The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - Jack Weatherford [3]
We rarely find what we do not seek. Once we look for information on these great queens, we realize that much of the history was not hidden at all; it was merely ignored. Snippets of evidence concerning these royal women can still be found in the diplomatic reports of the Chinese court, letters to the Vatican, the elegant Muslim histories, royal Armenian chronicles, the memoirs of merchants such as Marco Polo, and carved into the stones of Taoist and Confucian temples. Once we know what we are looking for, we find the Mongol queens in the rhymes of Chaucer and the arias of Puccini, in Persian manuscript paintings and silken thangkas hanging in Tibetan monasteries. Those queens are still there, waiting through eight centuries for us merely to see them again.
This book is a small effort to find that lost story, to reassemble the clipped pages of the Secret History, to blow the dust off this neglected chapter, and to see once again what in our past has been denied to us for seven hundred years. What did those censors not want us to read? What is it about our history that we are not allowed to know? If the truth was important enough for one generation of powerful officials to go to great lengths to hide it, then it should be important for us to search for it now.
PART I
Tiger Queens of the Silk Route
1206–1241
There is a khan’s daughter
Who steps on in a swinging manner
And has the marks of twenty tigers,
Who steps on in a graceful manner
And has the marks of thirty tigers,
Who steps on in an elegant manner
And has the marks of forty tigers,
Who steps on in a delicate manner
And has the marks of fifty tigers.
MONGOL EPIC POEM
Altan Urug: The Golden Family of Genghis Khan
I
It Takes a Hero
ARENEGADE TATAR WITH THE KNIFE OF VENGEANCE HIDDEN in his clothes slowly crept toward the camp of Genghis Khan’s elderly mother, Hoelun. He sought revenge against Genghis Khan, who had annihilated the ancient Tatar clans, killed many of their warriors, married their women, and adopted their children, even changing their names to make them Mongol.
As a military and political leader with many enemies, Genghis Khan lived in a well-guarded encampment where bodyguards had strict orders to kill anyone who crossed a precise point without permission. Hoelun, however, lived apart in her own camp, and although she now had ten thousand soldiers and their families assigned to her control, at her advanced age she let her youngest son take her part of the army out on missions with her eldest son, the khan, while she stayed home.
Despite her rank, Hoelun’s camp differed little from that of any other Mongol nomad. It consisted of a small collection of gers, the round tent of the steppes, positioned in a straight line with the doors facing south. Often called a “yurt” in the West, the Mongol ger was made of thick layers of felt wool pressed into large blankets, and could be packed up and moved as the seasons changed or as whim dictated.
The clearest sign that this was the imperial camp of the khan’s mother was the presence of Hoelun’s white camel and black cart. Women owned the gers and all the carts, but as befits a nomadic people, a woman was better known by her mode of transportation than by her home. Younger women rode horses; older women drove carts. Unless gravely ill or seriously injured, a man could never ride on a woman’s cart, much less drive it.
Mongol carts of this time consisted of a small wooden bed above the axle and two wheels. Extending from the front were the two long shafts, between which the draft animal pulled the cart. All carts had the same black covering and looked much alike, but a woman showed her individuality in the choice and training of the draft animal. Common women drove a lumbering ox