by Joshua Fogel
The old servant dispatched to Yisügei’s camp returned to Ö’elün’s yurt the next evening. He reported to the young mother that Yisügei had selected the name Temüjin for the boy. When she heard this, for the first time since she had given birth, Ö’elün looked relieved, for at least she now knew that her husband did not bear anger such that he might wish to curse the newborn child. Aside from this, however, everything remained unclear, for according to the old servant the meaning of the name Temüjin could be construed by Ö’elün in any way she wished.
“When I reached Master Yisügei’s camp, he was in the midst of enjoying a victory celebration after merciless fighting with the Tatars. To the side of the campfire were two enemy leaders who had been taken prisoner and were tied up. It seemed to be the middle of a drinking bout, and one of the prisoners was dragged out and beheaded on the spot. As if to commemorate this triumphal celebration, it was the wish of Master Yisügei to give the newborn child the name of this Tatar chief.”
Thus spoke the elderly servant. To be sure, a name taken simply to commemorate a military victory posed no problems, but when she tried to come to terms with the fact that it was the name of an enemy chief who had been decapitated, Ö’elün could not repress a certain disquiet. And she remained confused as to whether Yisügei was happy or enraged at the birth of his son. In any event, this infant boy who as yet had no clear sense of who his mother and father were was given the name Temüjin and thus was fated to be reared as the eldest son of a leader of a Mongol lineage.
For the next few days, Ö’elün suffered with a high fever due to postpartum illness, vacillating between life and death. When the fever subsided and it eventually became clear that she would live, the first thing her frail eyes caught sight of was her husband, Yisügei, taking their baby son, Temüjin, up in his arms.
Ö’elün had become Yisügei’s wife about ten months earlier. Born into the Olqunu’ud lineage, she had been taken captive by a young man of the Merkid lineage and carried off to a Merkid settlement. En route she was again taken, this time by Yisügei, by the banks of the Onon River and hence became his wife. She had been raped over a dozen times by the young men of the Merkids, and although she gave birth only after becoming Yisügei’s wife, there was no way of determining for sure that the boy was his biological son.
Ö’elün continued looking at the profile of her husband holding Temüjin. Commonly called Warrior Yisügei, he was feared by other tribes for his famed courage and valor. From the intrepid look on his face, she could not detect so much as a fragment of his inner thoughts, but the fact that he was embracing Temüjin in his large arms gave Ö’elün cause for relief. And this sense of relief gradually changed into a powerful emotion she herself could not even explain clearly, as tears bathed her cheeks.
A number of nomadic peoples were encamped at various sites on the terrain north of the Great Wall of China where the Mongols lived at this time. The land was obstructed on the east by the Great Xing’an Mountains and on the west by the Sayan, Altai, Tannu-Ola, and Tianshan ranges; to the south it bordered China at the Great Wall and the Western Marshes across the immense wasteland of the Gobi Desert. And the north, bounded by the region around Lake Baikal, was engulfed in the endless no-man’s land of Siberia. Six rivers streamed through this immense plain surrounded by great mountain ranges, deserts, and uninhabited wilderness. The Onon, Ingoda, and Kherlen flowed together, formed the Amur River, and poured out into the Sea of Okhotsk. The Tula, Orkhon, and Selengge rivers all flowed into Lake Baikal. These two water systems both began in the central portion of the high plains, and their basins formed the grasslands and forest regions. From time immemorial nomadic peoples had risen and fallen here. With this area as a base of operations, the Xiongnu, Rouran, Orkhon Turks (Tujue), and Uyghurs had all attempted to extend their influence southward, the only way out. Thus, Chinese statesmen over the centuries had no choice but to construct the Great Wall and prepare for invasions from these nomads to their north.
It was unclear just when the Mongols had moved into this region, but in roughly the eighth century they, together with other settlements, fell under the domination of the Turks, and in the middle of the eighth century they became subject to the Uyghurs who replaced the Turks. From the ninth century, they were under the control of the Tatars who supplanted the Uyghurs. After the collapse of the Tatars, though, a number of unrelated peoples who differed in hairstyles, skin color, and customs formed their own villages and spread out here and there around the vast grasslands. Through the years, they lived fighting constantly over domesticated animals, women, and grasses.
In the middle of the twelfth century, when Temüjin was born, besides the Mongol people there were the Kirghiz, Oirat, Merkid, Tatar, Kereyid, Naiman, and Önggüd ethnicities living on this Mongolian plain. The Mongols and Tatars were trying to gain supremacy over all the settlements, and that meant incessant small-scale fighting. Temüjin was born in the midst of the battles between these two peoples.
In addition to fighting between different ethnic groups, there was repeated and often fierce fighting within the same group over collected booty. The Mongols were divided into a number of lineages, each with its own independent settlement, which were prone to vie with one another. The Borjigin lineage to which Yisügei belonged had long effectively functioned as the main family line of the Mongolian people, and from it someone had eventually emerged as the khan or ruler who controlled all the Mongol groupings. The first khan was Temüjin’s great-grandfather, Qabul Khan, who brought a certain unity, albeit imperfect, to the Mongol settlements, which had been in a state of chaotic disorder, and he put in place a system for other settlements that proved to be of benefit to all. Although the second khan was Hambaghai of the Tayichi’uds, in the following generation leadership returned to the Borjigin lineage with Qutula, Yisügei’s uncle, as khan. At present, Yisügei was the fourth khan.
Temüjin was therefore raised in the tent of the chief of the Mongolian people on the great Mongolian plateau. Two years after giving birth to him, Ö’elün bore Qasar, and two years after that Qachi’un, both boys. Thus, at age four Temüjin had two younger brothers. His father also sired by another woman a boy one year his junior by the name of Begter and another boy two years Begter’s junior by the name of Belgütei, thus giving Temüjin two more younger brothers. Temüjin was reared together with all of his younger male siblings, as Yisügei treated his five sons equally, not doting on or showing particular favoritism to any one of them. The same was true of Ö’elün. She never distinguished between the three sons she had borne in her womb and the two children born to another woman. And just as her husband showed no favoritism toward Temüjin, Ö’elün too showed none toward any of the children she and her husband had produced. This was particularly perspicacious on her part.
When Temüjin was six years old, Ö’elün gave birth to another male child who was given the name Temüge. The six-year-old Temüjin was considerably bigger physically than other boys his age and considerably stronger, but he was a quiet child who rarely spoke. Although he quarreled with others very infrequently, when he did so it was with great resolution. He would always listen silently with his eyes glaring whenever someone would speak to him abusively, and when he saw that that person had nothing further to say, he would suddenly, without so much as a single word, attack him. He might throw the person to the ground and from horseback pelt him with stones, or he might ram the person’s head into the sand and trample him underfoot—his methods were decidedly violent. There was something brutal in the manner of his assault, as Temüjin possessed, in the eyes of the adults who came to stop him, a bizarre disposition lacking many of the charms associated with childhood. On such occasions, the adults were under the illusion that Temüjin was the same age as they, and they would always reprove him as one castigates an adult.
These instances aside, though, Temüjin was just a quiet, unobtrusive lad. Being the eldest child, he had to allow his mother to look after his younger brothers. He th
us had little opportunity to rest at Ö’elün’s knee or wrapped in her arms. Yet he was no different from other children in his desire to spend time close to his mother.
The first time Temüjin heard stories of ancestors in his lineage and the traditions about them, he was seven years of age. He had a distant relative, an elderly man by the name of Bültechü Ba’atur. The term ba’atur was an appellation meaning “brave,” indicating that in his youth this man had undoubtedly been a valiant warrior. Now, however, he was a gentle old man, fond of children, who had grown a white beard over his cheeks and chin. He retained a stunning memory, and when on occasion relatives gathered in Yisügei’s yurt, he regaled them with tales of their ancestors through the ages. As if he had known all of these men from the past personally, he described in intimate detail their facial appearances and even their dispositions. No one listening ever lost interest.
Whenever a group of men gathered around, Bültechü Ba’atur always faithfully drew out—as if he were tracing it with string—what he had crammed inside his head. While a portion of what he recounted was remembered by the majority of those assembled, no one else could tell a story like Bültechü, and it was hard to imagine that anyone else could keep such extraordinarily long stories stored inside his mind as he could.
When Bültechü was about to launch into one of his tales, people would often try to be the first to jump in from memory.
—There was Batachiqan and his son was Tamacha, and Tamacha’s son was Qorichar Mergen, and Qorichar Mergen’s son was A’ujam Boroghul, and A’ujam Boroghul’s son was Sali Qacha’u, and Sali Qacha’u’s son was Yeke Nidün, and Yeke Nidün’s son was Sem Söchi.
In this way one might enunciate the names of one’s ancestors who had been the heads of the family. If one became confused, another might pick up the lead and continue the genealogy.
—Sem Söchi’s son was Qarchu, and Qarchu’s son was Borjigidai Mergen; and Borjigidai Mergen had a beautiful wife by the name of Mongoljin Gho’a, and they had a son by the name of Toroqoljin Bayan; and Toroqoljin Bayan had a beautiful wife by the name of Boroqchin Gho’a, as well as a young servant named Boroldai Suyalbi and two fine steeds named Dayir and Boro.
Even one with the best of memories would usually find himself stymied at this point in the tale. Thereafter—that is, from Toroqoljin Bayan (meaning Toroqoljin “the rich”), the tenth-generation head of the family with his wife and two horses and young servant—the number of offspring proliferated, and all of a sudden the names of the people that one had to commit to memory expanded like the branches and limbs of a overgrown tree, necessitating that one wait for the likes of Bültechü with his astonishing memory. When others couldn’t recall anything more, he would smile in apparent satisfaction, his face wrinkled by age, and slowly begin to speak. And of course, what Bültechü actually had to say was more than just a simple list of the names of the heads of the Mongol families through the ages. His tone often went as follows:
“Toroqoljin Bayan and his wife Boroqchin Gho’a were a very happy couple. Because they were so very amicable, they produced a son with a single eye. Thus, they gave him the name Du’a Soqor or ‘one-eyed’ Du’a. This eye was placed right in the middle of his forehead, but it was an extremely efficacious eyeball, for he was said to be able to see—although it surely sounds like a falsehood—to a distance three days’ journey away, perhaps as far as 250 miles. After Du’a Soqor, Dobun Mergen (Dobun ‘the sharpshooter’) was born, and both developed into high-spirited youngsters. On one occasion the brothers went out hunting. Du’a Soqor surveyed the plain and saw in the distance a fine young woman. She seemed as though she might be married. He said: ‘Since she should be passing this way tomorrow or the next day, let’s snatch her up when she arrives and she’ll make a fine wife for you, Dobun Mergen.’ Although Dobun Mergen did not, in fact, do this, the following day when she arrived at that place, she turned out to be a young bride amid a small group of people. The young men drew their bows and brandished their spears, preparing to attack them. Such were the circumstances by which Alan Gho’a (meaning the ‘fair’ Alan) became the bride of Dobun Mergen. The two soon produced two sons, Bügünütei and Belgünütei, who were to become, respectively, the ancestors of the Bügünüd and Belgünüd lineages. Well, then, Dobun Mergen now had Alan Gho’a as his wife, but regrettably he died, leaving behind his young wife and two young sons. Alan Gho’a continued to raise the boys, and in succession produced three more sons. Although she had no husband, she gave birth to several children. That said, Alan Gho’a was a chaste woman, and never had she committed a sin. How then were the births of these children to be explained? Just before she became pregnant each time, light from a corner of heaven shone down, entered a hole in the roof of her yurt, and touched the white skin of her body. Thence were born Bügü Qatagi, Bughatu Salji, and Bodonchar Mungqaq (Bodonchar ‘the fool’), and they were the progenitors, respectively, of the Qatagin, Salji’ud, and Borjigin lineages. Thus, the blood of the beautiful Alan is mixed with the light of heaven in the bodies of those of us Borjigins who come together and form the line descending from Bodonchar Mungqaq.”
Bültechü went on to recount in detail and with vibrancy the generations of brave warriors and military prowess that followed Bodonchar. There were ten generations from Bodonchar to the present head of the lineage, Yisügei, and many things had to be described, but it would be impossible to relate the entire story in a single evening.
The only story that left an impression on the seven-year-old Temüjin was that of Du’a Soqor. If the other parts of the tale did not elicit much interest, it was probably because he did not fully understand them. Temüjin was even more fascinated when, at some great meeting of all the Mongol families, a number of elders responded in chorus, as if in prayer, to Bültechü’s oral transmission, in the open space before their yurts, of the origins of the Mongols. In particular, it was the content of the phrases of their prayer that intrigued Temüjin:
—There was a blue wolf born with a destiny set by heaven. There was a pale doe who was his mate. She came across a wide lake. They set up camp at Mount Burqan at the source of the Onon River, and there was born Batachiqan.
These were the short phrases that were begun by the chorus, and soon thereafter they were absorbed into intricate ceremonies. The oral tradition had it that through the mating of the wolf and doe the initial ancestor Batachiqan was born, and whenever this tale was recounted, it evoked extraordinary emotions in the hearts of all Mongols, whether they were of the Borjigin or the Tayichi’ud lineage. Everyone believed the story. It told of a great lake far to the west and a rampaging wolf that crossed it at the orders of his deity and took the graceful, beautiful doe as his mate. Mount Burqan was a peak everyone knew well. Wherever they moved their yurts, Mongols were raised nearly every day from birth with an adoration for Mount Burqan.
Temüjin was profoundly moved by the story of the blue wolf. Satisfied that he was himself a descendant of the wolf and doe, he firmly believed that the tale did not refer to another lineage, and as a result those of the other lineages had declined to a debased state. In short, Temüjin felt great pride that the blood of the wolf and doe coursed through his veins.
Hearing this strange chorus of elders, including Bültechü, singing was the most important event of Temüjin’s youth. The meaning of the words they sang, of course, was difficult for the seven-year-old to comprehend and was explained to him by his mother, Ö’elün. While the elders were intoning these words, though, Temüjin was visualizing an immense, ferocious wolf and an elegant, lovely doe. The wolf had an acute eye, one that could see even farther and more accurately than Du’a Soqor, an eye that grasped everything within its purview and would not let go, and that feared absolutely nothing. The cold light in his eye held both the spirit of attack ready to confront anything and the powerful will to make anything he desired his own. His physique was made entirely for attack. His sharp ears could pick up sounds hundreds of miles away; all of the flesh and bones of h
is body were solely dedicated to the objective of slaughtering the enemy. When necessary, his tenacious limbs could dash through snowy wastelands, race through strong winds, climb over peaks, and leap through the air.
Attending this wolf was a doe of slender build covered in magnificent fur. Her chestnut coat was dotted with white specks, her mouth covered with white fur. Unlike the wolf, she possessed delicate eyes, but she moved them incessantly, giving her whole body a nervous edge, as she tried to protect the mate she loved from his enemies. The doe served the wolf with her great beauty, and served him as well by never relinquishing her vigilance for so much as an instant. To the least stirring of the leaves of a tree in the wind, she inclined her long face alertly. While she lacked virtually anything of an aggressive nature, her defensive posture was unsurpassed.
These two entirely different living things both provided enough beauty to enchant the young Temüjin’s mind. And from these two marvelous creatures was born the first human ancestor: Batachiqan. Over the course of many years, the blood of the wolf and the doe had continued to flow in the bodies of many of his ancestors, and now it flowed in his own.
After he learned this story, no matter what tale Bültechü recounted—and Temüjin came to know them all himself—none captured his mind as fully as this one. Although he would hear Bültechü numerous times retell the story of the blood of the beautiful Alan Gho’a mixing with the light from heaven into the body of the Borjigin lineage, compared to the tale of the wolf and the doe that he had relayed with such pride, it struck Temüjin as dull and without any charm whatsoever. The fact that members of the Borjigin lineage were superior to other Mongol families by virtue of this heavenly light was, of course, not something that saddened Temüjin, but the tale of the blood of the wolf and doe, which was distributed equally among the entire Mongol population, was on a far grander scale in his mind. Supporting it was a stage with the far greater breadth of all Mongols upon it.