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of my investigations, individuals frequently wanted me to tell the story of a particular queen, hero, or divinity for whom their mother or daughter was named. Sometimes they encouraged me to meet their grandmother as the best living example of the true ideal of Mongol womanhood. They wanted to highlight the importance of their home area or to stress the neglected virtues of a special type of camel or way of singing. They had a preferred spelling or pronunciation of a name, or hoped I could explain that the milk of their district had just the right amount of fat and the best flavor, and was used in the past by doctors to cure certain diseases. I treasure each of these accounts in my memory even if, in the end, I was not able to incorporate them into this book.

Throughout my research, I relied upon scholars whom I never met and who often work in anonymity without receiving the attention and honor that they deserve. They glean the historic and linguistic fields searching for grains of information about Mongolian life, history, and culture. They study, translate, catalog, and preserve the texts and manuscript fragments of the past. They analyze archaic scripts, compare spellings, and chase down the etymologies of unusual suffix combinations. I greatly admire and appreciate their scholarship.

I hope that the readers of this book will go on to explore the many works about Mongolia, listen to the music of its great artists, and perhaps one day find the white road that leads them to visit the beautiful land and taste the pure water of Mongolia.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jack Weatherford holds the DeWitt Wallace Chair of Anthropology at Macalester College in Minnesota and an honorary position at Chinggis Khaan University in Mongolia. In 2007 he received the Order of the Polar Star, the highest award for service to the Mongol nation.

Copyright © 2010 by Jack Weatherford

Illustrations © 2010 by N. Bat-Erdene

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weatherford, J. McIver.

The secret history of the Mongol queens/Jack Weatherford.

p. cm.

1. Genghis Khan, 1162–1227—Family. 2. Queens—Mongolia—History.

3. Daughters—Mongolia—History. 4. Women—Mongolia—History.

5. Inheritance and succession—Mongolia—History. 6. Mongols—History.

7. Mongols—Biography. 8. Mongolia—Kings and rulers—Biography.

9. Mongolia—History. 10. Mongolia—Biography. I. Title.

DS22.W39 2010

950′.20922—dc22

2009020822

eISBN: 978-0-307-58936-1

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