Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World - Jack Weatherford [166]
When he had finished his work, Genghis Khan returned here, as he always had after each victory, for rest, recovery, and renewal. He had changed the world but had allowed nothing to change in the land of his birth. Today, hawks soar overhead in spring, and the insects still sing in summer just as they did in his day. Nomads move to the hills in autumn, and wolves prowl in winter. When I close my eyes, I can still hear the distant thunder of his horse’s hooves as they gallop off to China, Europe, and India.
Leaving the forested mountains and riding back to find our Jeeps, we decided to return to where the story and our expedition began, the place where the Merkid kidnapped Borte from Temujin. The steppe stretched to the horizon in every direction, barren of trees and unmarred by buildings, roads, fences, electric lines, or other scars of the modern world. During my repeated visits, I had learned to mark the land as the Mongols do, by color of season. The brief green summer lured the mating birds; the yellow fall enticed the horses to race and goats to gnaw at the drying plants. The white winter would find camels wandering slowly up and down the frozen river searching for patches of dried grass, and the brown spring provided only a time of waiting for new grass by the animals and the humans who live off them. Isolated, remote, and unchanged by the centuries, this locale marks the place where Temujin became a man and changed the Mongols from a tribe into a nation.
Upon our return to the windy place where we thought the abduction had occurred, our group grew quiet in the bitter wind that whipped around us. We had fulfilled the mission, and we returned to the spot with a new sense of amazement at what had happened here. The outline of many old campsites were clearly marked by large stones that once were used to tie down the ger in the fierce winds. The Mongol camps now lay cold and empty. Yet it seemed that if I only kicked the dust, I would feel the warmth of the smoldering ashes rising from his last campfire. If I brushed away the snow, I would see the prints of his horses in the frozen mud. The stones seem to have been left quite casually, as though at any time now the owner might return, dust them off, and once again erect either a winter camp for his yaks and sheep or an imperial capital of the world—whichever is most needed at the moment.
We stood in a silent cluster in the whistling wind, tightened our jackets, pulled down our hats, and stared at the ground. One by one, members of the group walked away to gather a few stones and piled them on the spot, in the way that nomadic people have marked important places for thousands of years. The senior horseman, a local headman, gathered some of the dried horse dung, piled it in front of the stones, and, as others blocked the wind by spreading open their flowing deels, lit the dung in much the same way that a mother kindles the fire before the family erects their ger around it.
Once the dung ignited, Professor. O. Sukhbaatar sprinkled some incense of finely ground cedar into the fire. The smell generated a soothing effect that softened the excitement of the long search, and at the same time focused our attention on the fire itself. The smoke wafting from the incense and dung signaled the success and conclusion of this phase in our quest. All the men shuffled a little and gradually pulled themselves up more erectly. Every culture has its proper way to dress and appear respectful. For the Mongols, the three breast buttons had to be securely fastened, their collars pulled straight, and the sleeves of the deels pulled down to cover their wrists and part of the upper hand. Each man tightened the wide gold sash and then bloused out the upper part of the deel to make it loose and full.
When we had identified the place on our earlier passage through here, the herders had asked Professor Sukhbaatar to mark a stone on this place so that everyone would know