hunza Valley (Hunzakuts) sandwiched between the Hindu Kush and Karakorum Ranges in northern Pakistan have been assailed by invaders - geologic, political, climatic and touristy - that would have reduced a lesser people to penury or wiped them out altogether.











Hunza has been ruled by the family known as Mirs of Hunza (called Thums) for centuries. Hunzakuts are believed to be the descendents of soldiers of Alexander the great who were left over battle march forward. The people of Hunza speak Brushuski, an aboriginal language. The medieval state retained its isolated independence for a long time in the remote part of the areas which now form the Northern Areas of Pakistan adjoining the Sinkiang region of China.










During early nineteenth century, Hunza resented Kashmir’s attempts to gain control and its rulers periodically expelled Kashmir garrisons, threatened Gilgit, and politicizing with the rulers of Kashgar to the north where the Russians were gaining influence.






Fearing Russians infiltration into their northern frontiers, the British took over direct political control at Gilgit in 1889. Bloody manoeuvrings in Hunza and Nagar made the areas doubly insecure. This, coupled with the Mir of Hunza’s consistent intransigence tempted the British to march on Hunza in December 1891, where they fought a decisive battle at Nilit, 60 kilometres beyond Diaynor Bridge. After this the British garrisoned Aliabad until 1897 when Hunza became a princely state protected by the British. After Pakistan was created, the people of Hunza also gained liberation and later the princely state was merged in Pakistan.














Travelling to the Hunza Valley in the past required walking (or driving a wretched track) through the roughest mountain glen on earth but these days one can commute on Karakorum Highway – ranked one of the highest highways in the world - to reach Karimabad – principal town in the Valley.






In all weathers, one senses the region’s Shangri-la-like isolation, the tall ranges that hem it in. Hunza is a really lovely place. I cannot put my finger on exactly why it was, but one feels really relaxed just hearing the sound of my own thoughts