The people of New Zealand and the mountain Sherpas of Nepal joined
Tuesday in Auckland at the state funeral of Everest conqueror Sir
Edmund Hillary, to honour a man loved and revered in both countries.
"He was a colossus. He was our hero," said New Zealand Prime
Minister Helen Clark. "His extraordinary life has been an inspiration
to our small nation and to so many beyond our shores, too."
Norbu Tenzing, eldest son of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who reached the
top of Mount Everest with Hillary in May 1953, said that Hillary's
spirit "forever will live and protect the great mountain and the people
he loved so much."
And Ang Rita Sherpa, chief administrative officer of the Himalayan
Trust which Hillary set up to build schools and hospitals for the
mountain people, told the service, "His loss to us is bigger and
heavier than Mount Everest."
Hillary, who died on January 11 aged 88, was farewelled at what was
reportedly New Zealand's largest-ever state funeral, an honour usually
reserved for prime ministers and governors-general.
Screens were set up in cities and towns all over the country to
watch a live telecast of the service at historic St Mary's Church in
suburban Parnell, where Hillary's casket was taken after lying in state
for nearly 24 hours at the city's Anglican Cathedral next door.
Before the start of the service, Sherpas laid traditional scarves
across the New Zealand flag-draped casket, with an ice axe resting on
top. The funeral began with the tolling of a bell from the Navy ship
HMNZS Endeavour, which carried the great adventurer on his first
expedition to the Antarctic in 1955.
The telecast was transmitted by satellite to Nepal and to New
Zealand's Scott Base in the Antarctic, which Hillary helped establish.
About 200 people attended a separate service at the Sir Edmund
Hillary Alpine centre in the shadow of New Zealand's highest peak,
Mount Cook (3,754-metres) where the great adventurer began his
mountaineering career.
Mourners described the heavy rain that shrouded the mountain,
forcing the service to be held indoors, as "tears from heaven," news
reports said.
Norbu Tenzing and other Sherpa representatives who came to New
Zealand for the service said that Hillary was revered in Nepal, where
his Himalayan Trust built or funded 63 schools, after an elder said to
him, "Our children have eyes, but they are blind."
Tenzing - whose father died in 1986 - told the service that the
trust had also built two hospitals, a dozen clinics, bridges and
water-supply facilities: "It's impossible to describe all he has done
for us in Nepal.
"His love and dedication to the Sherpas was like that of a parent
towards a child - absolutely unconditional. When Sherpas heard of his
death, their grief spiralled into mourning only comparable to the loss
of a parent."
Hillary's son Peter - who has also climbed Everest and told the
congregation that "adventure was compulsory" in the family - said he
discovered his powerful father's fragility for the first time in the
Nepali capital Kathmandu in 1975 when his mother and sister died in a
mountain plane crash.
Thousands of people queued for up to two hours throughout the night
at the cathedral to pay their respects to Sir Ed, as he was known
throughout New Zealand.
Mourners were led by his widow, Lady June Hillary, and included
five members of the 1953 Everest expedition, including Jan (then James)
Morris, correspondent for The Times of London, who broke the news of
the successful ascent.
About 40 members of the New Zealand Alpine Club holding long-
handled ice axes formed a guard of honour as Hillary's casket was
carried out of the church, and students at a high school named after
him performed a spirited Maori haka (or war dance), a traditional
tribute of respect.
Thousands of Aucklanders defied rain to line the streets as the
funeral cortege drove through the city before a private family
cremation.
