Mind, Mountain, and History Revisited

More than forty years ago this journal published an article under the title "Mind, Mountain, and History."' It attempted to show the evolution of the attitudes which Western man evinced with regard to mountains and to probe his mentality from classical to modern times. They led from religious awe to medieval otherworldliness, to revolutionary Renaissance world view, to the rational approach of the Enlightenment, to the aetheticism of the romantic age, to Darwinian concepts in times of growing materialism and advancement in technical thinking, and to a period when mountains became an object, for sport and business, to be "conquered." Even nationalism and collectivism entered in the attitudes of man toward mountains. The picture which the article gave with regard to Western mentality and mountains, a picture typical of a trend in various areas of Western man's life, now needs supplementation both backward and forward, for historical knowledge gained since has broadened our perspective. It is the discovery of the Otzi which directs our minds backward beyond classical times; it is the ascent of Mount Everest which challenges us to direct our minds also forward beyond modernity. Once we are ready for this extension of our investigation, we may come to realize that what has appeared to be an evolution from "primitive" to "modern" makes room for a broader view which questions such historical assumption of an evolution. When in 1991 the Otzi, a human skeleton some 5200 years old, was found in the ice of the glaciers above the Otztal in Austria and when archaeologists could identify, despite the damage done to the site, the corpse, the implements, the tools, the hair, and some of the food the Otzi carried with him, the question obviously arose what type of a man could possibly have dared venture into so forbidding regions.2 It is not known whether or not the Otzi was alone, but indications are that the trek across the mountains, notwithstanding actual and mythical dangers, was frequented regularly by