Historical collection of Sikkim photographs

Alice S. Kandell

Sikkim is high in the Himalaya Mountains of India, bordered by Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan. The setting is remarkable, with steep slopes, thatched cottages, Buddhist temples, cobbled paths and terraced fields. During many visits from 1965 to 1971, Alice S. Kandell photographed vivid scenes from daily life, documenting the culture of the tiny kingdom before it vanished.

Three hundred of these extraordinary photographs, showing both people and landscapes, are now online at the Library of Congress at  www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/kskm/about.html.  Photographer Kandell has dedicated the rights to the public to encourage worldwide access. Researchers who visit the Library can consult the entire collection of 15,000 color and black-and-white images, which Kandell donated to the Library in 2010.

Prince Palden Namgyal of Sikkim, who lives in New York, said “Dr. Kandell’s collection of photographs represents a rare and valuable snapshot of an era that many young Sikkimese have very little knowledge of today. The pictures are not only beautiful but represent an important historical record of our family. More importantly, they capture the culture, tradition and daily life of a far simpler and more innocent time. We are very grateful to the Library of Congress for preserving Dr. Kandell’s collection and making it accessible to all.”

Where There's Hope

This Article appeared in TIME Magazine on Friday, Mar. 29, 1963

Guests in top hats and cutaways mingled with others in fur-flapped caps and knee-length yakskin boots last week outside the tiny Buddhist chapel in Sikkim's dollhouse Himalayan capital of Gangtok. Wedding parcels from Tiffany's were piled side by side with bundled gifts of rank-smelling tiger and leopard skins. Over 28,146-ft. Mount Kanchenjunga, the world's third highest mountain and Sikkim's "protecting deity," hung a blue haze. It was an "auspicious sign," said Gangtok astrologers, for the wedding of a quiet, blue-eyed New York girl, Hope Cooke, 22, and Gyalsay Rimpoche Maha-rajkumar Palden Thondup Namgyal, 39, crown prince of the Indian protectorate of Sikkim, a tiny territory the size of Delaware, which has 3,000 varieties of rhododendrons, and where, according to local legend, the devils always travel uphill.
The American Touch. The ward of former U.S. Ambassador to Iran Selden Chapin and a graduate in Oriental studies from Sarah Lawrence.* Hope met her widowed future husband four years ago while she was vacationing at the Indian resort of Darjeeling. But when the couple announced plans to marry last year, Sikkimese soothsayers forced the postponement of the wedding because of their forecast that 1962 was "a black year" for the marriage. Thus Hope had to wait until last week to become the first American girl to wed royalty since the daughter of a former Philadelphia bricklayer married Monaco's Prince Rainier in 1956.
Hope's wedding dress was a wraparound, frost-white brocade silk mokey, held in at the waist by a gold belt, from which hung a small dagger. To ward off evil spirits, Hope pressed her hand into a piece of dough. A pair of holy men conducted her to the chapel, where she was greeted by a fanfare of trumpeting, 10-ft.-long Himalayan horns, braying conch shells, and booming bass drums. Outside the chapel door was the only distinctively American touch in the $60,000 Buddhist rite—a mat on which was written in English, "Good Luck."
Billions of Deities. During the 50-minute Buddhist ceremony, Hope sat on a throne slightly lower than that of the crown prince, who in turn was seated lower than his father, the 69-year-old Maharajah of Sikkim. After drinking tea laced with yak butter, a red-robed Buddhist lama in a flame-shaped hat invoked the blessings of the snow lions and billions of other Sikkimese deities. No wedding vows were spoken; the couple merely exchanged 12-ft.-long white silk scarves, which were hung around each other's neck to seal their marriage contract.
The end of the ceremony set off a four-day celebration in Gangtok, whose normal population of 12,000 swelled to 15,000 for the event. Mountain tribesmen in blue pajamalike clothes danced in the streets. Mixing happily with the celebrators, Hope settled into her new role with aplomb. When a pigtailed Sikkimese girl asked for her autograph, the new crown princess signed without a moment's hesitation: "Hope Namgyal."
* Hope is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John J. Cooke. When her parents were divorced, custody of Hope was given to her mother. When her mother died, she became the ward of her maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Winchester Noyes. When they died, she became the ward of her uncle, Ambassador Chapin.