Jack Weatherford

by The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire

  Bride service could sometimes be shortened, or occasionally avoided entirely, if the boy’s family offered animals, usually horses, to the bride’s family. Temujin and his future brother-in-law operated from different premises in arranging the marriage, which became apparent during a casual conversation with another man of Botu’s family. Temujin sought to know more about his future brother-in-law by asking how many horses Botu owned. The man took the question as an opening for a horse negotiation for the marriage in place of service to the bride’s family. He responded that Botu owned thirty horses and that he would give Genghis Khan fifteen of them in exchange for Temulun.

  The offer of horses for his sister outraged Temujin, though not entirely for her sake. It showed that the prospective groom did not perceive Temujin as a worthy ally, but merely as a savage Mongol trying to sell his sister for some horses.

  “If one is concluding a marriage and discusses value,” Temujin angrily responded, “then one is acting like a merchant.” Temujin commenced to lecture the man: “The ancients had a saying: ‘Unity of purpose is a fortune in affliction.’” He then applied that proverb to the current situation. “If you, the people of the Ikires, follow Botu and serve me faithfully, that will suffice.” Service always outranked wealth; loyalty always outranked payments. Despite the heated exchange between the young men, the marriage was arranged, possibly through the intercession of Hoelun and her connection to the groom’s family.

  With this early negotiation, the young Temujin articulated a firm principle, which he followed throughout his life when dealing with the women of his family: Women could never be traded for animals or property. Once he came to power, he made this personal affirmation into law.

  Temujin’s desire to make his mother’s relatives his allies, or possibly even vassals, showed his ambition to rise up in steppe political life. Although only partially successful in making this first alliance, by the summer of 1189, when he was about twenty-seven years old, Temujin had enough support within his small part of the Mongol tribe to be selected as khan, their chieftain. He was still only a minor leader of a small group on the steppe, but henceforth he was known as Genghis Khan, “the Indomitable and Supreme Khan.” For now, his title seemed excessive for the leader of such a small group, but over the years, he fulfilled its meaning more than anyone probably expected at the time.

  As the totemic emblem of his clan, Genghis Khan used the image of the hunting falcon that had been the constant companion of one of his ancestors and had saved his life by capturing prey for him after his brothers abandoned him. The hunting falcons were always female. The female falcon attains a body weight and size 30 percent greater than the male, thus permitting her to capture larger prey and making her a more efficient mother or, in the case of captive falcons, a more valued hunter.

  Over the next decade, Genghis Khan concentrated on fighting at the behest of his overlord, Ong Khan of the Kereyid. He repeatedly rescued his patron’s kidnapped family members, avenged insults to the khan’s honor, and struck out at allies who deserted the khan. He was not the best archer on the steppe, the fastest horseman, or the strongest wrestler, yet he proved to be the best warrior. His extreme tenacity, combined with a quick ability to try new tactics, gradually made him the most feared, if not the most respected, leader on the steppe.

  Consistently triumphant on the battlefield, Genghis Khan once again sought to translate that success into social advancement for his family through marriage. Around 1201 or 1202, when his eldest son, Jochi, was over twenty and his eldest daughter, Khojin, was about fifteen or sixteen, he felt successful and powerful enough to arrange marriages for them with the family of his lord, Ong Khan. After several decades as loyal allies, Ong Khan and Genghis Khan had recently sworn oaths to each other as father and son. To solidify this relationship, Genghis Khan proposed two marriages to his newly adopted father: “On top of affection let there be more affection.”

  Specifically, Genghis Khan proposed that his eldest son, Jochi, marry Ong Khan’s daughter and, in turn, that his eldest daughter marry Ong Khan’s grandson. Had Genghis Khan merely offered his daughter in marriage, the act would have been seen as homage from a vassal; she would have been a gift. By asking for a set of marriages, Genghis Khan knew that this would be seen as making Mongols equal to Kereyid and himself equal to Ong Khan’s other son.

  Understanding the threat this posed to his own position, Ong Khan’s son Senggum, father of the potential groom, objected strenuously. With such a pair of marriages, Genghis Khan would be so closely united with the family of Ong Khan that when the old khan died, Genghis Khan might easily nudge Senggum out of the way and become the new leader.

  In a Mongolian ger, the place of honor has always been on the northern side of the tent, directly opposite the doorway. Using the metaphors of the ger, Senggum complained: “If a woman of our clan goes to them, she will stand by the door looking in at the north of the ger. If a woman of their clan comes to us, she will sit in the north of the tent looking toward the door and fire.” Persuaded by these words, Ong Khan rejected the marriage proposals.

  This refusal broke relations between Genghis Khan and his longtime ally and mentor. After years of their working closely together, the old khan would not recognize a Mongol as his son, nor as equal to a Kereyid, no matter how incapable his own flesh and blood had been or how successful and meritorious Genghis Khan was. Yet again, the future conqueror was reminded that however good a warrior he might be and however loyal a vassal, he was only a Mongol in the eyes of his superiors. Now that he was well into his forties, they probably judged him as past his prime. He had done his duty, but the Kereyid could find another, younger replacement just as eager to do their bidding.

  The simmering resentment turned to bitter anger, and war quickly broke out between Genghis Khan’s Mongols and the Kereyid. This time, Genghis Khan was losing. Until now his bravery and skill had been exercised under the patronage of the Kereyid, but, left completely to his own devices, he found little support from other tribes. In 1203, the Kereyid routed his Mongols, and he fled with a small remnant to the east of Mongolia. It was the lowest time in the professional life of Genghis Khan. After fighting for almost a quarter of a century, he was a failed and defeated middle-aged man who had dared to rise above his position in life and think himself equal to the noble clans of the steppe. His sworn brother and childhood friend, Jamuka, had long ago turned against him. Many of his relatives had deserted him, and he had lost contact with others in the confusion after his defeat. He had not even been able to make a successful marriage for a single one of his children. His sons offered little assistance, and it now became clear that none was a hero.

  During the most severe crises and gravest dangers, Genghis Khan usually fled to Mount Burkhan Khaldun. He felt a strong spiritual connection to the mountain and to its protective spirit. Mongols viewed mountains as males connected to the Eternal Blue Sky; waters were female, the sacred blood of Mother Earth. However, because of the proximity of the Kereyid court and army, Genghis Khan did not feel safe fleeing to Burkhan Khaldun this time. Instead he went far to the east in search of refuge near the Khalkh River.

  Genghis Khan had only a small contingent of his army and former followers. The east, however, was the homeland of his mother, and his only sister had married there. In the intervening years, Temulun had died without children, but he hoped it might be possible to negotiate a new marriage for one of his daughters. In desperation, he sought out Terge Emel, one of his mother’s relatives, in an attempt to build an alliance.

  Terge Emel had never sided with Genghis Khan in the past and showed no affection for Mongols in general. He had been an ally of Jamuka and seemingly every other rival Genghis Khan had faced. Despite all this earlier antagonism, Genghis Khan believed that the offer of a marriage alliance might persuade Terge Emel to overlook those past differences and now save him.

  The proposal would be a gentle plea for peace and cooperation through a marriage, but if that proposition
failed, Genghis Khan was prepared to fight to bring his mother’s relations into his fold. “If they do not come and join us of their own accord,” he explained, in a graphic evocation of the way women gathered fuel to build a fire, “we shall go out, wrap them up like dry horse dung in a skirt and bring them here!”

  “Your daughter looks like a frog,” Terge Emel said to Genghis Khan, echoing one of the derisive descriptions hurled at the Mongols because of their unusual appearance. “I won’t marry her.”

  Terge Emel’s contempt for Genghis Khan indicates how low the Mongols ranked in the hierarchy of steppe tribes. At this moment, Genghis Khan resembled little more than a petty chief of an insignificant band, unlikely to be known beyond a small circle of enemies who seemed about to extinguish him and his followers forever. Even Terge Emel’s kinship with Genghis Khan was no honor, having happened only because Genghis Khan’s father had kidnapped his wife from her first husband in another tribe. Such a crime hardly constituted an affectionate kinship tie.

  Having failed to persuade Terge Emel into a marriage alliance and having little else to lose, Genghis Khan killed him.

  In the summer of 1203, after the death of Terge Emel, Genghis Khan wandered with the remnants of his army near a now unknown place in eastern Mongolia that he called Baljuna Waters. With no food left, he and his men had only the muddy water of the lake to sustain them, their single horse having already been eaten.

  At this moment of dire physical need and emotional exhaustion, Genghis Khan looked out at the horizon and saw a man coming toward him on a white camel, almost like a hazy mirage breaking through the shimmering summer heat. Behind him came more camels, laden with trade goods, and a flock of sheep. The man was Hassan, a merchant who had crossed the Gobi into Mongolia leading camels and bearing food and merchandise to trade for sable furs and squirrel pelts. He happened to arrive in search of water at just the moment when Genghis Khan’s army seemed threatened with a lingering death by starvation or falling into the hands of his enemies.

  Hassan was identified as a member of the Sartaq, a term used by Mongols for both Muslims and merchants, but he came in the employ of a different ethnic group. He had been sent by Ala-Qush, a chief of the Onggud people, a Christian Turkic tribe from six hundred miles south, well beyond the Gobi, which marked the edge of the nomad’s world.

  Although the Mongols had nothing to trade at that moment, Hassan offered them sheep to eat and fresh horses in anticipation that he would one day be repaid for his generosity. The arrival of this unexpected aid seemed like divine intervention from the spirit of the lake; Genghis Khan’s men certainly took the appearance of the Onggud and his supply of meat as a sign of heavenly favor on their leader and their undertaking.

  The episode of Baljuna Waters marked the last moment of hopelessness for Genghis Khan, the last time that his army was defeated. From that day on, he might have occasional setbacks, but he was forever victorious, always triumphant. He never forgot his gratitude to the spirit of Baljuna, the spirit of the Khalkh River, or his debt to his new allies, the Onggud.

  The summer of 1203 marked the turning point for Genghis Khan and the Mongols. They had been saved by a foreign merchant, and, now reinvigorated, they returned toward their homeland, where, by what seemed to the Mongols as divine guidance, people began to flock to Genghis Khan. He and his men had proved their hardiness, their willingness to stare defeat in the eye and still not back down. The people hailed them as a band of heroes.

  Suddenly the spirit on the steppe had changed, and new followers also flocked to Genghis Khan. He quickly made his first marriage ally by negotiating an alliance with Ong Khan’s brother Jaka Gambu, who hoped that with Mongol help he might depose his brother and become the khan of the Kereyid. To cement the new union, Genghis Khan accepted Jaka Gambu’s daughter Ibaka as his wife. Jaka Gambu took Genghis Khan’s youngest son, the ten-year-old Tolui, as a husband for his other daughter, Sorkhokhtani, who was several years older.

  With his new allies among the rebel faction of the Kereyid and his supplies from the Onggud, Genghis Khan’s fortunes had turned. In the next two years he quickly defeated all steppe opponents, and he was able to give his mother a white camel as a gift, possibly the same one Hassan had ridden to the rescue of the Mongols.

  The episode beside the Khalkh River and the Baljuna Waters not only changed Genghis Khan’s political fortunes, it appears to have produced a subtle, yet profound, change in his spirituality. He had spent most of his life in the land of his father, but he had been rescued in the land of his mother. He had spent most of his life relying on the spiritual aid of the male mountain, but it was the female waters that had saved him.

  Genghis Khan’s words after this time began to articulate this spiritual duality. According to his new vision, each person’s destiny demanded the dual support of the strength offered by Father Sky and the protection of Mother Earth. Without one, the other was doomed to failure. Genghis Khan described the source of his success as “strength increased by Heaven and Earth.” As stated in the Secret History, his inspiration and destiny were “called by Mighty Heaven,” but they were “carried through by Mother Earth.”

  The Sky inspired; the Earth sanctioned. Any person might have inspiration from the Sky and be filled with longing, desire, and ambition, but only the devoted and sustained actions of the Earth could transform those desires and that inspiration into reality. The world is composed of sky or heaven above and water and earth below and the Mongols considered it a grave sin to insult or utter disrespectful words about either the sky or water. We live in the realm of Mother Earth, also sometimes called Dalai Ege, “Mother Sea,” because her waters give life to the dry bones of the Earth.

  Mother Earth provided or prevented success. She controlled the animals that Genghis Khan might find to hunt and eat or that might evade him entirely. She made water available or denied it. Repeatedly in the midst of some venture, Mother Earth saved his life by hiding him in the trees of her forest, in the water of her river, in the boulders on her ground, or in the cover of her darkness.

  Whenever a person boasted about his achievements or bragged about his exploits without recognizing the role of Mother Earth in granting that success, it could be said that his mouth made him think that he was better than water. To avoid that characterization, Genghis Khan scrupulously acknowledged the role of both Father Sky and Mother Earth in everything that he accomplished.

  The balance of male and female became a guiding principle in Genghis Khan’s political strategy and tactics, as well as in his spiritual worldview. This theology formed the intellectual and religious organization of life based on the religion of Mother Earth and the Eternal Blue Sky. Maintaining the correct balance and mixture of these two forces sustained an individual, a family, and the nation. For Genghis Khan, negotiating the dualism of existence, finding the correct balance, became a lifetime quest.

  In honoring the supernatural power of the Earth, and therefore her lakes and rivers, as the source of success, Genghis Khan’s Mongols displayed a strong cultural and spiritual association with the female element of water. Before his nation became renowned as the Mongol Empire, his people were often called “Water Mongols,” a name that seemed distinctly inappropriate for a people who inhabited an environment as dry as the Mongolian Plateau and situated so far from the ocean. European maps of Asia persistently identified his tribe by the name Water Mongols or its Turkish translation, Suu Mongol. This unusual designation continued to appear on Western maps until late in the seventeenth century, but seemingly without awareness of the name’s connection to the important role that the Mongols ascribed to the female power of water as the life-giving substance of Mother Earth.

  Years earlier, when his small tribe chose him to be their leader, Genghis Khan had chosen to receive the honor in a spiritually balanced place between the female Blue Lake and the male Black Heart Mountain. Now he would again choose such a spiritually balanced place where he would ask all the tribes of the steppe to accept
him as their supreme ruler.

  Rivers and mountains not only had a name and gender, they bore honorific titles as well. Mountains were the bones of the Earth and male, and the highest mountain always had the title of khan. Rivers and lakes that never ran dry bore the title khatun, “queen,” and the Onon at the birthplace of the Mongols was called mother. Genghis Khan summoned the tribes to meet at the headwaters of the Onon River near Burkhan Khaldun. Here by the father mountain and the mother river, he would create the Mongol Empire.

  2

  The Growling Dragon and the Dancing Peacock

  “WILL THEY COME? WILL THEY COME?” For the nomadic tribes of the Mongolian Plateau in the late winter and spring of 1206, that was the big question.

  Weary of the constant feuding, bickering, and raiding, Genghis Khan had sent out messengers to convene a khuriltai, a large political meeting or parliament of the steppes, with the purpose of getting allies and potential rivals alike to officially accept his leadership, thus allowing him to proclaim a permanent peace under a new government.

  If they came, he would reorganize them into new tribes, issue new laws, and proclaim a new nation. In return, he promised peace among the tribes with greater prosperity and prestige for them all. During more than two decades of fighting, Genghis Khan had tenaciously proved his ability on the battlefield by conquering every tribe on the steppe and destroying their ruling clan, but could he now control them?