Mongolian History

The History of Mongolia (3 Vols.) Edited by David Sneath and Christopher Kaplonski

2011-04-08T19:08:00.000-07:00

"The History of Mongolia" (3 Vols.)
Edited by David Sneath and Christopher Kaplonski

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“The History of Mongolia” edited by David Sneath and Christopher Kaplonski is of great historical and scholarly importance for Mongol history specialists as well as the generalist student of history.

Published in three volumes by Global Oriental in 2010, totaling 1100 pages and weighing in at a hefty six pounds, this remarkable anthology of articles lays the foundation for the understanding of Mongol history with studies of the pre-Chinggisid period, Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Empire, the Yuan and late medieval period, the Qing period and finally twentieth century Mongolia.

David Sneath’s introduction to Inner Asian history sets the stage with an early citation in Chinese chronicles regarding the military threat posed by steppe-born mounted archers being so worrisome that “…in 307 B.C. the Zhau emperor Wuling demanded that his subjects learn the ‘barbarian’ art of horse-archery…”

Sneath's chronology of steppe imperial history beginning with the Xiongnu emperor's adversarial relationship with Han dynasty rulers clearly illuminates the political dynamics between people living behind the Great Wall and nomads inhabiting the steppe regions beyond it. The author's succinct summary of the pre-Mongol period introduces us to the Khazars, Uighurs, Khitan, Liao, and the Rouran (Juan-juan), "...their empire “stretched from Korea in the east to the Tarim Basin in the west.” The tumultuous history of this region produced several dynasties that comprised the Turkish empire whose remarkable inscribed stone monuments can still be seen in Mongolia’s Orkhon valley.

Inner Asia's historical precedents as outlined by Sneath delineate a blueprint for the political, social and military infrastructure that provided fertile ground for the rise and fall of many steppe dynasties in the Mongol homeland.

The first essay in this volume titled, “Ancient Inner Asian Nomads; Their Economic Basis and Its Significance in Chinese History” by Nicola Di Cosmo addresses the established perspective about the economic dichotomy between steppe nomads and sedentary society and challenges long-held beliefs about these relationships.

Di Cosmo disputes the views of some prominent scholars that “the creation of a steppe empire by the Inner Asian nomads is seen as the result of a conscious search for a more efficient means to extract from China the resources they could not produce.” The author offers an opposing theory which holds “that farming was carried out as a supplementary activity in various areas within the economic zones dominated by mounted nomads..” Di Cosmo cites several archeological discoveries that buttress his thesis including the mention of the Xiongnu sending four thousand cavalrymen during Emperor Zhao’s reign (86 – 74 B.C.) to “work the land at Jushi.” Taken as a whole the author provides compelling evidence of ancient steppes nomads involvement with crop cultivation.

Burton Watson’s translation of Sima Qian’s “The Account of the Xiongnu” written in 109 B.C. provides a great deal of detail about Xiongnu customs and relations with the Chinese court. His observation about Xiongnu spiritual practices --“At dawn the Shanyu leaves his camp and makes obeisance to the sun as it rises, and in the evening he makes similar obeisance to the moon”-- illustrates parallels with Chinggisid Mongol traditions. Quian's text is rife with caricatures of threatening unstable Xiongnu nomads; typical of this outlook he says that, “their only concern is self-advantage, and they know nothing of propriety or righteousness.” Included in Qian’s account is the intriguing story of a eunuch named Zhonhuang Yue who became an important adviser to the Xiongnu emperor and staunch defender of Xiongnu practises.

Included in Volume 1, Part 1 are several other important articles that provide deeper understanding of the period that preceded the rise of Chinggis Khan and the Mongol empire, including Peter B. Golden’s “The Türk Imperial Tradition in the Pre-Chinggisid Era” which is an essential primer on early Turkic history,and Owen Lattimore’s, “The Geography of Chinggis Khan.”

Part 2 of the first volume provides us with wide-ranging insights about the Mongol empire period beginning with excerpted translations of “The Secret History of the Mongols” by Urgunge Onon and Igor De Rachewiltz, another Igor De Rachewiltz articles “Some Remarks on the Ideological Foundations of Chingis Khan’s Empire” & “Some Reflections on Cinggis Qan’s Jasat”, H.F. Schurmann’s “Mongolian Tributary Practices of the Thirteenth Century.”

Other article in this volume are “From Ulus to Khanate: The Making of the Mongol States c. 1220 – c. 1290”, an excerpt of John of Plano Carpini’s first-hand account, “The Mongol Mission”,Thomas T. Allsen’s “Guard and Government in the Reign of the Grand Qan Möngke, 1251-59”, “The Dissolution of the Mongol Empire” by Peter Jackson, and “From Mongol Empire to Yuan Dynasty: Changing Forms of Imperial Rule in Mongolia and Central Asia” by Johan W. Dardess

“The History of Mongolia” Volume 2 is titled “Yuan and Late Medieval Period” begins with Ronald Latham’s translation of chapter three of “The Travels of Marco Polo” which quite appropriately is the section on Khubilai Khan. Marco Polo's colorful eyewitness account of Khubilai Khan's daily life provides some critical details about how the emperor spent his time.

This excerpt from Marco Polo's observations about Khubilai Khan's hunting practices tells us where he spent more than three months of his daily life: " You may take it for a fact that during three months which the Great Khan spends in the city of Khan-balik, that is December, January, and February, he has ordered that within a distance of sixty days' journey from where he is staying everybody must devote himself to hunting and to hunting and hawking...... When the Khan has spent the three months of December, January and February in the city of which I have spoken, he sets off in March and travels southward to within two days' journey of the Ocean. He is accompanied by fully 10,000 falconers and takes with him fully 5,000 gerfalcons and peregrine falcons and sakers in great abundance, besides a quantity of goshawks for hawking along the riversides."

Following Polo’s account is Morris Rossabi’s first-rate study, “Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times”, David M. Farquhar’s succinct “Structure and Function in the Yuan Imperial Government” explains the nuts and bolts of Yuan dynasty administrative mechanisms of imperial rule. In a similar vein, Elizabeth Endicott West’s “Imperial Governance in Yüan Times” highlights signs of sinicization with the obsolescence of the Mongol customary ‘quriltai.’ However West counter-balances this trend with evidence of Mongol indifference to traditional Chinese court customs, “Ignoring prescribed ritual was one way for the Mongolian rulers to maintain a liberating distance from Chinese court ministers.”

L. Jamsran’s article, “The Crisis of the Forty and the Four” illuminates Oirat tribal politics and relations with the Ming court in the post-Yuan epoch. The Oirot-Ming relationship is elucidated by Jamsran’s quotation of the Ming emperor’s declaration “that the number of Oirot ‘must not exceed three hundred…let only the permitted number (of envoys) pass the border, and keep the rest outside…”

The after effects of the breakup of the Yuan dynasty and its impact on the Khalkha tribal polity is pointedly analyzed in Gongor’s study of “The Twelve Tumen of Alag Khüree Khalkha Mongols.” Other articles in this volume that elucidate post-Yuan Mongol tribal internecine war and politics are “Six Tumen” by Sh. Natsagdorj and A. Ochir, Christopher Atwood’s deftly articulated “Titles, Appanages, Marriages, and Officials: A Comparison of Political Forms in the Zünghar and Thirteenth-Century Mongol Empires.”

Three important articles addressing Mongolian spirituality are included in this volume; Johan Elverskog’s translation of “The Jewel Translucent Sutra, Altan Khan and the Mongols in the Sixteenth Century”, Henry Serruys’ “Early Lamaism in Mongolia”, “A Mongolian Source to the Lamaist Suppression of Shamanism in the 17th Century” by Walter Heissig.

Volume 3 of “The History of Mongolia” titled “The Qing Period, Twentieth-century Mongolia” aptly begins with Peter C. Perdue’s broad-ranging analysis of the outcome of the Qing dynasty emperor Kangxi’s military expeditions into the Mongolian heartland to vanquish the Zunghar king, Galdan. Perdue assesses Russian expansionism and it’s role in the destruction and subjugation of the western Mongols by the Manchu. This stage of history led to nomads of Inner Asia being “reduced to a subordinate status as internal colonies of the Russian and Chinese empires.” The role of language as a tool for resisting cultural domination in Inner Asian nomadic societies provides a thoughtful, tangential measure of the success and failure of ambitions would-be conquerors in this lively multi-tiered analysis by Perdue.

In S. Ichinnorov’s “The Biography of Öndör Gegeen” that author illuminates the life of the First Bogd Javzandamba Khutagt Luvsandambiijantsan who is known to most as the greatest Mongolian artist, Zanabazar. A mythic figure whose artworks are seen as being imbued with the essence of living spirits, Zanbazar’s extraordinary life story as told by S. Ichinnorov, conveys the immense power that his legacy still commands in Mongol cultural history.

“The Khalkha Djirum” is V. Riasonvsky translation of “the Great Statute of the the Three Hoshuns” (1709) is vital for correlating traditions of Mongol customary law and cultural edicts of this period.

The role of the peasant class in the mid-to-late 1800’s Mongolia is examined by D. Tsedev in “The Social and Economic Situation of the Shav.” D. Dashbadrah and J. Gerelbadrah’s “The Economy of the Monasteries” gives a brief summary of the subject.

Other articles that provide useful insights on Mongolian traditional cultural practices in this volume are, Sh. Natsagdorj’s “The Economic Basis of Feudalism in Mongolia” which chronicles Mongolian feudalism from a Marxist perspective, “The Social and Economic Situation of the Shav” by D. Tsedev, “The Spread of Trade to the Countryside” by M. Sanjdor.

John Elverskog’s “Things and the Qing, Mongol Culture in the Visual Narrative” provides a quirky take on the perception of Lamaism’s corrosive effects, Mongolian perception of Qing dynasty oppression and the evolution of Mongolian dress. A.M. Pozdneye’s extensive article on “Urga or Da Khuree” written in 1892 -1893 provides a colorful guide to the boisterous Mongolian capitol.

Manchu-Mongol relations are examined in C.R. Bawden’s inquiry about “The Mongol Rebellion of 1756-1757”, “Document 23: Petitions of Grievances Submitted by the People”, and “Thomas E Ewing’s “Ch’ing Policies in Outer Mongolia, 1900-1911 ”, all of which chronicle events that led to the breakdown of Manchu authority and Mongolia’s declaration of independence in 1911.

Part 5 of Volume 3 begins with an early 20th century first-hand account of lamas of Ikh Khuree titled “Tales of an Old Lama, Jambal” translated by C. R. Bawden which provides an earthy, candid glimpse of the lama’s life. Frans August Larson’s “The Lamas of Mongolia” is a remarkable portrait of the Bogdo Gegen the Living Buddha of Mongolia. In this section Ferdinand Ossendowski’s classic “Beast, Men and Gods” regales us with tales of the notorious Mad Baron Ungern-Strenberg.

A series of articles of political development in Mongolia herald the post-Qing period beginning with Fujiko Isono’s “Soviet Russia and the Mongolian Revolution of 1921”, Horoshi Futaki’s “A Re-examination of the Mongolian People’s Party, Centering on Dogsom’s Memoir”, “The Buriat Intelligentsia” by Robert A. Rupen, “The Autobiography of the Diluv Khutagt”, Baabar’s “The Great Purge”, “Democracy Comes to Mongolia” by Chris Kaplonksi and finally, David Sneath’s “Producer Group and the Collectivization of the Mongolian Pastoral Economy.

The three volumes of “The History of Mongolia” contain an anthology of judiciously selected articles that reflect recent revaluations of long-held scholarly interpretations of Mongol historiography. The works contained in these volumes are well-balanced in that they include key period accounts translated from Mongolian, Russian and Chinese of critically important primary source material as well as contemporary historical writings that address wide-ranging and highly relevant topics. The articles in this compendium contain a copious amounts of historical details to help the reader better fathom the depth of Mongolia’s eventful continuum.

Sneath and Kaplonski have provided us with a very valuable resource that includes material from many disparate sources which collectively allows the reader to enjoy the dynamic intricacies that embody the study of Mongol history.

The editor’s well versed knowledge of steppe nomadic culture, tribal relations, traditions and politics has helped to produce a well informed, highly detailed systematic overview of Mongolia from its birth as a nation to modern statehood.

Some Royal Mongol Ladies: Alaqa-beki, *Ergene1-Qatun and Others by Paul D. Buell

2011-02-07T15:27:00.000-08:00

Some Royal Mongol Ladies: Alaqa-beki, *Ergene1-Qatun and Others
By Dr.Paul D. Buell

Article from World History Connected

One of the most difficult tasks facing the historian of the Mongol Empire is ferreting out the history behind the history. This is because our largely non-Mongolian sources are little interested in it or intentionally suppress facts to suit non-Mongolian agendas or the prejudices of their majority non-Mongolian readers. This includes the histories of most of the women actors of the time. They are usually mentioned only in passing in our predominately Chinese and Persian sources. Imperial regents such as Döregene-qatun, who effectively ruled the Mongol empire after the death of her husband Ögödei (r. 1229-1241) until 1246, when she secured the election of her son, Güyük (r. 1246-48), as they are seen in them are shown as somewhat depraved, tyrannical and incompetent.

In the Chinese view, in particular, Döregene was a mere weak woman perhaps driven by her sexual desires. But if Juvaynī (1226-1283) and most Chinese commentators saw her in these terms, and as somewhat illegitimate, most of her Mongol contemporaries took another view and no doubt found her regency perfectly normal, although their image of it was later colored by the politics of the 1250s. Then a new branch of the ruling house came to power, after still another female regency, led by Oqol-qaimish (killed circa 1251), the wife of Güyük.2 Imperial women, in fact, if we may base our judgment upon the only Mongolian source to survive, the Secret History, enjoyed a great more respect than the non-Mongolian sources would have us believe.

Chinggis Khan's mother, Hö'elün, for example, clearly held her family together after the poisoning of Chinggis Khan's father at the hands of enemies, and was a dominant force in his life. Likewise, Chinggis Khan's main wife, Börte, is made to give him wise and important advice (about breaking with Jamuqa, his blood brother) on a critical occasion and perhaps, we must assume, on others. Later, under Qubilai, his main wife, Chabui3 (died 1281), was not only was his important advisor and confidant, but, judging from what is written about her in Tibetan sources (e.g., in Dpa'-bo gtsung-lag aphring-ba's' history), was probably instrumental in the conversion of his husband to Lamaism, or at least predisposing him to a strong and favorable relationship with the Tibetan lama Aphags-pa (1235-80) as the official head of religion for the court. This is evidenced by an active correspondence between her, Aphags-pa and other important Tibetans reproduced in Tibetan sources but still unstudied.4

But not all the important women in the Mongolian period were imperial. Many were simply wives of princes and other powerful men, not always Mongolian. The Chinese elite of north China serving the Mongols, for example, were at least half Mongolian after their first generation since their mothers, more often than not, were Mongolian princesses, if we may judge from Chinese genealogical sources.5 A careful marriage policy being, to be sure, was one of the many ways that the Mongols drew locals over to their side, by making them part of the family, as it were. Unfortunately, we know little more than the names of most of the women involved with a few exceptions. One of these exceptions was Alaqa-beki (late 12th to mid-14th century) who played a pivotal role in early Mongol China.

Alaqa-beki

Alaqa, also known as Alaqa bayan, "Alaqa the rich," was a younger daughter of Chinggis Khan and some time before 1206 was given in marriage to an important Mongol ally, Alaqus-digit-quri of the "White" Tatar or Önggüt, a Turkic people situated just to the north and east of the eastern bend of the Yellow River and thus strategically placed for attacking either the Xixia state of west China or the Jin Dynasty (1125-1234) of the north. He is mentioned a number of times in the Secret History and was obviously an important sedentary supporter of Chinggis Khan and his Mongols.

This fact threatened the rulers of Jin Empire (northern China and Manchuria) in particular and in 1207, after a great rebellion of formerly tribal allies of the Jin that essentially turned over what is now Inner Mongolia to the armies of Chinggis Khan, they had him murdered in favor of his young nephew, Bosipo . The Jin considered to be a more controllable ruler. This did not prove to be the case. The times were changing and Bosipo, like his uncle, soon went over to Chinggis Khan. Although Chinggis Khan had no troops available at the time to protect him and his people, he did something better. Alaqa-beki, who had apparently returned to Mongolia after the death of her princely husband, now became the wife of young Bosipo and soon emerged as the effective ruler of the Önggüt after the premature death of her husband. By 1221, when the envoy Zhao Hong , the author of the Mengda beilu , "Record of the Mongols and Tatars," was in the area, Alaqa was not only the de facto ruler of her people, but was considered one of the tribal leaders to be reckoned with in the occupied Chinese north, one of only two females in that position. She even had an army of female warriors that followed her orders and actually went to war, much to the chagrin of Zhao Hong. Such things were alien to China. In addition to her army, Alaqa also participated in the Mongol administration of north China with her own special representative stationed in Zhongdu , the regional administrative capital. She continued to play her key role at least into the 1230s, preserving and expanding the domains of her adopted people who continued to be closely associated and intermarried with the Mongols to the end.6

Ergene-qatun

Playing a similar role to Alaqa, but in the west and within one of the successor ulus emerging out of the united empire of the Mongols, was Ergene-qatun, an Oirat princess married and descendent of Chinggis Khan married into the Chaghadai lineage.7 The Chaghadai ulus, the poorest of all the successor states of the old Mongol Empire after its collapse in 1260, grew out of those domains granted to Chaghadai (1183-1242), the second oldest son of Chinggis Khan after the latter's conquest of western Turkistan, along with most of the imperial Mongol province of Turkistan. It was governed for most of its existence by Mas'ūd Beg (died 1280s) headquartered in Beshbaliq. Also controlling part of the area was another Mongol province, of Khurāsān, long ruled by Arqan-aqa, headquartered in Tūs. Parts of this province too later became part of the Chaghadai ulus, although not a major part.8 It did continue to be fought over, so contemporaries probably thought that the issue was still not settled.

Between the two Mongol components of the area, province and patrimony, the contrast could not have been starker. The one was based upon rich oases cities such as Samarqand, the other comprised of relatively poor steppe lands, much of it desert steppe, where very poor nomads avidly eyed potentially better pickings in the cities, but for the imperial and later ulus officials protecting them. Some of the revenues were shared, but much of this went only to the elite and did little to alleviate the plight of their nomadic followers. And the wealth of the cities was not only eyed by Mongols tribesmen under Chaghadai, but also by the princes and others of the increasingly independent Golden Horde and after the 1250s by the Mongol princes of Iran too, who largely took over the other province, that of Khurāsān.

This was the situation as the Mongol empire began to decline and the threats to the emerging Chaghadai ulus grew. After the death of Chaghadai, his holdings were first ruled by his grandson Qara-Hülegü (r. 1242-1246), until the latter was deposed by qan Güyük (r. 1246-1248), and then by Yesü Möngke, the eldest son of Chaghadai himself, who was killed by Bat-qan of the Golden Horde during the purges that accompanied the rise of the house of Tolui under Möngke (r. 1251-1259). At this point, Qara-Hülegü was reinstated but soon died, leaving Chaghadai domains with no adult ruler. Their very existence now seemed endangered and there might have been no Chaghadai ulus at all after the collapse of unified empire but for the careful actions of Ergene, Qara-Hülegü's widow.

Ergene, about whom relatively little is known, was appointed regent by Möngke in 1251. She was to serve as a figurehead until her young son, Mubārak Shāh (r. 1266) was old enough to take over, and carefully cooperate with imperial governor Mas'ūd Beg. This she did and it was in this capacity, and as the representative of the Chaghadai domains, that she met the armies of prince Hülegü (reigned in Iran 1259-1265) and feasted their leadership as Hülegü marched slowly to subdue Iran at the orders of his imperial brother, Möngke. This was probably in early 1254.9 In any case, she proved a most capable ruler and not only became the woman on the scene in 1259, when the unified Mongol empire collapsed, but was, in practice, the first ruler of an independent Chaghadai ulus.

Ergene's problem was not only that she was suddenly bereft of her imperial sponsor, but that she was expected to take sides in the civil war that developed between two Toluid brothers, Qubilai (r. 1260-1294) in China10 and Ariq-bökö (died 1266), to whom she may have been related through her sister, in Mongolia. To make it worse, her neighbors took definite sides even if she had preferred not to do so. The Mongols in Iran supported Qubilai, while the powerful Golden Horde of Russia backed Ariq-bökö. The latter were the more dangerous rival and their support made it possible for Ariq-bökö to take over control in western Turkistan, at least of the Mongol province there. He also appointed a prince for the area, technically to succeed Ergene. This was Alghu (r. 1260-1265/66), another grandson of Chaghadai. Although Alghu was supposedly Ariq-bökö's man, he soon began to act independently, including seizing territories from the Golden Horde and the old imperial province of Turkistan, leading to open hostilities between him and Ariq-bökö and Ariq-bökö's now allies, Ergene and Mas'ūd Beg, both anxious to build up their own positions and, in the case of Ergene, protect the ulus and the interests of her son.

Alghu came out on top and Ergene and Mas'ūd now, in turn, became his allies, the former his wife, the latter the governor for the old territories of the Mongol province but in the name of Alghu. This arrangement saved the ulus and Ergene's son Mubārak Shāh even reigned briefly as the qan of the ulus after Alghu's death. He did so in the name of Qubilai, before a coup brought Baraq (r. 1266–1271), a great-grandson of Chaghadai and opponent of Qubilai to power. This effectively ended Ergene's influence, after nearly 15 years as the dominant figure in western Turkisan but the kind of governmental compromise worked out under her aegis between Mongol princes and the old imperial province of Turkistan persisted and became characteristic of the area. It was reflected, among other things, in the so-called Talas Covenant of 1269, an agreement between interested princes which carefully distinguished between the revenue-producing cities, to be left alone entirely by the nomads and administered with joint interests in mind, and the nomadic world.

We do not know when Ergene died or so many of the other details that we might like to know about this most capable woman save one fact. She like her son, Mubārak Shāh, was a Muslim and must have been among the earliest converts to that religion in Chaghadai domains, later the last of the Mongol successor states to choose a religion for the domain as a whole.

Alaqa-beki and Ergene-qatun were but two of the remarkable women of the Mongol age who, as much as the men, furthered conquest and helped hold a growing empire together. Both married into situations that they never anticipated, and both rose to the occasion and made their own mark on their times as is confirmed by the following source material from the Mengda beilu that have classroom applications ( gender mixing, status of women, and the place of women in cultural production and in political administration).

On Women

Their custom is that when they send forth an army, they march taking along with them many wives and children. It does not matter whether it is a noble or a common person [in this regard]. They say for themselves that they use them to take charge of such things as baggage, clothing, and monetary business. Their women take charge exclusively of setting up the felt tents. They collect together riding horses, light and heavy carts, litters and other things. They ride really well. What they wear is similar to Chinese clothing. All the various honored wives then have a gugu ["barbarian headdress," i.e., boqta] hat. It is plaited together using iron and silk thread. Its form is like a bamboo manikin. It is three chi [Chinese foot] or so in length. They use red and green floss silk and embroidery or [they use] pearl and gold to decorate it. On the top there is a staff and they use red or green wool to decorate it. There is also a dress with large sleeves like Chinese [gowns]. It is wide and long like crane feathers and drags on the ground. When they move, two female slaves carry the sleeves. Men and women sit mixed together. There is no prohibition. They offer toasts and encourage one another to drink in alternation with one another. Chinese envoys to the north, when they come before the Guowang [Viceroy, i.e., Muquali], after an audience he orders them to share liquor with those wives shamelessly and in an uncivilized manner. Princesses [main wives] and the various concubines [of Muquali] are considered ladies of high rank, eight of them. All sit together [with everyone else]. In all the feasting and drinking there is none who does not share mats [with the men]. Those who are called the various concubines are all brilliantly white in color. Four of them are then of the sort of precious concubines of the Jin slaves. Four of them are Tatars. Among them, four ladies are very beautiful and are extremely favored. They all wear barbarian garments and barbarian hats exclusively.11

On Feast Gatherings, Dancing and Singing (Excerpt)

When the Guowang marches out his army, he also marches along with female music. As a rule, there are 17 or 18 beautiful girls who are extremely clever. They mostly use 14-string and other [instruments] and play pieces such as the "Great Official Music." They clap their hands as a measure that is extremely slow. There dancing is very peculiar. It is the custom of the Tatars.12

On Crown Princes and Various Kings (Excerpt)

The Second Princess is called Alaqa bayan. She is commonly called Lake Beki. She once married to Bosibu [or Bosipo], a lost servant of the Jin Dynasty. He died and left her a widow. She presently administers the dynasty business of the White Tatars. Every day she takes charge and plans. She has several thousand women serving her. Whenever they go campaigning, they behead and kill. Everything comes from her.13

Paul D. Buell is at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin Horst-Görtz-Institut für Theorie, Geschichte, Ethik Chinesischer Lebenswissenschaften

Notes

1 Her name is very uncertain. It is variously written as Orghina or Orqïna in the Western sources, although in Middle Mongolian, the spoken Mongolian of her time, it should have an initial "h," e.g., Horghina or Horqïna, but this name is otherwise unknown and is somewhat unlikely in any case. Here, I prefer to read it as having front, not back vowels, e.g., Ergene. Such a reading is, in fact, suggested by one alternative spelling found in the history of Rashīd al-Dīn (1247-1318). See the discussion of the spellings of her name in John Andrew Boyle, translator, The History of the World Conqueror, two volumes, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958), 274.

2 Propelling the change of ruling lines was another powerful female, the mother of the new qan, Möngke (r. 1251-59), Sorqoqtani-beki. She, at least, is viewed somewhat more favorably in our sources but this may reflect no more than the ascendency of the House of Tolui in one form or the other at the time that most of them were written.

3 This is the form of her name in Tibetan sources.

4 On the women in Qubilai's family, including Cabui, see Morris Rossabi, "Khubilai Khan and the Women in his Family," in Wolfgang Bauer, ed., Studia Sino-Mongolica: Festschrift für Herbert Franke, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1979, 153-180. See also Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan, His Life and Times (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1988).

5 There is no full study of the genealogies of the great warlord families of north China in early Mongol times in a Western language, although there are some excellent biographies in Chinese. See as an introduction to the topic, with full citation of the literature, the relevant biographies in Igor de Rachewiltz, Chan Hok-lam, Hsiao Ch'i-ch'ing and Peter W. Geier, editors. In the Service of the Khan, Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol-Yuan Period (1200–1300) (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1993). At the imperial level see now George Qingzhi Zhao, Marriage a Political Strategy and Cultural Expression, Mongolian Royal Marriages from World Empire to Yuan Dynasty ( New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2008).

6 For a background to these events see Paul D. Buell, "The Role of the Sino-Mongolian Frontier Zone in the Rise of Cinggis-qan," in Henry G. Schwarz, editor, Studies on Mongolia, Proceedings of the First North American Conference on Mongolian Studies (Bellingham, Washington, 1979), 63-76.

7 She was the daughter of the Oirat Tōrelci and a granddaughter of Cinggis-qan, Ceceken, and the sister of Buqa-temür of the Oirat and of the wife of imperial pretender Ariq-bökö. A third sister was apparently the Köpek who was the mother of Jumgar Ogul, Hüle'ü's second son. See John Andrew Boyle, translator, The History of the World Conqueror (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958), 274, 611. For a short biography see Paul D. Buell, Historical Dictionary of the Mongolian World Empire, Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras, No. 8 ( Lanham, Md., and Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2003),151-52. See also, for the period in general, Michal Biran, Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State in Central Asia (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1997).

8 See the summary of the history of this ulus in Buell, 2003, 79-88. For the imperial history (i.e., pre-1260) of the same area see also the relevant sections of Buell, 2003, 17-52.

9 Boyle, translator, 1958, II, 612.

10 On Mongol China see Buell, 2003, 53-70.

11 Wang Guowei, ed., Menggu shiliao si zhong (Taibei: Zhengzhong shuju, 1962), 454.

12 Ibid, 455.

13 Ibid, 437-8.

The Miniature Paintings of Mongolian Buddhism: Tsaklis, Thangkas and Burhany Zurags by Stevan Davies

2010-05-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

The Miniature Paintings of Mongolian Buddhism:
Tsaklis, Thangkas and Burhany Zurags

by Stevan Davies
Professor of Religious Studies, Misericordia University - April 08, 2010

Please read Professor Davies' article on Mongolian Buddhist Miniatures here: http://www.asianart.com/articles/burhanyz/index.html

The Golden Summary of Činggis Qayan (Činggis Qayan-u Altan Tobci) by Leland Liu Rogers

2010-02-10T22:01:00.000-08:00

The Golden Summary of Činggis Qayan (Činggis Qayan-u Altan Tobci)

by Leland Liu Rogers

Published by Harrassowitz Verlag .Wiesbaden, 2009

This remarkable book, The Golden Summary of Činggis Qayan - Činggis Qayan-u Altan Tobci, by Leland Liu Rogers, is based on a manuscript discovered inside a cave near Hohhot, Inner Mongolia by Professor Dorongya of the Institute of Social Sciences. This Mongolian language manuscript dates from the early post-Empire period. The author has projected dates for this work having been written as being between 1550 to 1575 -- during the reign of Altan Khan.

This chronology lacks material from the Secret History of the Mongols and does not include the standard Buddhist introduction found in similar works. It is primarily concerned with the Činggis Qayan (Chinggis Khan) čadig incarnation story. As Rogers’ footnotes explain, “čadig comes from the Sanskrit word jataka, which has the literal meaning of “birth” but has a literary meaning of “the adventures of original (former) births.”

The Činggis Qayan-u Altan Tobci’s manuscript is reproduced in transliterated Mongolian, which is followed by an English language version of the imperial chronology.

The first part of this extraordinary history begins with the legendary story of Chinggis Khan’s father, Yusegei, meeting his wife-to-be during a hunting excursion. The Golden Summary contains many other compelling chapters and critically important cultural aspects in the life of the emperor and his relations, including illuminating stories about Qasar, Chinggis Khan’s younger brother “whose descendants retained a substantial amount of noble status”, according to Rogers.

Leland Liu Rogers has produced a vitally important book ( replete with extensive and invaluable footnotes), which is a precious resource for the Mongolian history specialist, as well as the general reader interested in the unique perspective of the Mongols about Chinggis Khan and the Mongol’s cultural ethos on the eve of Manchu suzerainty

Stolen Mongolian Crown Found After 20 years

2009-07-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

Stolen Mongolian crown found at police station after 20 years

Published: 3 Jul 09 12:27 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/20444/20090703/

A decorative Mongolian silver crown stolen in 1984 from a Stockholm museum has been found on the premises of the Swedish Police Service, where it has spent more than twenty years in accidental storage.

"We would like to thank the national police service for housing the silver Mongolian crown for such a long time," said museum chief Anders Björklund in a statement.

The crown, part of a woman's costume from Mongolia, was one of the Museum of Ethnography's most prized possessions when it first went on display in 1980.

But in 1984 the bejewelled piece of headgear mysteriously disappeared from the museum during a power cut.

A report was filed with Interpol to hinder the resale of the crown beyond Sweden's borders, but for 25 years staff at the museum were left scratching their heads.

Recently however the riddle was solved when the police service's main Stockholm offices underwent renovations and a long forgotten bag was found in storage.

Confiscated from a burglar more than twenty years ago, the bag was found to contain an unusual silver crown, along with silver cutlery and a selection of trophies.

When police called the Museum of Ethnography to see if it could shed some light on the find, the museum's Asia expert Håkan Wahlqvist was dispatched to the station and immediately recognized the stolen treasure.

Paul O'Mahony (paul.omahony@thelocal.se/08 656 6513)

“The Impact of the Mongol invasions on Iran, Iraq and Central Asia; A Revaluation” by Professor Charles P. Melville, Cambridge University, U.K.

2009-03-26T14:04:00.001-07:00

Seige Underway by Mongol Forces - from a 14th century manuscript.

“The Impact of the Mongol invasions on Iran, Iraq and Central Asia; A Revaluation” by Professor Charles P. Melville, Cambridge University, U.K.

Please note that this lecture paper is a work-in-progress and is not to be copied, quoted or excerpted from without expressed written permission from Professor Charles P. Melville, Cambridge University, United Kingdom.

“The Impact of the Mongol invasions on Iran, Iraq and Central Asia; A Revaluation” by Professor Charles P. Melville, Cambridge University, U.K.

The Indo-Mongolian Society Lecture at New York University,
March 12th, 1997.

This lecture paper titled “The Impact of the Mongol invasions on Iran, Iraq and Central Asia; A Revaluation”, was transcribed from a verbal presentation by Professor Charles P. Melville on March 12th, 1997 at New York University for the Indo-Mongolian Society of New York. Professor Melville addresses one of the most important issues in Mongolian history in this lecture, which is the consistent distortion and large-scale exaggeration by many Persian, Arab and Central Asian historians about the scale of destruction wrought by the Mongol campaigns and the Mongol rule over these dominions.

The oft-repeated view of massive destruction carried out by Chinggis Khan and his armies in several campaigns has helped form the standard view of Chinggis Khan marauding murderous hordes perpetuated through literature in most parts of the world. This extraordinary re-examination of the primary historical sources and period accounts about the Mongol military campaigns provides scholars and the lay public the opportunity to have a more balanced view of Chinggis Khan, the Mongols and this critically important aspect of world history.

Professor Melville’s methodical reexamination of historical sources from the Mongol Ilkhanid period and those prior to the Mongol conquests illuminates the closer-to-actual population densities of the Ilkhanid regions for a more precise examination of statistical assessments of regional population figures of areas in the path of the Mongol invasions.

Since most of the historical accounts about Chinggis Khan and the Mongol conquests were written by historians whose countries had been conquered by the Mongols, there has been a natural tendency for historical distortion and statistical exaggeration in their writings about the Mongol empire and its military campaigns. Professor Melville’s comparative analysis of the reports of local historians, travelers accounts, and contemporary sources helps provide much needed scrutiny of questionable statements in the writings of native historians who suddenly found themselves to be subjects of Mongol rule.

“The Impact of the Mongol invasions on Iran, Iraq and Central Asia; A Revaluation” by Professor Charles P. Melville, Cambridge University, U.K.

“I’ d like to dedicate this lecture to the memory of the great French scholar the late Jean Aubin, who died recently. Apart from the general debt that everyone working in this field owes to his amazing research over a period of forty years, in this particular presentation, I am building on arguments that I first heard him articulate at a conference in France in 1992 and which I believe remain unfortunately unpublished. Any residual traces of sarcasm and wit that may be detectable in this talk will readably be recognized as the hallmark of Aubin’s refreshingly sardonic style. Views have differed dramatically over the impact of the Mongol invasions on the Islamic world, the debate has ebbed and flowed like all historical arguments depending on the particular time and circumstances of the historians concerned.

As for E.G. Browne writing in Cambridge in the early years of this century, and as Bernard Lewis implies, maybe rather jealously, in a haven of shelter of civilization, “the Mongol assault was a catastrophe, which changed the face of the world and inflicted more suffering on the human race than any event in world history.”

Things didn’t seem quite so bad to Barthold, the first scholar to make an objective analysis of the invasions in his extraordinary doctoral thesis defended in 1900 and still by far the best work on the subject, that is “ Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion”, and particularly so after the First World War.

The work of revisionism was taken a stage further by the post-Second World War and post-Holocaust historian Bernard Lewis, who remarks that “ The immediate blows of the Mongols though thought no doubt trivial by modern standards were terrible and overwhelming, yet they were limited in extent and duration.” For Lewis, only in Iraq did the Mongol conquest leave permanent injuries, the decline of the elaborate irrigation works on which the prosperity, even the life of the country depended. But whereas in Persia there was partial recovery once the regime was firmly in control, in Iraq there was hardly any.

Even further down this path, when the interesting thesis of Pai-nan Rashid Wu in a dissertation that was published or done at the University of Utah in 1974 - unlikely to become another Barthold - whose work on the fall of Baghdad and the Mongol rule in Al-Iraq concluded that “Most or all the accusations against the Mongols are rendered dubious or without foundation. The Mongol invasion of Baghdad and the elimination of the Abbasid Caliphate created no more than ripples in a pool which soon returned to normal.” No respecter of persons, he interestingly concentrates particularly on the question of irrigation as we shall see. More mature in his judgment in the fin-de-siecle gloom of Thatcherite Britain when it was all too easy to imagine the horrors of the past. David Morgan concluded that Iraq became a neglected frontier province and for Persia the Mongol period was a disaster on a grand and unparalleled scale. While at the same time bringing a welcome breath of common sense into the analysis of the forces that the Mongols actually brought to bear. His views are largely shared by Professor Lambton in her recent book touching on the subject.

It may seem unlikely that there is anything more to be said about the Mongol invasions though excellent articles continue to be written on the subject, notably recently by Jirgen Paul. Certainly it is a vast subject which cannot be tackled in great detail this evening, despite the optimistic impression given by the title of my talk. To bring the topic down to size we shall not be concerned with the effects of Mongol rule as such, though some before and after comparisons will be useful. But more with the short term impact of the conquests themselves, as you know these occurred in two main waves, the first in Transoxania and Khurasan in the years 1219 to 1223, and the second through Iran and Iraq in 1256 and 1258 that’s thirty years later.

I should emphasize for the only time that much of southern Iran was not affected directly by the Mongol invasions, though this must be part of the argument in any overall assessment. The situation in the south is more a matter of Mongol rule, which is not itself claimed to have destroyed cities or decimated populations. Nor can we be concerned with the longer term impact of the Mongols on Persian history although this is of course an interesting subject. As you are all aware, Persian culture reached extraordinary heights under the Ilkhans and later Mongol rulers, but that is a different subject. As David Morgan with his customary wit put it, “We may justly have our doubts, over how impressed the Persian peasants - as they did their best to avoid the Mongol tax collectors - would have been by developments in miniature paintings.”

Finally the Mongols motives for the invasion and for their destructiveness also only feature very briefly in my argument. So to assess the short-term impact and the immediate casualties and destruction of the invasions we need some perspective that will allow us to compare the situation before and afterwards. If over a million people were killed in Herat for example, we need to be sure that there were a million people there beforehand. One of the main problems as this suggests is the question of numbers and how we can get around them.

Our sources are no more immune from the often unconscious influence of their own milieu then are modern historians, but unlike most of us unfortunately, they also made some effort to write literature consistent with their education. Also they were writing under some important constraints, nevertheless they speak with an impressively unanimous voice of a great trauma. Its not my intention or desire to minimize or belittle this trauma, nor to play down the terror that the Mongols created, its not an amusing story. Nevertheless, we are in the business of explanations and not emotions, and it is useful to attempt some more objective measure of our subject. Furthermore the 14th century Persian satirist Ubajdi Zakani managed to extract considerable humor from the situation, and I hope that only traces of levity in my own presentation will be seen as an attempt not to spoil your evening with too many mountains of corpses.

I realize so far this has been all talk and no action unlike the Mongols themselves. To keep within bounds I propose to examine some individual episodes rather than the whole course of the invasions to bring out the salient points of my approach. I will then try to draw some conclusions together from these and other cases. The slides are purely illustrative rather then crucial to the argument, though once or twice they do provide some compelling visual proofs. I regret that I have not yet managed to produce a satisfactory map as you’ll see from my first slide. (Slide shown) The idea of the map is just to show in the most general sense a sketch of Genghis Khan’s and other Mongol invasions. Transoxania, Iran, especially northern Iran, and Baghdad is here somewhere (pointing) There’s also a map that I’ve handed out. This shows Alexander the Great plucking up the people of Gog and Magog behind the mountains for the protection of the civilized world. In Christian and Islamic mythology their emergence is promised at the end of the world. This explains the Muslim rationalization I think of the origins and nature of the Mongol attack. The Mongols point of view also of course have an idea of breaking out from the mountains valleys from which they were encased to form a nation. These are just some pictures of Mongol warriors breaking out, looking somewhat fierce. This shows the main routes of the invasions progressing from Samarkand and Bukhara down to Herat, and Nishapur. As you know Genghis Khan’s invasion was launched against the territories of the Khwarizm Shah, the ruler of the area before their arrival, in retaliation for the murder of the Mongol Muslim trade mission at Utrar followed by the execution of his ambassadors who were sent to protest. In fact I am not going to refer very much to the conquest of Transoxania largely because very few figures are given and its the figures particularly that I’m interested in. Leaving his son Chaghatay to prosecute the siege of Utrar that was the scene of the massacre, Genghis Khan himself moved to Bukhara in February to March of 1220. Various figures are given for the size of the garrison, 12,000 in one source, 20,000 in another, and 30,000 in another. As it happened however most of the army decided to abandon the city and they fought their way out, an operation from which very few survived. The city then very sensibly surrendered and the population left the town which was plundered only the last defenders of the citadel were massacred, we are now told that they are only 400 of them. The city was not leveled to the ground, nor was there a general massacre. Though some fires broke out and caused damage. The mosques were pillaged however and the Mongols horses are said to have use of Koran stands for fodder troughs. An equally famous and similarly symbolic story is told of Genghis Khan’s addressing the inhabitants of Bukhara from the minbar and informing them that he was sent as a scourge from God. This of course is the only rational explanation available. Now we have a picture of him demanding that the place be dug up so he can find the treasure I think. (Showing slide) There doesn’t look like there has been much carnage. The important thing to notice for the moment is the discrepancy in the sources over the numbers. This becomes more acute at Genghis Khan’s next port of call Samarkand. Here the garrison is given as 110,000 by Juvaini, 60,000 by Juzjani, 50,000 by Ibn al-Athir, 40,000 by Nasavi. In one sortie in their first flush of their enthusiasm, the besieged lose either 70,000 men according to Juvaini or 50,000 by Juzjani, this is just in one attack. As in Bukhara the inhabitants themselves decided to surrender, and the Qadis with 50,000 people under their protection were spared being plundered. The rest of the inhabitants were driven out of the town, which was sacked. But the garrison in the citadel, 1000 Qatlugs perished in the mosque in the fire, and 30,000 were massacred when the citadel falls. However the city was not razed to the ground and again there was no general massacre. Although 30,000 artisans were given to the sons of Genghis Khan. However the city does seem to have been subject to further tribulations on later occasions and when the Chinese monk Chang Chung stayed there in December 1221 he reckoned the population had dropped to a quarter of its previous level which he puts at a fantastic figure of 100,000 families, so that’s presumably round about 500,000 people. Nevertheless life went on, he noticed there was much merchandise in the bazaars; this is December 1221 about a year and a half after the sack of the place and a flourishing and productive gardens stretched to an estimated 30 miles around the city with which not even Chinese gardens could compare.

Massacres did take place at some of the other cities of Transoxania, notably Utrar the scene of the original massacres of Mongols, Termiz and Organj or Gorganj where the besieging army was said to be over 100,000 strong, even before Juchi’s forces arrived. Despite a prolonged and bloody siege, 100,000 artisans were carried away to the East, and women and children were being enslaved and the rest were massacred. Each Mongol soldier, of whom there is now said to be only 50,000, that is half as many as are said to be taking part in the first place were given 24 men each to butcher. Which gives a total figure of 1.2 million dead. Juvaini had heard an even higher figure but for some extraordinary reason he couldn’t bring himself to quote it. Nevertheless the situation in Transoxania region in Khwarizm seems to have stabilized rather quickly and since the whole area came under direct undisputed Mongol rule, the work of reconstruction could begin immediately. The result was that the cities of the region recovered far more rapidly than those in Khurasan and Iraq as everybody agrees. (Showing slide map of Merv, Ray Nishapur and Herat) This of course is the main route along which Genghis Khans’s generals persued the fleeing Khwarazim Shah. Passing quickly into Khurasan and on to Balkh the situation there is confused. The city seems originally to have surrendered voluntarily and to have escaped a massacre, but then to have rebelled and suffered the fate of other cities in Khurassan. This slide shows the walls of Balkh as they remain today. The next one shows, there is nothing inside them except gardens, in other words this is an abandoned site. The Taoist monk I’ve already referred to Chang Chung passing about in September of 1222 noted that “there was a very large city which had recently revolted, the inhabitants had fled and we heard the barking of dogs in the city.”

It was still in ruins in the time of the famous Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta in the 1330’s and I suppose recovered some time after that, but not in the immediate sight. The survival of the empty shell of the walls is a strong visual witness to the abandonment of the city. Here we have no details of the figures. Its really with the effects in the other major cities of Khurasan that I’m mainly concerned. Genghis’s son Tolui was sent to subdue the province with the following reported results, in Merv between 700,000 and 1.3 million casualties, Nishapur an estimated 1.7 million casualties, excluding women and children. Here it took twelve days to count the dead. In Herat the first siege left 12,000 of the Sultan’s forces killed here. The townspeople were spared. After a revolt however after in a second siege the city was sacked. In June of 1222, with an estimated 2.4 million people butchered in one day. 200,000 survived, another figure suggests that with 1.6 million, 40 survived. So these are the reported facts.

We should first note the literary methods of the Persian bureaucrats to denounce the Mongol carnage. Where there were 100,000 people there remained 100 says Juvaini. An approximate survey of the provinces shows that only one in ten were prosperous and the rest were in ruins says Rashid ud Din. The use of such rhetorical figures was typical of the literary divanians, that is the men of the divan, who are used to bandying around large numbers, but who also fail to comment on the enormous accounting errors that cost so many of them their necks.

Well, the reports of events in these three cities are instructive. All three, but let us focus on one and notice in particular the fantastic figures. In Merv, each trooper was given 300 to 400 people to kill, some sources say 200. The process of killing them took five days. A Sayyid who went around counting the dead found more than 1.3 million. This was just the people who were laying out in the open not the ones who were in ditches and everything. As it took thirteen days, he must have counted a 100,000 people a day. Its much slower than it took to kill them in other words. Ibn al-Athir however who was unaware of the Sayyid’s efforts says that only 700,000 perished, thats’ half as many. 400 artisans were spared, you may note here the regular use of multiples of four and seven, 400 troops were left behind to complete the executions in Nishapur, where again 400 artisans were spared, 70,000 people were killed in Sabzivar the same number in Nisa.

If 1.3 million bodies, or before they were bodies were divided up into lots of between two or four hundred, this suggest that the army was only either three and a half or six and a half thousand strong. And in fact, by some astonishing coincidence, the figure given for the army at the siege of Merv is 7,000. Barthold makes a rare slip here and says it was 70,000. The figures for the Mongol forces suddenly become quite small, even realistic. The buildings and defenses are supposed to have been razed too. Yet in Merv in November 1221 following the massacre of Balkh, the population rose in revolt but it didn’t dare leave the city which was therefore presumably still standing, its new rulers repaired the fortifications and the walls, as well as agriculture, irrigation works, and so on. The people gathered there from all around attracted by the abundance of its wealth, when 5,000 Mongols arrived in the summer to crush the uprising, a further 100,000 people are left dead according to some reports with only 4 survivors. A few months later however the town was repopulated by those who had hidden in the desert or remained in their villages, and the walls were rebuilt. A local commander came and took charge and rallied a force of 10,000 men, a Mongol general returned with 100,000 men. This is the third visit by the Mongols, and carried out widespread torture for forty days, only 100 souls survived this. At the end of it all there are only 10 or a dozen Indians left residing in the city, I don’t know how they managed to get away with it.

These obviously contrary and fantastic figures which deserve no credit whatsoever, though they have often been regarded with suspicion, they have never been dismissed out of hand. Is there any way to achieve a more exact measurement? Demographic data of course are totally lacking for both the period before and after the invasions and unfortunately they are not available either for Mongke’s census, which was carried out in the 1250’s. In favor of the figures quoted above, as orders of magnitude, there is the demographic question mark that hangs over Yuan China, where incidentally we also get a sense of the tiny Mongol population compared with the native Chinese. One million Mongols for seventy million Chinese according to the census of the 1290’s carried out in China. This also reveals a drop in the population from the previous Chin and Sung periods where the population is a 100 million. This decline continued throughout the Mongol period; the census of 1293 showing a population of 60 million. Its difficult to account for such drops purely on account of plagues, disease, etc., whatever the underlying uncertainty in the figures themselves. What I mean here is that there is an unaccounted and dramatic drop in population in China as well, so that would obviously support the general view that there was also a similar drop in population in Persia. I might just mention something about the size of the army here quickly. I haven’t read out all the figures as they go along of the size of the forces involved but you will have noticed that quite often that they are supposed to be a 100,000 in a troop even with people going back to crack what should have been a tiny nut in Merv was a troop of a 100,000. Barthold estimates the total Mongol forces at between 150,000 and 200,000. The army at the time of Genghis Khan’s death was 129,000, reasonably well set out what it consisted of. And certainly there were a few additions added on since then, and of course as we all know a lot of people were scooped up on the way. Turkish tribes particularly or forcibly joined the Mongol forces on their way through. Nevertheless Barthold’s estimate of the upper end of 200,000 is not unreasonable. For the second invasion, thats the one under Hulegu against Baghdad, an army of around 170,000 is proposed out of a total Mongol population according to John Masson Smith of about 850,000. A higher figure nearly double that much, 300,000, technically at Hulegu’s disposal, whether it includes the Turco-Mongols or the whole army including all the extra various units were certainly never mobilized in a single campaign. The point about a lot of these other figures are too, it is very unusual for the whole army to be in action at the same place at the same time.

As we know Genghis Khan was with part of the army himself going down towards the Indian border at the same time other sons were knocking out Organj and then someone else was chasing the Khwarizmshah across Iran. So the units involved were probably fairly small, even if in sum they were quite big by the standards of today; I mean 200,000 is a pretty significant army. Well, what about some methods to try to quantify the populations involved. I may say that I approach this with extreme hesitation, and I noticed unfortunately although I shouldn’t say so that Jean Aubin had got himself in a complete muddle when he tried to do this so my figures are probably a little better than his, but they just show how dodgy it is to bandy figures around at all.

Nevertheless, this is just to try to establish an order of magnitude really. Are we talking about millions, hundred of thousands, tens of thousands or what? No one is ever going to pretend we can know an exact figure, but it certainly would be useful to have a rough order of magnitude. At the moment the only way it seems possible to do this is through using models of urban population density in areas within the walls in the rural areas. There is of course a complete lack of archives, but we may note for sake of comparison the Ottoman census of the rich merchant cities of Aleppo and Damascus which were provincial capitols in large oases each had 10,000 taxable hearths which may lead to a population of somewhere around 50,000 just multiplying five by hearths. As I say this is very imprecise, but it gives you a method of comparison. Yet Herat on the eve of the Mongol invasions is supposed to have 444,000 hearths. That’s 40 times as many, and implies using the same multiple roughly a population of 2,000,000. Petrushevsky the famous Russian scholar noticed that the population of 2,000,000 would more or less allow the massacre of 1.6 million in the siege, so he thought that this was a credible figure because it was entirely consistent with the other evidence available. But having worked out to his own satisfaction that the sums did add up, he then said that it didn’t seem really quite realistic, so he arbitrarily slashed the number in half and he said there was a population of 1,000,000. And of the Aqquuyunlu - who as you know are a late 15th century dynasty - Shiraz had a population of around about 20,000 people or 3,500 hearths in about 1515. Sticking with Shiraz at the end of the Qajar period, the census of people within the medieval walls was 6,200 houses inhabited by around 53,000 people. That’s the end of the 19th century. If you like to look at your handouts, medieval Damghan, in which the walls are still standing, encloses an area of approximately 470 hectares. Sheradil estimated with a population at its peak should have been round about 25,000 people. Not on a very scientific basis I admit but its roughly on the basis that in 1930 when that picture was drawn the size of the population was concentrated in roughly a fifth of the area available within the medieval walls and therefore as a maximum multiplied by five might have been 25,000 at its peak. This yields a figure of roughly 53 inhabitants per hectare which is quite low. In Nishapur where the medieval site was abandoned rather like Balkh. I’ve walked over the site at Nishapur - its rather dramatic. Its clear to see the old city walls with abandoned ruined fields with pottery shards all over them which have been excavated rather imperfectly unfortunately, but a lot of the material is in the Metropolitan Museum, it was very nice to see it there. Nishapur, from the extent of the ruined fields has been estimated by Bulliet at 1,680 hectares. He suggests a multiplier of between 100 to 200 people per hectare as embracing the highest and the lowest generally agreed figures from studies in other parts of the Islamic world as sort of population density. He applies this to two-thirds of the whole area which therefore allows for public spaces, gardens, mosques, all the rest of it, so its not absolutely cram packed the whole area.

Taking a range then of the minimum from Damghan of maybe 55 people per hectare and a maximum at the top end of the range round about 200 people for two thirds of a hectare. We can apply this range to the sizes of the circuits of the medieval cities. Unfortunately for the ones that we haven’t investigated thoroughly yet we have to rely on the figures given by Mustaufi, a contemporary geographer and historian of the circuits of the walls. This process itself is not itself without objections because there seems to be some argument over the length of the pace. But if we take it as being roughly a meter, which seems to be in the middle of the various options, then it also makes it much easier to do the sums. I am going to come up with some extremely approximate approximations of a range from the smallest one on the density population of 55 people per hectare up to 200 people for a reduced area two-thirds of a hectare. Nishapur, these are using the size of the cities as they were contemporaraly within their walls, has a population by these calculations of between 75,000 and 180,000. Ray, between 48,000 and 120,000. Tabriz, at the time between 12,000 and 30,000. Sarakhs between 8,000 and 21,000. Qum between 35,000 to 89,000. Qazvin 35,000 to 88,000. Shiraz 52,000 to 130,000. In other words most of these places are somewhere in the region of 30,000 population, and at the most in the case of Nishapur, 180,000. Even Nishapur, therefore the biggest of these cities can hardly have boasted a population of more than 200,000 people at its peak, 200,000. Its a place where 1.7 million are said to have been killed. For comparison, just to show these figures aren’t totally ludicrous, the new city of Nishapur which is built on the ruined fields to the west of the old site which has an area within its walls - which were still standing when these figures were taken of 105 hectares is very small - had a population who were still living within the medieval walls in 1910, of between 10,000 and 15,000. That’s about a fifth the size of Nisahpur roughly on the eve of the Mongol invasions at the smallest or a tenth of it at the biggest.

In the first census of 1956 by which time the population had spread outside the 14th century walls it had a population of 25,000. Now we know that on the eve of the Mongol conquest the city of Nishapur was greatly reduced from its former splendour thanks to the devastation of two earthquakes, devastating raids by the Turkish Ghuzz tribes about 60 years before the Mongol invasions followed by violent internecine strife within the city between the Shafi’i and Hanafi factions. Despite Yakut’s reports of the flourishing state of the city we know that the bulk of the inhabitants had moved to the suburb of Shadjiakh to the southwest of the city an area which contained only roughly only 165 hectares, the walls are still there - I have a photograph of them at home - suggesting a population of between 16,000 and 40,000 people, so that would be a perhaps more accurate estimate of the population of Nishapur at the moment of the Mongol invasions rather than at its peak of prosperity which had long been past.

In Ray, we may notice, talking of internecine strife, that before the Mongols arrived a city of 30,000 mosques was there in which 100,000 people had been killed in one incident of fighting between the Hanafi and Shafi factions, or according to another source 600,000 people. And in fact by the time Yakut visited it shortly before the invasions only one quarter of the city was left. It was basically a fight between the Hanafis, the Shafiis and the Shiites. The Shiites were the largest group. They were eliminated by the Shafis and the Hanafis, the Shafii and the Hanafis then fought it out amongst themselves. The Shafii who were actually the smallest group and whose quarter of the city was the smallest, won, and so when the Mongols got there it was actually only the Shafii quarter that was still there. Yakut specifically says that the city was deserted and an empty shell. The Shafiis submitted to the Mongols but their quarter was sacked anyway due to the presence in the locality of Khwarazmian forces. Its interesting concerning Ray that Ghazan Khan the later Mongol tried to revive the city but actually failed to do so, and the population and prosperity, as it were, moved to a neighboring town of Veramin. Also in Isfahan in the period between the original invasion and the second invasion there’s also a report of factional fighting between the Shafis and the Hanafis, which having run its course and caused a lot of damage eventually led to the Mongols capturing the city because one of them let them in. The result was that they all were killed. So these were an example of the sort of problems that were affecting some of these large cities before the Mongol even arrived.

Current excavation at Samarkand and at Merv should help provide similar opportunities long term. Going back to my number crunching wandering around to evaluate the size of the built up areas of these major cities to evaluate at different periods and ideally before the Mongol invasions. I’ve really just used Nishapur, which at the moment is the only one that has been excavated as an example.

So as in the previous situation as I mentioned we should not seek the economic causes for the collapse of Iran too casually in the destruction of the great cities of Merv and Nishapur, the most brilliant period of their civilization was already over. The Mongols invasions were preceded by long decades of disorganization and local difficulties. The Mongols themselves cannot be held responsible for the decline. This had already started.

You may notice Fars had already been said to have been ruined by the 11th century by the invading Shabansiqariar tribesmen, and in the 12th century Khuraasan and Kirman were ruined by the Ghuzz. Ruined; what does that mean? Anyway, not in the peak of their condition. Following this we have the ravages of the Khwarazimshahs and various Turks and Turkmen tribes and groups following their own warlords ever since the collapse of the Seljuqs.

So the figures I quoted above and the list of places are probably maximal. I think it is rather unlikely that they are underestimates. Elsewhere in northern Iran outside these large cities which I suppose are the most eye catching where resistance was offered, for instance in Ardabil, Nakhjawan and Marazbeh, there was trouble of course, but otherwise there was some pillage and some deaths but no wholesale sacking. Its interesting to compare perhaps some of it a selective way some of the other evidence given by Yakut who traveled through the area both on his way east and then on his way west fleeing from the Mongols shortly before their arrival. By comparing his evidence with that provided by later authorities. First of all in Azerbiajan, Yakut noticed that discord was endemic there almost all the town are falling into ruins and the villages are deserted. Ardabil, which I mentioned where the Mongols sacked it, despite two Mongol assaults, he says it now, maybe more flourishing than it was before the invasion. At Urjan Yakut noticed a walled town with a market, but mainly in ruins. Mustowfi writing in the Mongol period noticed that Ghazan rebuilt it with mortared stone walls and dedicated all the income from its agricultural harvest to charitable trusts.

Qarghazkunan, a place not all that far away, Yakut calls small with a nice bazaar but half-ruined. Mustowfi also says it was ruined in the invasions, I suppose there is a difference between ruined and half-ruined and it became a nomadic settlement.
Mar and also in Azerbijan - obviously I am focusing on Azerbijan because thats where the Mongols went - there is not much point in telling you what was happening in Kirman at the time. Yakut said that though it had been an important town and that it was now half-ruined and almost deserted due to a tax by local Kurds. Mutowfi echoes this, “It was once a large town with walls of 8000 paces but it was now only half-standing”. Here we have a problem with Mutowfi, but quite often you are not quite sure that he is recording contemporary information but actually just repeating the evidence of his sources who of course are writing at a different period.

As for Urmiye, Yakut says that despite its advantages it was not flourishing thanks to the negligence of its ruler. Mostoufi on the other hand writing in the Mongol period calls it a great city with walls of 10,000 paces and large gardens and prosperous environs. Barda on the way to the Caucausus, Yakut noticed that its former splendour had gone and that it was now just a village amidst the ruins. Delakhan, despite the Mongol sack though had survived, returned, and the town quickly took on it former appearance. Hovaar, that’s near Ray in 613, about 6 years before the Mongol invasions he said that it was almost ruined. Salmaas, Yakut found Salmaas partly ruined. Mutowfi noticed that its walls which had fallen into ruin had been restored by the vizier Taj al-Din Ali Shah.

The point of this great cataloguing - and I could go on - that there was quite a lot wrong with the situation before the Mongols arrived and indeed in some cases, although some areas of course remained ruined, in fact they were restored under the Mongols to a better situation than they had been beforehand. Of course one can give equally several examples of places ruined by the Mongols had not been repaired or that formerly flourishing places were now in ruins. I am not trying to say as I did in the beginning that the Mongol invasions didn’t happen. I am just trying to balance this out with some sense of what the situation was like on the eve of their invasion. So as I say this is not the whole story but it shows that in the regions through which the first Mongol invasions passed the notion of a prosperous and populous society needs at best a qualified acceptance.

This also the case with Iraq. This is a picture of Varamin (showing slide) This is the only mosque I believe that was actually started and completed within the Ilkhanid period of Veramin outside Ray and became a flourishing center. The old city of Ray never really recovered.

The breakdown of the caliphate has been thoroughly examined by many writers who note that its collapse was of largely symbolic importance. (slide shown) That fellow down there is the last Abbasid caliph in a very small palace. (slide shown) This is the siege of Baghdad. As we all know Baghdad succumbed rather quickly to Hulegu’s army in 1258. Leaving aside the symbolic significance of the collapse of Baghdad, which needn’t concern us here, there is again the problem of the numbers, of troops, armies and the dead. The figures for those killed are given as between 800,000 and, 2000,000 in various Arab sources. I have already said enough I think about figures such as these, but its worth noticing that none of them are contemporary observers. The only contemporary account of the siege of Baghdad is by Nasiruddin Tusi who has an interesting little sentence which isn’t normally given much emphasis. Which is that, after the city was pillaged for a week the people were given quarter and allowed to return to it. Which suggests that they weren’t all killed. Of course he had his own reasons for playing down the fall of Baghdad, because he had played a fairly large part in getting the Mongols into it in the first place. Nevertheless its interesting that he says what he does. We should also notice that Hulegu orders the viziers and the sahibdivan, that’s like another sort of vizier I suppose, to rebuild Baghdad and reopen the bazaars. Reopen them not rebuild them, as he left the city. In the thesis I mentioned earlier by Woo, there is an interesting coloration between the collapse of Abbasid rule and the frequency of floods in late Abaqa Baghdad which indicates a collapse of the irrigation and canal systems. He shows that repeated flooding culminated in major floods in 1255 and 1256 on the eve of the Mongol conquest which caused heavy damage. The Mongols themselves were compelled to take measures to repair the breaches to prevent further inundations. Subsequently considerable work was done in the reign of Juvaini and others. Woo points out that there were no further floods until 1277 and then again in 1284 and 1286, at a time when Juvaini was fighting and losing the struggle for political survival.

The only serious flood in the whole Ilkhanid period apparently occurred in 1324 from which Woo concludes that the Mongols maintained the canal system in Iraq in good operative condition. I don’t think there is time to go into the obvious objections with this argument here nor to the other elements of the situation in Iraq. Suffice it to say that more work remains to be done on this problem. Before concluding, I would like to mention briefly the historiographical problem that underlies in part this debate as I mentioned earlier. There is a pervasive tendency to exaggerate the ills of the early Mongol period. Early historiography stopped with Juvaini who wrote his book in 1260. His own relations with the conquerors are of themselves of considerable interest. There is nothing till the work of Rashid al-Din who paints a black picture to throw Ghazan’s and his own reforms into greater relief. Forgetting the earlier services of the Juvainis, Nasir al-Din Tusi and others, Rashid al-Din consistently accentuates the horrors of the pre-Islamic phase of Mongol rule which of course was initiated with Ghazan. However both Abaqa and Arghun were well aware of the need to preserve agriculture and to protect traditional society. In fact Rashid refers mainly to the crisis of the 1280’s and 1290’s immediately before Ghazan came to the throne. But even here there were competent administrators such as Sayed ud-Dulah and Sadr ud-Din who took measures against abuses Rashid later claims as his own.

Mustaufi’s geography, some of which I have quoted to you, does not give a picture of a starving and depopulated country, there were many large and flourishing regions among them particularly, Isfahan, was conspicuously prosperous, despite the fact as I mentioned that after the eventual sack following the dispute between the Hanafis and Shafis, Isfahan was reduced to a mound of ashes apparently. Earlier generations didn’t wait for Rashid’s reforms before investing in agriculture. Juvaini in Iraq and Yazd, the Iftiqar family in Qazvin enormously enriched themselves by serving the ruler and obviously enriched themselves through developing the land. Saveh, though devastated by the Mongols, quickly doubled in size when a local malik or ruler found a new town outside the walls which was served by a dam built by Juvaini. This became a residence of many leading people of the bureaucracy. Constructions of khanaqas supported by waqfs were also common for instance at Simnan and elsewhere by the sufi sheikh ‘ala al-Daulet Simnani, a childhood companion of Arghun turned sufi who invested his largesse in real estate as did the viziers as well. So that’s one point that the later sources on the whole play up a very stark contrast between the earlier Mongol rule and then the glorious light and joy that happened in the later period once Ghazan had become a Muslim.

Another element of the historigraphical problem is the question of perception. The historians don’t have a clue about the numbers involved. There was no accurate way of measuring them anyway. The towns and cities destroyed obviously represented large concentrations of people but they were probably a very small proportion of the total population, which in Iran as in most pre-industrial societies was predominantly rural. This was certainly the case in Iran right through till well into the twentieth century. To say the figures who perished in the sieges are swelled by refugees flocking

to the towns from the villages outside is entirely implausible; the towns were death traps. All the evidence is to the contrary, in other words it was much safer in the countryside, and that on the whole the countryside was not molested.

If one were to talk about perception I mean the whole focus of the sources is on the cities. The towns and the cities were the showcases of Islamic civilization and learning, hence the outrage at the trampling of Korans under the Mongol horses hooves in the mosque of Bukhara and the destruction of Merv’s famous libraries. In fact however it is consistently mentioned that the ulema class of the religious scholars and their hangers on largely survived. They were given immunities one way or another. The artisans who you might think were the other sort of worthwhile group of urban society were consistently carried off to carry on their work elsewhere. It is not clear when you have removed these two groups exactly how much there was left. The worst of the situation was being overrun by savages. (Slide of dancing shamans shown)

As the cities fell, so soon they rose again and the most conspicuous signs of destruction were relatively easily repaired. The effects of the Mongol conquests -rather than their subsequent rule - on agriculture is less easy to assess. The only seemingly objective measure is the question of revenue. Mustaufi, the geographer I’ve already mentioned gives a very famous passage about the revenues arriving at the Ilkhanate center at the end of the Ilkhanid period and comparing it with the situation in the Seljuq period and these show an enormous decline of course. But these figures are not particularly instructive and there are great problems of comparability. According to his figures to take just one example the Shabankara’i district of Fars apparently declined 85% since the Seljuq period. However between the reigns of Abaqa and Abu Said, that’s virtually the whole of the Ilkhanid period, more than a dozen Mongol amirs received this district to tax for their own account with their officials. Meanwhile a local dynasty remained in place until the 1340’s and many of its rulers are supposed to have bought prosperity to the region. Is this just relative? or is there a real comparability with earlier times? It seems certain anyway in this case that figures for what is reaching the central divan are hardly relevant to the local state of the countryside.

I think for the contemporary sources as indeed for later generations, part of the question of perception is one that you are seeing an end of a golden age with the Abbasids and this colors all the attitude to what followed it.

We may note finally that revenues from agriculture in the regions around Tabriz and Kashan were later still only a quarter of the product of urban taxes. Though this seems to confirm the decline of agriculture, it also shows the extent of urban regeneration among the Mongols who are anxious to pursue the trade which had bought them West in the first place.

(Please note that this lecture paper is a work-in-progress and is not to be copied, quoted or excerpted from without expressed written permission from Professor Charles P. Melville.)

Book review - “The Role of Women in the Altaic World”

2008-12-20T17:04:00.000-08:00

“The Role of Women in the Altaic World" - Edited by Veronica Veit
Published by Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007.

The publishing house of Harrassowitz Verlag has released a very important volume of great scholarly value for researchers interested in the role of women in Altaic-nomadic societies from the earliest periods. Titled, “The Role of Women in the Altaic World” this work presents a copious series of well documented essays edited by Veronica Veit. These articles collectively survey a broad range of Altaic nomadic states including Mongol, Turkic, Manchus and the position they historically accorded women – which is refreshingly far more empowered in many instances than those of their sedentary counterparts.

Secenmonke’s article, “The Role of Women in Traditional Mongolian Society” illuminates the mythical monsters in ‘Gesar’s Tale’ which are tamed by the wise sisters of Gesar and provide him “with sense and wisdom in order to appease warfare on earth.” Secenmonke cites passages from the ‘Secret History of the Mongols’ and other historical sources to demonstrate the high status of women in traditional Mongolian society and introduces legendary Mongolian queen-regents Mandukhai Secen and Juggen Khatun who rose to power during periods of crises.

In the article titled, “Compared With the Women the…Menfolk have little Business of their own.” – Gender Division of Labour in the History of the Mongols” by Barbara Frey Naf, we learn about the relatively equal sharing of work duties among Mongol nomads. Naf‘s contemporary observations made during visits to Mongolia from 1980 to 2001 are counter-balanced by her citations from 13th century sources which bear out the importance Mongols placed on women and men having the ability to cooperatively address tasks that range from felt-making, assembling and disassembling gers, herding, butchering animals and calving. The author establishes the central role that Mongol women have historically held which provides them with “ a high degree of self-reliance and to their having a very strong influence on decision-making processes at family level.”

“Manchu Women of the Early Stage: Fantasy and Reality” by Alessandra Pozzi takes us into the world of the Manchu court intrigues and customs from the time of the dynastic founder Nurhaci to Yongzheng. We learn about the Manchu requirement that Manchu royalty had to marry within their own community which also required that after their husband’s death the widows had to “follow in-death” and take their own lives. This custom was finally abolished by the enlightened rule of Emperor Kangxi in 1688 who also put in place several other reforms that were iconoclastic and farsighted. The powerful role of Manchu women was probably best epitomized by the Empress Dowager Cixi who dominated the Manchu court till 1908.

Mark I. Gol’man’s article “The Mongolian Women in the Russian Archives of the XVIIth Century” unveils a treasure trove of historical gems that document the prominent involvement of Mongolian noblewomen in Mongol-Russian diplomatic interplay. These documents are being published by the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in four volumes and cover the period from 1667 to 1756.

Beginning with Secin Khatun (Nomakhu Holaci), the mother of Altan Khan the Mongol sovereign who ruled till 1657, Gol’man depicts the elaborate reception she provided to all Russian envoys traveling to the Mongol rulers’ court. In one instance when a Russian envoy named Drushina Ogarkov showed her disrespect she had the Czar punish Ogarkov by having him publicly whipped and the imprisoned in Tobolsk. The Secin Khatun was not only present at important political negotiations with the Russian delegations but she also advised Altan Khan during these proceedings and apparently influenced his stance that Mongolia remain independent in the face of Russian pressure.

Gol’man brings home the critically important role that Mongol queen-regents played in political history including Altan Khan’s wife Akhai Khatun who negotiated directly with the Russian envoys after Altan Khan’s death. She declined a Russian proposal to make the Mongol court a subject of the Moscow Czar, “declaring proudly that the Mongol rulers and Mongol people had never been anyone’s subordinates.”

“The Role of Women in the Altaic World” is heartily recommended for its depth of spirited scholarship on this important subject which provides essential perspective and understanding of the tumultuous and vibrant dynamics of Altaic societies gender relations.

'History and Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East' - Studies in Honor of John E. Woods - J. Pfeiffer, S.A. Quinn, E. Tucker

2008-01-09T00:49:00.000-08:00

'History and Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East' - Studies in Honor of John E. Woods - Edited by Judith Pfeiffer and Sholeh A. Quinn in Collaboration with Earnst Tucker
Published by Harrassowitz Verlag - Wiesbaden, 2006.

http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_3101.ahtml

This excellent volume dedicated to Professor John E. Woods contains articles that span a range of historical periods and reigns from the Mongols to the Mamluks, the Mughals, the Aqquyunlu and the Safavids.

Some of the articles of particular interest to students of Mongol History are:

"World-Conquest and Local Accommodation: Threat and Blandishment in Mongol Diplomacy" by Peter Jackson, Keele University, United Kingdom.

This illuminating article by Dr. Jackson provides compelling evidence for the Mongol belief in their divine mandate for world conquest and argues convincingly that previous postulations by some scholars of Mongol history about Mongol ambitions to the contrary were mistaken. The author presents letters from Mongol rulers to European, Chinese and Central Asian monarchs that bear witness to the powerful claims and ambitions of the Mongol court for supremacy over all dominions from early on in the formative period of the Mongol Empire.

" A Closer Definition of Geographical Names in the Secret History of the Mongols" by D. Bazargur and D. Enkhbayar from the Institute of Geography, the Mongolian Academy of Sciences.

The near mythical names and places mentioned in the 'Secret History of the Mongols' have been researched by the authors in this important study which establishes the areas of continuous human movement, ancient nomadic migration routes, spring and summer camps in Mongolia dating from the ancient period to the 20th century. Included in their survey of ancient Mongol historical sites are Chingghis Khan's birthplace and place-name changes after the spread of Buddhism in Mongolia.

Other scholar's articles of interest to Mongolists are Devin Deweese's examination of religious interpretations of the Mongol conquests, R.D. McChesney's article on Timur's biographer's life and work, Isenbike Togan's delineation of the Qongrat tribe and their role as the consort tribe of Chinggis Khan and his descendants, Charles Melville on 'The Early Persian Historiography of Anatolia', Judith Pfeiffer's article on Mongol-Mamluk relations in Eurasia, Beatrice Forbes Manz's overview of Timurid rule and Persian rebellions as well as Eiji Mano article on Babur's lesser-known writings.

Mongolian History in Brief

2007-07-06T09:10:00.000-07:00

Temujin Proclaimed Chinggis Khan with Sons Ogedei and Jochi on His Right

Mongolian History in Brief

In the 13th century epic chronicle of Mongolian history titled ‘The Secret History of the Mongols’ the story of the Mongol people’s origins begins thus:

“The origins of Chinggis Khan,
There was a blue-grey wolf which was born having his destiny from Heaven above.
His spouse was a fallow doe.
They came, crossing over the Tenggis Sea.
Batachiqan was born to them while they were camped at the source of the Onan River,
At Mount Burkhan Khaldun.”

That is how the creation story of the Mongol people begins in the opening lines of the “Secret History of the Mongols’, the earliest known and most important primary source on Mongolian history. The deep relationship that Mongolians have with Nature and their homeland is clearly conveyed in this historical narrative.

Mongolia today is an independent nation that was unified and created by the will and vision of Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan), the founder of the Mongol nation. Chinggis Khan was born into Mongol tribal nobility in approximately 1162; his given name was Temujin. When Temujin was nine years old his father Yesugei Khan, was poisoned to death by his tribal enemies, the Tartars. Temujin then went on to survive abandonment by his clansmen, near starvation, capture by enemies, war wounds, betrayals and the kidnapping of his wife Borte. Temujin was able to rescue Borte and later attracted a band of followers from many different tribes who saw in him signs of a visionary leader destined for greatness.

Temujin fought and overcame the Dorbets, Tartars, Seljuits, Tonkaits, Merkits, Keraits, Naimans, and other Turkic and Mongol tribes in Mongolia as his power grew. After these successful campaigns he was formally recognized as the supreme leader of the tribes of Mongolia in 1206, and given the title of Chinggis Khan, which means ‘Universal Ruler’ and this was the basis for the formation of the nation of Mongolia.

Chinggis Khan then proceeded to conquer the Central Asian kingdom of the Khwarazmshah in 1220, defeated all the tribes of northern China by 1226 and laid the foundation for the birth of the massive Mongol Empire. Before Chinggis Khan died in 1227 he chose his son Ogodei as successor and advised his sons to expand the empire, recognize Ogodei in writing, and to serve each other for the sake of unified strength.

Today Chinggis Khan is recognized by many as a military and political genius without parallel whose empire endured for generations while in comparison Alexander the Great’s empire crumbled as he died.

One of the enduring legacies of the Mongol Empire was its facilitation of vigorous cultural exchange, knowledge, personnel and technology between the East and West over several centuries. Chinggis Khan’s court tolerated all religions as did the courts of his descendents within their domains of the Mongol Empire. The Mongol Khans helped promote the development of many art forms including Chinese schools of art during the Yuan Dynasty and miniature Persian illustrated royal histories called ‘Shahnameh’. The patronage and artistic vision of the Mongol rulers of Persia refined the miniature illustration technique and this art form became one of Persia’s greatest claims to fame. The Mongol Empire bred remarkable hybrids and innovations in many fields of endeavor including architecture, military science, diplomacy, communications, commerce, and political administration. The Mongol Empire’s great legacy developed through the Mongol peoples energetic exploration, natural curiosity and promotion of artistic, technological and philosophical cross-pollination.

The Mongol Empire at its greatest extent spanned most of Asia with its dominions reaching from Korea to Hungary and down to the Indus. The Mongol Empire Khans and their generals defeated the armies that controlled the territories of the nations we know of today as China, North and South Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Afghanistan, northern India, Hungary, Transylvania, Bulgaria, eastern Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Poland and others.

The lands that make up modern day Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan were conquered and ruled by the Mongol Empire’s Golden Horde Dynasty from 1237 until 1382. One of the greatest military battles of all time unfolded in 1223 when the armies of Russian nobility engaged the Mongols at the Battle of Kalka River. The Mongols outfought and destroyed the armies of the overly confident Russian princes and sent a collective shockwave that reverberated throughout Europe for centuries. The Golden Horde’s rule endured in Kazan and Astrakhan till 1554 and lasted in Crimea until 1783. Some historians5 have reasoned that the Mongol Golden Horde Dynasty helped unite the Russian princely states and aided Muscovy’s development as a regional power, which ultimately led to the creation of czarist Russia and its consolidation of Central Asia.

Mongol armies had conquered and occupied all of northern China by defeating the Chin Dynasty in 1234, which gave rise to Mongolian rule of China. The greatest Mongol ruler of China was Khubilai Khan who came to the throne as predicted by his grandfather Chinggis Khan. Khubilai Khan’s reign over China, from 1261 till 1294, brought about a period of great innovation and enlightened development throughout China. Khubilai Khan allowed China, a closed-off nation, to be opened up to foreign trade, and promoted the export of Chinese goods and culture. In 1264 Khubilai Khan established his capital at Peking (Beijing) the city Chinggis Khan had conquered in 1215. By defeating the Southern Sung in 1279 the Mongol Yuan Dynasty unified China for the first time since 970 B.C. and ruled the reunified state of China till 1368. The sudden outbreak of the plague caused China to lose between one-half to two thirds of its population by 13517 and this situation also contributed to the weakening of the Yuan Dynasty of the Mongols. A Han Chinese peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang led a peasant rebellion and forced the weakened Mongol Yuan court to leave China and he became the first Ming Dynasty ruler in 1368.

Warfare between the western Oirod Mongols and the eastern Khalkh Mongols from 1400 to 1454 led to an extended and tumultuous division between the Mongols. Esen Khan the Oirod Mongol chief reunited the Mongol tribes and captured the Chinese Ming ruler Yingzong in 1449. In 1552 the Mongol prince Altan Khan defeated the Oirod and reunited Mongolia. Mongolians largely adopted Tibetan Buddhism during Altan Khan’s reign, 1543-1583. The Ming Dynasty itself was gradually weakened by its long wars with the Mongols, internal political conflicts, feuding Chinese court eunuchs, corruption, and other regional campaigns.

In 1644 the last Ming ruler Ch’ung-Chen was toppled by yet another Chinese peasant uprising. At that very moment a nomadic tribe called the Jurchen, later known as the Manchu swept into northern China, seized the imperial throne and claimed the Mongol’s ‘Mandate of Heaven’ as their divine right to rule all China. The Manchu adopted many of the sovereign traditions of the Mongols8 and tried to present themselves as being related to the Mongols through several means including marrying into Mongol royalty as an effort to gain legitimacy and prestige.

During the Manchu tribe’s Qing Dynasty in China (1644 – 1911) Mongolia was split into Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia and was administered by Manchu rulers. Outer Mongolia declared independence in 1911 after the Manchu government in China finally collapsed and the Manchu themselves were rooted out and scattered.

With Russian assistance Mongolia was able to expel Chinese troops trying to reassert Chinese rule in Mongolia in 1921. From 1924 till 1990 Mongolia was known as the Mongolian Peoples Republic and was governed by a Communist single-party system under the influence of the U.S.S.R. During the Soviet-style Communist period Mongolia was largely inaccessible to visitors from the West. Until the 1990’s Buddhist monasteries were mostly closed, industrial development was limited, private land ownership was not allowed and there was no official recognition of Chinggis Khan. In 1990 Mongolia had a peaceful transition to a democratic multiparty system of government with democratic elections successfully held in July of 1990.

Mongolian Princes in Urga, 1922

2007-06-27T17:21:00.000-07:00

Mongolian Princes in Urga, 1922 - R.C. Andrews, AMNH

Transmission and Source of Prophecy in Contemporary Mongolia by Bumochir Dulam and Oyuntungalag Ayushiin

2007-05-29T16:35:00.000-07:00

Mongolian Shaman Ceremony

The Transmission and Source of Prophecy in Contemporary Mongolia

by Bumochir Dulam and Oyuntungalag Ayushiin

Article from: "In Time, Causality and Prophecy in the Mongolian Cultural Region", Edited by Rebecca Empson.
Inner Asia Series, Cambridge : Globe Oriental (in English, 2006).

Introduction

In the Mongolian cultural region prophecies have spread among the public in various ways. They have been passed on in written form, like the prophecies (lünden) of the Bogd Khan (see chapter one, this volume), or they have persisted as a form of social memory in oral form (see chapters five and six, this volume). In this chapter, we explore the sources through which prophets currently receive prophecies. We will also examine the processes involved in transmitting prophecy to the public at large. This includes a discussion of written prophecies distributed in books and newspapers, followed by a focus on three different types of divine inspiration that lead to prophecy. Finally, we present a discussion concerning Mongolian ideas about belief and knowledge. Before we explore some of the sources of prophetic inspiration, we present a brief introduction concerning the transmission of prophecies in Mongolia.

Prior to the emergence of democracy in Mongolia in the 1990s, prophecies were not available in Mongolian newspapers and other published media. However, written prophecies such as the ‘lünden’ discussed in chapter one, did circulate privately among people. These prophecies instructed people to copy and distribute their content. Some elders in Mongolia mentioned that, during the communist period, people continued to reproduce and pass on hand-written copies of these prophecies privately. The Mongolian astrologer Mönx-Ochir (1996) has noted that in the Sheep Year of 1979 many people copied one of the 8th Bogd Khan’s lünden. This was due to the fact that the prophecy stated that it would be worshiped greatly in the Yellow Sheep Year.

In present day Mongolia, many people are moving away from the strong scientific rationality of the communist period toward the older teachings of Mongolian religious and spiritual specialists. In light of this transition, predictions concerning the future are becoming increasingly popular. Mongolian newspapers frequently re-issue old prophecies and written prophetic texts. Many newspapers also publish information concerning the current predictions of seers, diviners, and shamans. For example, the Mongolian newspaper Dal (founded in 1996) frequently publishes thoughts about the future. Essays concerning the Bogd Khan’s biography and his ‘lünden’ were printed on the 130th anniversary of his birth. In addition, between 1993 and 1995 a newspaper called ‘Bogd Min Örshöö’ (Bless Me, Bogd [Khan]) published prophecies of the Bogd Khan. Another newspaper called ‘Bilgiin Melmii’ (Eyes of Wisdom), published by Gandan Monastery,2 also features articles about prophecy. Before the Mongolian Lunar New Year (Tsagaan Sar) numerous newspapers also publish the prophecies of various people (lamas, astrologers, shamans, seers, diviners and so on) that concern the coming year. These prophecies predict what the weather will be like and what kinds of things will happen to people in the year ahead. They predict things for politicians and people in high positions, as well as for ordinary people. However, our main concern in this chapter is not with the prophecies that circulate in newspapers or other publications. Instead, we explore what happens to a prophecy once it has been uttered, before it appears in written form. Therefore, the question we address is: what is the source behind the information that can be found published in newspapers?

There are certain steps in the transmission of prophecy, starting with their origin and ending with their public dissemination. Newspapers are probably one of the last stages of this transmission. In other words, newspapers are just one of several ways to transmit a prophetic prediction. We will suggest that certain categories of religious specialists, who use trance to issue prophecy, are another medium for the transmission of prophecy. Unlike newspapers, which they precede, they are the oral channels of divine inspiration concerning prophecy. Prophetic experts, such as shamans (böö), gürten and choijin, can be viewed as similar to a radio set. They broadcast breaking news before it has been published in print. Obviously, these ways of issuing prophecy do not allow for the prophecy to reach as wide an audience as those published in newspapers. For example, when shamans transmit information from the spirits, this information may only reach a family or a local audience. Spirit mediators, such as shamans (böö), gürten, and choijin, enter trance so that spirits and gods can speak to people through them. According to these spirit mediators, the sources of their prophecies are spirits (ongod), gods (burxan), the heavens (tengers), or guardian spirits (saxius). For example, the prophecies in the Secret History of the Mongols originate from Eternal Heaven (Mönx Tenger).

There are certain social and political conditions that give rise to the revelation of spiritual information and prophecy. Historically, there have been many politically influential prophecies issued by religious practitioners, usually of high political rank. For example, shamans’ prophecies existed during Chinggis Khan’s Empire and during the Manchu State (Humphrey 1996). Written prophecies (lünden) were issued by the Bogd Khan (see chapter one, this volume), and the prophecies of Dashtseren, the seer to the President of Mongolia Mr. P. Ochirbat, were issued in the early 1990s (see chapter three, this volume). All of these prophecies were issued by someone who held a high-ranking position in relation to the state. To a certain extent, many of these people had a duty to prophesy about the state, nation and society. In light of these examples, we must assume that prophecy has been highly valued in the Mongolian cultural region. We suggest that this is because these ‘prophets’ were to be found in a central social position, maybe not in the state centre itself, but at least in one of the big temples. For example, the seer Dashtseren, mentioned in chapter three, revealed prophecies from a position of central authority. When a ‘prophet’ is in a central position, the transmission of their prophecy is fast and it is held to be practically relevant, in that it relates to political events as they unfold.

In contemporary Mongolia we do not find prophets currently occupying a central position of power.3 Instead, many prophets are located on the periphery of political arenas. In other words, no one is obliged to prophesy for the state and society. Instead, different spiritual and religious practitioners usually divine the future for individual clients. There is no officially recognized position for someone who should issue large-scale prophecies. This does not mean that prophets have ceased to issue big prophecies, or have become incapable of issuing prophecy. Because prophets are currently located on the periphery, even when they do prophesy for the whole society and state, their prophecies go through a more complex route before they reach the public. The following examples show that when prophets are positioned on the periphery, their prophecies travels a long way, starting with a spirit, passing through a shaman or gürten, then to their families, then through local people to researchers and journalists, before, perhaps, finally being published in an academic journal or a newspaper and taken up by the wider public.

One of the reasons that prophets in Mongolia currently occupy a peripheral position is because the religious centre is not particularly clear or stable. In such a way, we cannot define an exact centre or periphery. There are many different beliefs and religions flourishing in the country. Obviously, in terms of the geographical location, the centre is the capital, Ulaan Baatar, and the government building (zasgiin ordon) is at the centre of the city. Nevertheless, in terms of popular religious belief, it is difficult to locate an exact centre. This is because there is a diversity of different beliefs. Some people think that Buddhism is the central religion. It is true that it is the biggest religion in Mongolia, but we suppose that it is not powerful enough to be considered a central religious power. There are also many atheists, shamanists, Muslims, and Christians. In turn, political leaders and their parties’ change every four years and the Mongolian public are unsure where, exactly, their alliances lie.

Shamanic prophecy

Shamans can be considered to be different from some of the ‘prophets’ discussed in this book, such as Dashtseren (see chapter three) and Molon Bagsh (see chapter five). Nevertheless, their predictions are sometimes similar. As we know, shamanism is very complex, and consists of various elements of artistic and religious practice, and even of everyday performance. In this sense, the shaman is a singer, dancer, diviner, healer, bonesetter, magician, and so on. In addition to these varied talents, we suggest that shamans can also be ‘prophets’. We do not mean to suggest that shamans are always ‘prophets’ in the very literal sense. Instead, shamans do have the ability or potential to issue prophecy. As Humphrey discussed in chapter two, many historical materials show that shamans often made prophecies when they were in a central role in state affairs (cf. Humphrey 1996). Compared to the Mongol Empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, shamanism in contemporary Mongolia is not a practice that has been institutionalised by a sanctified centre. Humphrey, in chapter two of this volume, illustrates some of the historical materials from the 13th century, about prophecies made by the shamans Teb Tenger and Qurchi for Chinggis Khan. Unlike contemporary shamans in Mongolia, shamans in the Mongol Empire, such as Teb Tenger, held high positions and had a duty to supply the leader with information about state and social affairs, which they received from the spirits (or more precisely from Eternal Heaven as described in the Secret History of the Mongols). In such a situation, shamans are more likely to be viewed as prophets. In contrast, when shamans are peripheral in relation to the state, they are not obliged to issue prophecies, unless they (and their spirits) are directly questioned about the future of the nation when in trance. This is also evident from the lack of a fixed term for prophecy among shamans. In this sense, it is only partially correct to understand that shamans in contemporary Mongolia are not involved in prophecy. Nevertheless, just because they are not institutionalised does not mean that shamans do not issue prophecies at all. On the contrary, they do, and we will introduce some examples of shamanic prophecy from present day Mongolia.

In Mongol shamanism there is a phenomena referred to as ‘spirit information’ (ongodyn medee). This can include information concerning prophecies for the future. According to shamans, spirits send information to the shamans’ minds and sometimes, as Pürev (2003) has argued, oblige them to deliver their messages. Pürev (2003) writes about spirit information in the following way:

From the time spirits choose someone, turn him into a shaman and establish communication, spirits always communicate with the shaman and supply him with all sorts of information. In other words, there is a microcosm consisting of several spirits that make the shaman their centre. Spirits do not just supply information during rituals they also do so in everyday situations too. Therefore, a really good shaman gives answers and solutions without any divination (Pürev 2003: 138, trans. Bumochir Dulam).

Extending the idea of ‘spirit information’, Pürev (2002) has analysed a prophecy issued by the shaman Teb Tenger concerning the rule of Chinggis Khan’s brother, Qasar. The shaman told Chinggis to strike Qasar by surprise. As it says in the Secret History of the Mongols (see chapter two, this volume), at first Chinggis Khan believed Teb Tenger’s prophecy that he should strike his brother Qasar and Chinggis accused his brother. After this, Chinggis Khan realised that it was Teb Tenger’s intention to break the brothers’ relationship, and put him to death. But Teb Tenger claimed that the prophecy was the will of Eternal Heaven (Mönx Tenger). According to Pürev (2002: 177), Teb Tenger’s prophecy should not be viewed as slander. Instead, the prophecy was information received from the spirits that Teb Tenger was obliged to disclose. As Pürev (2002) argues, Teb Tenger already knew that he would be put to death; unfortunately it was the shaman’s duty to reveal the information, even though it endangered his life. Along with the discussion concerning Teb Tenger, Pürev (2002) presents a similar case concerning information where a shaman was recently killed because of his prophetic ‘spirit information’.

‘Around 1939, when the victimisation of religious practitioners such as shamans and monks was very strong, a female shaman named Tümenbayar, of Xutug-Öndör sum (district), Bulgan aimag (province), asked the shaman Renchingiin Pürevjav, of Saixan sum of the same aimag, about the present and future situation of the country. He answered: “Japan is a very powerful country we cannot defeat them alone [referring to the military aid from Russia]…red Russians will take and exhaust all of our herds…The Revolutionary Party’s attempt to cultivate vegetables is a lie. It is a way to finish off our herds and make us vegetarians. Russian medicine will not suit Mongolians.” What he said spread as a rumour and the shaman Pürevjav was executed in August 1941’ (Pürev 2002: 177, trans. Bumochir Dulam).

Pürev (2002) argues that Teb Tenger and Pürevjav occupy a similar position. They both knew they could be killed for what they had said. He explains that shamans do not communicate dangerous information because they want to die. Instead, shamans do not have any other choice but to pass on this information as it is the spirits who force them to do so. According to Mongolian shamanism, spirits force shamans to act in certain circumstances. For instance, ‘shaman’s sickness’ (böögiin övchin) is an example of spirits’ coercion of the shaman. When spirits choose someone to become a shaman, the person becomes psychologically ill or suffers terrible misfortunes. However, it does not necessarily follow that shamans have no alternative but to reveal the information that they have received and, indirectly, to condemn themselves to death.

Pürev’s analysis stresses the importance of spirits in the transmission of prophecies. According to him, without the force of spirits shamans would not be able to reveal prophecies. Shamans say that they are a medium through which spirits convey information. The complexity of the transmission further makes the matter of belief problematic. Believing in the prophecy is not only a matter of trusting the prophecy itself, but also of believing in every stage of the transmission, including the idea of spirits and shamans.

We can find more recent examples of shamanic prophecy in Mongolia. In the following section, I present two famous shamans’ prophecies. One example is the Darxad Mongol shaman T. Baljir (1913-2003), from Xövsgöl province. The other example is a Buryat shaman called Ch. Tseren, from eastern Mongolia, Dornod province. After the 1990s, Tseren was one of the few powerful shamans that survived the communist regime and he has contributed to the re-emergence of contemporary Mongol shamanism.

As local people and a few other researchers know, T. Baljir issued several prophecies, which she claims were sourced from what her spirits (ongod) had told her. In an interview with Sh. Süxbat (2003: 68, 97, 121), the head of the Golomt Shamanic Centre in Mongolia, she predicted that the Ox (1997) and Tiger years (1998) would be the most difficult years for Mongolia, especially two months in these two years, but she did not know which two months they were. According to her spirits’ information, the hard time will end and life in Mongolia will improve from the Sheep (2003) and Horse (2004) years. This will also be the time that the gate of the Sky-god of Death (üxliin tenger) will open and many men and herds will die. The gate of the Sky-god of Death will close in August of the year of the Horse (2004). This prediction matches the shaman Enxjargal’s prophecy explored in chapter two. The solution to this impending problem is, first of all, Mongols should build a stable and powerful state, and keep unity and solidarity. Secondly, they should ask and pray for blessings from Heaven (Tenger).

In 1978 and 1979, T. Baljir issued prophecies (or in shaman’s words; ‘was told by her spirits’) concerning the democratic revolution and the fall of communism in 1990 (Pürev 2002: 1939). Local people recall that she was shocked by the information and could not imagine that the state would collapse. On the other hand, she did not think that the spirits would lie to her.4 Also, in July 1997, she mentioned to Pürev (2002) ‘my spirits are telling me that there is a nineteen-year-old man who lives in an area around two households, in the south of the country, in five aimags (provinces) distance from here. In the future, this man will be the leader of Mongolia and the country will develop very well. No one will bring him out but he will come out by himself through history’ (Pürev 2002: 177-178). Besides these predictions, she and her spirits also predicted a plane crash in 1995. On the 15th of September 1995, six days before the plane crash, after shamanising, Baljir said that the spirits had told her: ‘the sky is falling or something is coming down from the sky’. On receiving this information she pondered on what it could mean, then a plane crashed close to the province capital of Xövsgöl province (Pürev 2002: 139). For shamans, the question of believing in prophecy is easy compared to the final recipients, the general public. Shamans and the whole shamanic community believe in spirits. Because they believe in spirits, they trust spirit information even thought the information maybe unbelievable and unrealistic. To sum up, shamans have an indirect belief in prophecies through their unquestionable belief in spirits.

Our next example concerns a shamanic prophecy that was issued by the Buryat shaman Ch. Tseren5. After fieldwork in 1995, we (B. Dulam and S. Dulam) became good friends with this shaman and his family. The shaman is an old man, in his late seventies. He is quite famous, not only in his local area, but also in many other parts of the country.

Image 7.

Photograph of Ch. Tseren Zaarin in antelope skin garment with metal skeleton corset,

Baikal Lake shamanic ceremony 1995

Photograph by Bumochir Dulam

In 1996, his son Oyunbaatar sent a letter to us on behalf of his father on the official letter paper from his shamanic monastery ‘Dambadarjaalin xiid’ (see Figures 1 and 2 in appendix). The first part of the letter was concerned with our trip to Buryatia, in Russia.6 The second part outlined a pronouncement made by Chinggis Khan through the shaman Ch. Tseren. They claimed that Chinggis Khan entered the shaman while he was in trance and left a message for the President of Mongolia and other government officials. Chinggis Khan’s messengers asked people in the ritual to deliver this message to Mr. Ochirbat, the President of Mongolia. Below is a part of the letter written by the shaman’s son on behalf of his father (to view the full letter, see Figure 2 in appendix):

25th Feb 1996

Dear S. Dulam, Bumchka [Bumochir] and all the family.

While I [Oyunbaatar, the son of the shaman] was away, Master Lord Chinggis Khan (Ezen Bogd Chinggis Khan) himself came and possessed Tseren and left a message and a duty. People in the ceremony wrote down the messages that were left for the president and other top officials. They tried to transcribe what Bogd Chinggis said. Please read the letter. I wonder what you and your son think of it? What shall we do with it? Do not pass the letter around. It is a secret? It cannot be allowed to reach the hands of mercenary people!

In the evening before the New Year (tsagaan saryn bitüün), when we were ‘doing the ninth ceremony’ (yösnöö xiix)7 Chinggis Khan’s janjin [warrior], Muxulai, came as an envoy and brought a message from Chinggis Khan. He presented greetings and asked whether we had delivered the message. Then we thought that we had to discuss it and take it more seriously and decided to tell you. I have attached the draft transcriptions of this message [See Figures 3-8 in the appendix]. I am sending it to you with trust that you will believe in it. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Old Tseren, son Ts. Oyunbaatar and all the family (trans. Bumochir Dulam)

On receiving this letter we did not know what to do with the information. From the covering letter it seemed as if they also did not know what to do with it, until the envoy Muxulai came and insisted that they pass on the message. When this was announced they decided to send this information to us in the form of a letter. For them, we are academic people based in the capital city and are closer, and therefore have more access, to government officials. However, in the letter they did not ask us to give the information directly to the president. Instead, they asked for our advice about what to do with the information. Unfortunately, the letter and the prophecy ended with us and did not go further. As it says in the letter, they also attached drafts of the pronouncement ‘made by Chinggis Khan’ through the shaman. The pronouncements have been noted down by one of the participants in the ceremony, as the shaman was in trance and was relaying the information from the spirits. In the transcript of this pronouncement, some sentences are not very clear and the general composition is poetic and reminiscent of the folk teachings of the great Khans.8 But its meaning is prophetic, in that it provides information on how to develop the country and resolve its problems. Other parts are more like an ethical teaching about what is good and bad, and what is right and wrong. The following is an English translation of the transcribed pronouncement (for further information see Figures 3-8 in appendix):

[The spirit (of Chinggis Khan) declares where he is from]

I have come from the Heaven Ochirvaani

At 64 years of age I was killed by the red Chinese

I have 33 clans (omog)

I am from the Borjigin clan

My father is of Buryat origin

Boar canine takes away [heals] the poison of vodka

([the spirit, through the shaman] drank vodka)

Announcement for masters and lords

State officials should think of what is good for the people

[You] can win over sufferings by thinking of your state officials as your father-master

Until the age of 64 [I was] mistakenly greedy for various properties

Everyone who thinks of the welfare of the Mongol country should think good thoughts for the

country

Let the supreme erx [sovereignty] grow

The supreme knowledge is good

Who is the master of the Mongols?

Son of a wife?

Announcement for the master of the country Mongolia

Think hard

If it is useless, then throw it away

Sons who oppose the state will break the state (tör) [father-master]

Taking bribes is foolish

Offer a black blood libation for the nine black standards

Oppressing people in the name of the state is foolish

To think of yourself [to be selfish] is foolish

Selling things that have been taken from inside the ground is foolish

By selling these highest of things they will never come back

I never gave them to anyone for 64 years

Sale of copper treasures will bring an end to the state

Gnawing at each other, they will suck all the good things and use them up

Forgetting the decree of previous Khans

Is an extreme form of foolishness

Forgetting the past leads to foolishness

By destroying one family you will destroy the country

The Khan is foolish who destroys creations already built

If diseases grow,

If people kill each other,

If people drink too much,

All [these problems] will become extreme

Women who rule men are demons

Wives who dictate to husbands are an abomination

Wives do not dominate men

Middle woman will not get up in the morning

They will marry other peoples’ husbands and bring things back home

Marrying a foreigner is bad

Zaarin [shamanic title] Tseren is in charge of chunsal9

If he does not do it

Horse will …

Cattle will be sick

Camel will be hurt

[Rites have to be done]

Worship the Burxan Xaldun [Mountain]

Born in the place ‘Lamyn Xüree’

At the white Onon Lake there are two bronze cauldrons

Two people should go there and worship them with blood

Suffering will then go away

If [people] worship me [Chinggis Khan]

Then worship me with a white sheep that has a black head

Help the monastery of Tug [flag or standard] urgently

Then, Mongolia will improve

Otherwise it will be bad

It is good for Mongolia to pray to Master Bogd Chinggis

Give my announcement

To the door of the state

It is good to give it to Ochirbat, successor of the crown of Master Bogd

Ochirbat is a good man

Eight ministers of Ochirbat, listen please!

(trans. Bumochir Dulam)

The beginning of this text is typical of the kinds of things mentioned during shamanic possessions. They usually start with the spirits introducing themselves, reporting their age, and residence in heaven, telling of their death, and then drinking vodka. This is what most spirits do when they possess a shaman.10 At the beginning of the trance, the spirit of Chinggis Khan, speaking through the shaman, states that he is from Ochirvaani’s Heaven.11 There are many other oral and written sources among the Mongols that state that Chinggis Khan is a reincarnation of the Bodhisattva Ochirvaani.12 The shaman Tseren is a ‘yellow shaman’ (sharyn böö)13 who was deeply influenced by Buddhism and has adopted Buddhist shrines and gods. The next line states that Chinggis Khan was killed by the Chinese. There are several stories about the death of Chinggis Khan, but the most popular one, according to historical sources such as the Secret History of the Mongols, states that on his way to fight the Tibetans Chinggis Khan fell off his horse when he was hunting wild horses. The next line specifies his age and corresponds to other historians’ theories about his lifespan (i.e. 1162-1227). It is also interesting to note that he states that Chinggis Khan’s father was a Buryat. I leave the discussion of the historical content of the prophecy here, because exploring the text’s historical content is not the aim of this chapter.

In terms of transmission, the contemporary shamanic prophecies discussed above are not widely known by the public. The prophecies do, however, concern the public and people are supposed to know about them. Nevertheless, these shaman’s prophecies are not widely known in Mongolia. We think that this may be because, in contemporary Mongolia, a particular ruler does not institutionalise shamanism. Maybe not only shamanism, but also prophecy itself, is considered peripheral to the concerns of those in power. Furthermore, even if people do pay attention to such predictions, they do not take actions according to these prophecies as Chinggis Khan did against his brother Qasar in the thirteenth century. The prophecies that we have presented have not all reached the wider the public, especially the last prophecy concerning Chinggis Khan. The way in which these prophecies have been transmitted can be divided into five stages. In the first stage, spirits issue prophecies. In the next stage, shamans transmit the spirits’ words, sometimes in a state of trance. In the third stage, kin members and local people are the first to hear the prophecy. In the fourth stage, academics received the prophecy in the form of a letter. In the final phase, these prophecies may be published in academic books and articles that publicise the prophecy. In the prophecies of the shamans Baljir and Tseren, they both passed the information concerning their prophecies to academic researchers. The final recipient of the prophecy is the public. This is the last stage in the ‘breaking news’. For the public, believing in a given prophecy is a matter of trusting the academic, or the President who revealed the prophecy to the public, as well as in the shaman or the seer and possibly in the spirits. Passing the information to people we know, who believe in shamanism, is an easy task which does not risk one’s reputation or life. Yet, passing this information to the public, to the whole nation, is risky.14 This was our task. We had to believe in the spirits first and then in the shaman. Even if we did believe in both, it would still have been difficult for us to pass on the information and convince the public. We were in the situation of being in-between believing and not-believing, being both believers and non-believers. The believers were our shaman friends and the shaman’s community, while the non-believers were the majority of the public. This is not an unusual dilemma; it is a situation that many academics in this field regularly find themselves in whenever they are questioned about belief.

On the other hand, prophecy itself is also a kind of knowledge that is on the border of being both true and false. In other words, judging it as true or false does not necessarily end with us. If the predictions in the prophecy come true, we can still reveal this prophecy to the public. Alternatively, if the prediction does not reveal itself, the prophecy may be considered to be of no use. Because it is a prediction, no one knows whether it is true or false unless it actually happens. Sometimes people suspend their uncertain belief in prophecy and believe in it directly, by believing in the spirit or the shaman. Shamans believe in prophecy because they believe that spirits do not lie, some continue to reserve judgment and suspend their belief, while others still reject it as false.

Gürten15

We turn now to focus on a kind of prophet in contemporary Mongolia referred to as an oracle (gürten). Like the shamans mentioned previously, ‘gürtens’ are also involved in spirit possession and they are able to deliver prophecies on behalf of the spirits. As we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, a gürten is neither a shaman nor a ‘choijin’. In contemporary Mongolia these three kinds of practitioners are different from each other. The relation between gürten and choijin is quite complicated and they have many shared boundaries. At first we were unaware of the difference between the two, but in researching the materials, even though people were uncertain about the distinctions, we found many differences and it became clear that they are different. Historical sources present very vague data on gürten and choijin practices, and sometimes the terms refer to the same thing. For example, in chapter two, Humphrey explores the prophecies of the revolutionary hero Xatanbaatar (Hatan Bator) Magsarjav (1878-1927). Some materials refer to him as a choijongi or choijon, while other sources say that he was a gurten (gürten). Humphrey states: “Evidently Magsarjav was not a gürtüm attached to a monastery. But what kind of choijin was he?” Furthermore, the gürten Dulamsüren16 told us that Xatanbaatar Magsarjav was a gürten, while Myagmarsambuu (2005) refers to him as a choijin. Also the ‘oracle’ at the Mergen Monastary in Inner Mongolia is described as a gurtum (see chapter two). However, according to Myagmarsambuu’s story, what he did was the same as what choijin do. This suggests that there is confusion in the terms used for similar kinds of ‘oracles’. People we interviewed were not aware of the differences between these two kinds of ‘oracles,’ and people often hold that the two terms refer to the same kind of person. The question is whether the two terms refer to one thing, or two. We think that there are two types of practitioners and two terms, which may sometimes overlap. If we compare historical sources and examples of contemporary oracle practitioners in Mongolia, it is clear that there are two kinds of oracles. On the one hand, there is a ‘complex’ and wrathful ‘oracle’, sometimes called gurtum (gürten) and sometimes choijin, which is the one usually described in historical materials. In the present day, Mongolian Buddhist specialists claim that we do not have any real wrathful ‘oracles’ in Mongolia. We will call this wrathful kind ‘choijin’, to distinguish it from the other kind, which is still found in Mongolia today. Besides the choijin, who has a special costume, weapons, interpreters and supporters at their monasteries, and perform at big public possession rituals, there is another type of oracle referred to as ‘gürten’. There are several people who call themselves gürten in Mongolia. They are mostly from Bayanxongor province. They are quite different from the choijins described in the historical documents (see chapter two, this volume). Dulamsüren calls herself a gürten, rather than a choijin. According to her, a choijin is a higher and more developed type of gürten. Unlike a choijin, she is not attached to a monastery. She practises at home, does not perform big ceremonies involving many monks, calls her guardian spirit (saxius) whenever she needs to, does not wear a special costume, performs in her everyday clothes, does not use weapons, does not become completely possessed by her saxius, and she does not dance and jump around, in fact, she does not even stand up when she communicates with her guardian spirit. In the following section we discuss further what it means for her to be a gürten.

A Mongolian gürten

One day, when Dulamsüren’s maternal great uncle17 was escaping from the revolutionaries, he passed through Dulamsüren’s grandmother’s house and gave her something wrapped in a ceremonial silk scarf (xadag). It was a silver plinth for an ochir (vajra in Sanskrit, a Buddhist ritual object). He told her to give it to her grandchild, even though Dulamsüren’s mother was only three or four years old at the time. Her grandmother asked him where the ochir for the plinth that he had given her was. He answered that the ochir will reveal itself in the future. This ochir revealed itself to Dulamsüren through her father. Before her parents were married, Dulamsüren’s father was a monk at the monastery of Sangiin Dalai. He was one of the followers of Naran Gegeen in Bayanbulag. When he was attending a ceremony in his early twenties, he saw that the Naran Gegeen had something in his mouth while he was reading texts. During the break he met the Naran Gegeen outside the temple and asked him what was in his mouth. Naran Gegeen took an ochir out of his mouth and whispered a spell (shivshleg xeleed) on it and gave it to Dulamsüren’s father. He told him to give it to his future child (i.e. Dulamsüren). The young monk (Dulamsüren’s father) was very surprised by what Naran Gegeen said about his future child. At that time he was a monk and had never thought of having a family. He thought that there must be something wrong which would cause him not be a monk in the future and he asked Naran Gegeen why he would have to ‘turn black’ (xar bolox)18 and become a layperson (xar xün). Naran Gegeen answered that in the future all monks will ‘become black’, and that all the monasteries will be destroyed. This was Naran Gegeen’s prophecy about the revolutionary movement and its fight against monasteries. What he said came true, after a few years the monastery was burnt, Naran Gegeen and many other monks were killed, and the younger monks ‘became black’. One of them was Dulamsüren’s father. Later he married Dulamsüren’s mother, and this is how the two objects (the plinth and the ochir) came together.

Later, a Tibetan seer (üzmerch), whose name was Renyam, informed Dulamsüren’s parents that they would have a ‘good [special] child’ (sain xün). He warned Dulamsüren’s mother to be careful during her pregnancy, and told her that she ate too much meat and should be careful. Her parents did not really understand what the seer meant until events began to unravel themselves. Once, when her mother was pregnant with Dulamsüren, she ate mutton from a sheep that had been attacked by a wolf. According to Mongolian concepts of purity and pollution, because she hate this meat, she had become impure. But her mother did not care and ate the mutton anyway. On that same evening, when she went to milk the mares, she was badly kicked by one of them. They called the seer, Renyam. He made a cure (zasal) for the mother and the baby (Dulamsüren). He told them that the baby was meant to be a boy but because of what had happened the gender had been changed and the baby had become a girl. Furthermore, he said that the baby might be better as a girl, because no one would suspect her of being a Buddhist practitioner. The seer also said that it would be very good if she gave birth on the ‘candle festival of the 25th’ (zulyn xorin tavan, the celebration of the birth of Tsongkhapa), which she did. When she was a child, Dulamsüren could sense (zön) various things. For example, in the autumn when she was three years old her family moved pasture and decided to settle in a very beautiful place with plenty of grass, but Dulamsüren cried and asked her parents to leave. Her father immediately decided not to settle there, and some of the families moving with them agreed. However, two households continued to stay there and did not take heed of what the three-year-old had said. A week later an epidemic (taxal) spread through the area and many people died.

From the age of seven, Dulamsüren secretly began to learn elementary religious practices from her father and her teachers. At the age of eleven she could invoke the saxius (guardian spirits) by herself and was able to go into trance. Besides her father, she had several other teachers such as Baatar gyalxai (a title for a Buddhist monk), who used to ‘seize a saxius’ (saxius barikh), invoke the spirit and go into a trance. There was also gürten Begzjav, Lut gürten, and Bazarjav, a tantric specialist, who taught her tarni (spells). During the Xalx Gol War (during the Second World War), her teacher, Lut went to war as a soldier. After he had gone, on the night that the soldiers were supposed to go to the front, the saxius in his domestic shrine issued a strange sounding noise, such as: ‘turrr’.19 His mother heard the noise and worried about her son and sensed that something was happening to him. At the same time, just before getting into the truck that was leaving for Xalx Gol, Lut blacked out so he had to stay behind. Later, he explained that his saxius saved his life and did not let him go to war, maybe because it knew that he would be killed.

When Dulamsüren was a small child, her first teacher Baatar used to visit her parents. Once he told her parents that she was not an ordinary child. He said that she would not learn Buddhist philosophy. Rather, she would learn how to communicate with saxius (guardian spirits). Later, he became her teacher. In the evenings, her father used to take her to her ‘great teacher’ (ix bagsh) Baatar to practice. When she was possessed by the spirit, represented in the object, her teacher used to gently support her right hand. When she was thirteen years old her teacher granted her permission to practice by herself. After this she became a gürten.

Image 8.

Dulamsüren gürten holding her saxius

photograph by Bumochir Dulam, 2003

Possession by saxius

We have seen that gürten worship their saxius (guardian spirits).20 The term saxius has two meanings. Firstly, it refers to the actual spirit. Secondly, it refers to the object that represents the spirit and is used as an instrument to go into a trance. In Dulamsüren’s case this object is a plinth for an ochir (vajra in Sanskrit, Buddhist ritual object) and an ochir, wrapped in a ceremonial silk scarf (see Figure 9). The sacred saxius object does not always have to be a plinth and an ochir. As she told us, it can be anything, such as a knife, for example. Later, when I (Bumochir Dulam) visited her again, she had a big wooden stick with a metal human skull sculpture on top of it, with many coloured streamers (Figure 10). She said that this was another saxius that belonged to one of her apprentices. Her apprentice could not go into a trance and communicate with the spirit. Therefore, the guardian spirit wanted to stay with Dulamsüren. Besides the plinth and the ochir, Dulamsüren also has a rosary (erx) that acts as an object through which she receives the spirits. She says that her saxius likes to stay at home at her house most of the time, and when she goes somewhere she takes her rosary instead, so that she can go into a trance if she needs to by holding her beads.21

Unlike the spirits of choijins and shamans, a gürten’s saxius does not have a physical images that is painted or sculpted like Buddhist deities, or are made of wool, felt, wood, metal or cotton like shamanic ones. Rather than being an object of worship, the ochir and its plinth, or the skull on the stick, are instruments that allow them to go into ‘trance’. Many families in Bayanbulag have their own saxius with different instruments that gürtens hold to go into a trance, just as the shamanic spirits and their corresponding effigies. Choijin saxius, by contrast, are only found in temples. When Dulamsüren once visited her natal home, many families wanted her to establish communication with their saxius and asked her to go into trance to communicate with them. None of these saxius had possessed a gürten for about forty or fifty years. Dulamsüren complains that at the Gandan Monastery in Ulaan Baatar, there are also many saxius who attack her and try to possess her. She laments that people in Mongolia do not know about saxius and that all the monks just read texts and do nothing to revive the gürten and choijin practices.

According to what gürten say, their saxius are not human souls, like shamanic ancestral spirits. Instead, saxius are similar to actual gods. Dulamsüren says that it is not an ‘emptiness’ (xooson yum bish), meaning that saxius is not something that does not exist. Instead, saxius is a ‘thing’ (yum) that belongs to gods, like the god Damdinchoijoo, one of the ten Xangals (ten wrathful gods of Ninma-pa sects of Buddhism). More precisely, their saxius are messengers (zarlaga) of wrathful Ninma-pa Buddhist gods. This is the answer Dulamsüren had from her saxius, and she always uses the term ‘ömnöös buux’ (to descend on behalf of one of the gods) when describing how her spirits visit and possess her. For example, her saxius descend on behalf of the gods Gombo, Lham, and Damdinchoijoo. She worships images of these gods, but there are no images to be found that represent her actual saxius. In the sense of worshiping the wrathful Ninma-pa deities, a gürten is similar to a choijin because these gods are the deities and spirits of the choijin.

However, in the case of a spirit possession by a choijin they do not invoke the wrathful gods, but their messengers. Another aspect that distinguishes gürten from choijin is the difference in spirit possession. Compared to choijin, the spirit possession of the gürten is quite simple. For example, Dulamsüren first purifies herself by washing her hands and burning juniper incense, she then sits in front of a chest, with pictures of wrathful gods on it, and is seized by her saxius through the ochir plinth and the ochir, which she holds in her right hand. She purifies the saxius in the juniper smoke and, while raising her right hand she supports it by holding her right elbow. She closes her eyes, concentrates, and reads an invocation (solxo) in Tibetan. Choijins have similar invocations for spirits and gods and they are also referred to as ‘solxog’. Unlike the gürten, who reads these texts by herself, the choijin has other monks who read these for him. The term ‘solxog’ refers to a text (unshlaga) that is recited in order to invoke the spirit or god. Every saxius or god has its own specific invocation text (cf. Myagmarsambuu 2005: 37). Gürten do not go into deep trance, or become unconscious. When they go into a trance, their right hand which holds the saxius begins to shake. The spirit possesses the hand, rather than the whole body of the gürten. Dulamsüren says that if the saxius is angry then the possessed hand will beat her chest incessantly. Once it has entered her, she talks to her saxius in her mind and keeps her eyes closed. After ten or twenty seconds she opens her eyes and tells people what her saxius has said. If people ask further questions, she closes her eyes again and talks to her saxius in her mind and again opens her eyes and tells people the answers. The conversation between the saxius, the gürten and the clients continues in this fashion. Dulamsüren describes the words of the saxius as coming to her mind ‘like letters appearing on a computer screen when we type’. In Mongol shamanism a similar kind of possession is called yavgan böölöx ‘to go into a trance without a mount’. It means to go into a trance without wearing a costume and the use of a drum, which is the shaman’s mount. Instead, shamans sometimes use the Jews’ harp (xuur) and metal mirror (toli) to talk to their spirits (ongod) in the same way as a gürten. We suggest that this type of spirit-medium relationship cannot be considered to be ‘possession’ or ‘trance’ in comparison to the deep trance achieved by shamans where mediums do not remember anything. Maybe the hand of the gürten can be considered to be possessed, but not the whole body or the mind. A gürten or shaman in possession is often conscious and communicating with people. We presume that this situation is not complete possession or trance.

We asked Dulamsüren whether any of her children or grandchildren would continue to communicate with her saxius. She answered that her saxius does not want any of them to be her successor. The transmission of the ability to gürten is different from shamanic inheritance which is passed down through family lineages. Instead, succession is decided by the saxius. The saxius chooses the next gürten, who may not necessarily be from the same linage. According to her, when gürtens die they do not come back to the family as a shamanic ancestoral spirit. They go to another world or are re-born on Earth. For example, Dulamsüren was told by her saxius that she is a reincarnation of a monk, and that another monk of the monastery, Baruuny Nandin Xüree had been the mediator gürten of her saxius.

Choijin

Another type of prophet that receives prediction in trance, similar to the gürten and shaman, is the choijin. This is our third case of ecstatic prophecy. The choijin practice was prohibited during the Communist period, and now there are not many people who know about it. Nevertheless, before the Communist period and even during the early revolutionary period many district and province monasteries used to have their own choijin. In this part of the chapter, we continue to illustrate the difference between gürten and choijin by focusing on the position of the ‘state choijin’ (töriin choijin), Luvsankhaidav (1872-1918) (see Figure 12 in appendix), whose temple has become a museum in Ulaan Baatar.

According to Mongolian Buddhist specialists there are no choijin in Mongolia at present. However, many historical sources present rich material on choijin, as discussed in chapter two. For example, Montell (1934) describes a choijin using the term gurtum (gürten), among the Torgot Mongols in Inner Mongolia. As mentioned previously, sometimes the two terms (gürten and choijin) refer to the same thing. However, the following description of an oracle in trance is nothing like the one we explored in our discussion of Dulamsüren gürten.

…the gurtum entered the tent and began to wash his hands and face with milk-white liquid, which was poured out of a highly decorated teapot. The gurtum was slowly dressed in his outfit. Once dressed, he sat down on a prepared box with a high pile of cushions on top. Incense filled the inside of the tent and the chanting of prayers began again. Suddenly, the gurtum’s feet began to tremble and with this sign flags were placed in his belt and a very large helmet decorated with skulls was placed on his head. This was tied very tightly under his chin with khattaks [xadag, a ceremonial silk scarf] so that he could not move his chin at all. This is a safety precaution to ensure that, while in trance, he does not bite off his tongue or break his teeth. His whole body then began to tremble, his bloodshot eyes began moving wildly and turned out and in. He jumped up and down on his throne while out of his mouth poured a bloody froth. With a sword he lashed around wildly and looked like a dangerous demon. The lamas bang on their drums and cymbals throughout and recite Tibetan texts.

Now the moment is ready for the public to have the future told to them. One after the other they move towards the gurtum with khattaks [xadag, a ceremonial silk scarf] and ask questions concerning illness, travel plans, the outcome of business affairs etc, etc. The answers are given in an unknown language which one of the Gurtum’s assistants translates. When everyone has asked their questions and the trance is subsiding, the helmet is slowly removed and a peculiarly decorated black hat that is drawn down below the eyes is placed on his head. The gurtum then rushed out of the door and into the other tent that was decorated for the fire offering. There he performed a wild dance with huge prancing leaps and jumps and after some time fell down exhausted. After a little while a fire offering is performed in roughly the same way as described before.

[…] A lama once described the gurtum’s power in the following way: “He can extend or shrink his body, twist his limbs, bend and drag out iron weapons as he wishes. He knows everything, he can predict the future, he does not fear an enemy, however strong or powerful they may be. He can take away illnesses by placing his hands on people or with a single slash of his sword” (Montell 1934:192-196, trans. Rebecca Empson).

Compared to gürten Dulamsüren discussed in the previous section, this gürten appears to be completely different. According to the historical sources a choijin (gurtum) had an elaborate costume including a hat, garment and boots. Secondly, they had weapons such as swords, bows and arrows, (cf. Montell 1934: 192-196; Haslund 1992: 58; Myagmarsambuu 2005: 39). Thirdly, they were attached to monasteries. Fourthly, they performed at large public rituals and were possessed on particular days in the presence of other monks who recited Buddhist texts so that they could enter trance22 (cf. Montell 1934:192-196). Fifthly, when the choijin or gurtum was possessed he spoke in a strange language, sometimes he spoke through his mouth but at other times it has been noted that he spoke through his armpit and therefore had an interpreter called gombo lama (cf. Myagmarsambuu 2005: 37; Montell 1934:192-196). Sixthly, there was a monk on each side who supported the choijin when he collapsed (cf. Haslund 1992: 58, Myagmarsambuu 2005: 37). The choijin ritual is more complex than Dulamsüren gürten’s calling down of her guardian spirits. This is because the choijin is not possessed by the ‘messengers of the gods’. Rather, they are possessed by the gods themselves. In the example presented by Montell (1934), the god is held to be the god Dharmapala, or a fire god, depending on different perspectives.

‘The ordinary Etsingol Mongols understand that it is the fire god that possesses the gurtum’s body and speaks through his mouth. The orthodox Tibetan theologians hold that the god that possesses him is Dharmapala, that is one of the protectors of the lamaist faith’ (Montell 1934: 195-196, trans. Rebecca Empson).

Haslund (1992 [1935]) describes a similar ritual also using the term ‘gurtum’.23 According to this example it is an actual god who possesses the gurtum.

…the possessed gurtum was not a human being, but was a god himself incarnate in a chosen human body. No man could be responsible for the actions of a possessed gurtum, since during the ecstasy he was a god. A gurtum carried the god’s dangerous weapons, and it might happen that the god’s will was to make away with an objectionable person.

…Everyone regarded the two gurtums with reverence, for in their present condition they were not human lamas bearing the dress and symbolic weapons of Damchan. No, they were possessed by Damchan who had changed their appearance to his own and the deeds they performed and words they uttered were those of the god himself. … Damchan is one of the Tavan Khan, “the five kings” who have given a sacred and eternal promise to protect religion and who are the lords of all magicians and the wisest of all soothsayers (Haslund 1992 [1935]: 58, 59).

According to a Mongolian lecturer in the philosophy of religion at the institute of Buddhism, named Bulgan, there are two categories of choijin. The first consists of a choijin who is born with the ability (törölxiin). They are the reincarnations of previous choijin. The other kind consists of a choijin who has learnt his skill from teachers (oldmol). Bulgan makes a further distinction between a nomyn choijin (official) and a nomyn bus choijin (unofficial). The Nomyn choijin becomes a proper choijin by passing certain tests, learning different spells and undergoing religious teachings, they are usually recognized officially by higher religious authorities and reveal prophecies for society. On the other hand, nomyn bus choijin do not have any of these characteristics, they simply call themselves choijin, without official recognition. They practice at home and deal with the personal issues of individual clients. We suggest that this classification reflects the differences to be found between a choijin and a gürten, introduced in this chapter. For the purposes of description, let us call nomyn choijin ‘choijin’, and nomyn bus choijin ‘gürten’.

Like the other ecstatic practitioners discussed above, the choijin also predicts the future. Before the revolutionary period, Mongolians respected choijin and used to visit them when they needed to solve problems. People received spiritual treatments (arga zasal), were told what would happen in the future and what had to be done. The presence of the choijin was common, especially in cases of revolts and strikes against the state or in any other significant disasters or problems affecting the whole nation. People asked the choijin to hold ceremonies to defeat enemies, clear obstacles and predict the future (cf. Myagmarsambuu 2005: 54).

In the 1920s, just before the revolution in Mongolia, the People’s Revolutionary Party (Ardyn Nam) received information about a prophecy made by a choijin lama (Maygmarsambuu used this term to describe him), whose name was Gütembe.24 The prophecy made by his saxius declared that the state needed some help and it was time to help the state, referring to the need for a revolution. The party sent Dogsom, Galsan and Dendev to find out about the prophecy. They described Gütembe’s home as being full of religious implements and pictures of gods. In front of the images there were small offerings (takhil), sacrificial offerings shaped out of dough (balin) and incense and candles burning on the altar. On the left side of his house, there was a costume consisting of a mask, helmet and a metal mirror. An image of mandala (representation of the cosmos) and a butter lamp (zul) were placed in front of them on another smaller altar. On the two sides of the altar, there was a sword, bow, arrow and bayonet. To the right of the main altar there was a drum, and a cymbal was hanging from the wall of the house. Gütembe told them that the previous day his guardian spirits had suddenly possessed him and told him about the present situation of the state and society. He went into a trance to ask more. He lit the lamp and the incense and started to recite a text. After a short while, the skirts of his garment (deel) suddenly began to shake and he yawned and roared. He shook his head, his face was red, and red and white foam was dripping from his mouth. His assistant lama then poured a glass of vodka into his mouth and mopped his eyes with heart meat (zürxnii max). This returned him to normal. He said that he had asked his saxius about state affairs and the saxius had replied that a specific Buddhist text referred to as ‘Damdiny Dordog’ had to be recited for a week to clear the obstacles. Three days after this, they would see an improvement (cf. Myagmarsambuu 2005: 55-56). While the 1921 revolution was predicted by this choijin for the Communist revolutionaries, the monarch of Mongolia at the time also had a state choijin.

State oracle (töriin choijin)

In 1874 when, the eighth reincarnation of Bogd Jebtsundamba (Agvaanluvsan 1870–1924) was four years old, he came to Mongolia with his parents and brothers. He was Tibetan, born in Lhasa, the son of a senior civil servant in the administration of the Dalai Lama. He was the Holy King of the Mongolian state and head of religion from 1911 to 1921. His younger brother, Luvsanxaidav (1872-1918), was appointed as the ‘state oracle’ (töriin choijin). In 1883-1884, the Xamba Lama Baldanchoimbol, the religious leader of Xüree, capital of Mongolia, discussed with the Bogd Khan about training his brother Luvsanxaidav as a choijin to protect religion. In 1884, Mongolian religious leaders invited the choijin Setev from Tibet to lead the training. Luvsanxaidav learned to go into a trance and the three main gods that possessed him were Naichun Choijin, Zumer and Dorjsug. By the decree of the Bogd Khan he started performing a possession ritual twice a year; once on the eighth day of the first lunar month, and once on the twenty-eighth of the last. The rituals were held to strengthen the Mongolian religion and state, and to defeat enemies and demons (cf. Myagmarsambuu 2005: 65, 66, 67).

Image 9.

The State Oracle Luvsanxaidav

Photograph reproduced with kind permission by the Choijin Lama Temple Museum, Mongolia

Luvsanxaidav first began training in a Mongolian felt tent (ger). Later, when he became a choijin, he had two temples built for him. The first temple was built between 1898 and 1901 at East Xüree. It consisted of one main, and several small prayer halls, and some other small buildings and fences. Fifty of the Bogd’s disciples became students in the Choijin Temple (Choijingiin Süm), and they collected alms as taxation for the monarch. The temple was called ‘zanxan’ and had the title ‘The Palace that Defeats the Demons of the Black Direction’ (xar zügiin shulamsyn aimgiig daragch ord). In 1903, the temple, including the Choijin’s personal quarters, burnt down. Therefore, they started building a new temple in 1904, which was finished in 1908. This new temple later received the honorary title ‘Forgiveness-Promoting Temple’ (Örshööliig xögjüülegch süm) from the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. The temple consisted of several different pavilions (see Figure 13 in appendix). The preserved body of Luvsanxaidav’s teacher, Yonzon Xamba Baldanchoimbol, was seated like an image of a god in a meditative position in the main prayer hall. Choijin Luvsanxaidav’s corpse was also preserved in the same way after his death and was kept in his house.25 This house burnt down in 1934 and the Choijin’s remains were destroyed. After this, his ashes were placed in an effigy that was placed in the main prayer hall. During the 1930s almost all of the temples in Mongolia were burnt down, but this temple survived. A rumour says that the temple was saved by the Communist leader Choibalsan and his wife, because they believed in the choijin Luvsanxaidav.

In 1916, Luvsanxaidav received the position of ‘State Oracle’ (Töriin Choijin), and the title of ‘Protector of Xalx Religion’ (Xalxyn Shashnyg Xamgaalagch).26 After his death in 1918, the temple continued to perform rituals, as usual, reciting texts until it closed in 1936. In 1941 it reopened as ‘The Choijin Lama Temple Museum’ (see Figure 13 in appendix). There are several theories about the circumstances of Luvsanxaidav’s death. For example, Myagmarsambuu (2005) claims that on the morning of the 28th March 1918, he suddenly blacked out and passed away (cf. Myagmarsambuu 2005: 67, 68). We were told, however, by the museum guide that he blacked out and died while he was in trance.27 The guide also mentioned another theory, according to which he died in his sleep when his home was destroyed by a fire. This explains why the museum does not have many of his costumes or instruments.

For the possession ritual, Luvsanxaidav used to light candles and close all the doors and curtains. State officials and religious leaders used to come to participate in the ritual and to pray and ask the saxius for protection. While in trance he issued prophecies from the gods to the participants. He became very powerful and demonstrated many magical feats, such as tying swords into knots, licking hot metal from a fire, issuing fire from his body, flying and so on. People who were wounded by his sword during the possession were considered to be very lucky. Because of his enormous power, his arms and legs would sometimes be tied to columns.

Now the temple is officially a museum, however, it is also an active religious temple. People come to pray and worship at the temple. All the gods and saxius inside are considered to be alive and, therefore, active. Lamas even come from Tibet and India to worship and read prayers in the temple. People believe that a god called ‘Yadam’ who resides at the temple helps them to find their pre-destined spouse and that the god ‘Zanxan’ brings success in work and life, as well as in money. When the government started privatizing property, some lamas wanted to privatize the temple museum and re-open it as a choijin temple. One of the motivations to re-open the museum as an active temple is the revival of the highly esteemed position of ‘state choijin’.28 In this sense, the choijin and his temple are a good example of a prophet who existed in a highly centralised powerful position with regards to the state.

Conclusion

Given the diverse sources of prophecy and the different ways of distributing its messages, we turn now to focus on belief in prophecy. The question of belief varies according to different historical periods. One of the ways in which we can gauge whether people believe in prophecy is to note if people’s actions have been influenced by prophetic predictions. For example, as discussed in chapter two, in the Secret History of the Mongols, Chinggis Khan is reported to have believed in the prophecy of the shaman Teb Tenger. After hearing his prediction, he arrested his brother Qasar. If a similar kind of prophecy were to be issued in contemporary Mongolia, it is doubtful that people would react in a similar way. For example, the former president of the country, Mr Ochirbat, mentioned to us that if someone issues a prophecy concerning an impeding plane crash then he could not do anything to stop it.29 People would not cancel their flight due to the prophet’s prediction. If people did cancel their flight, they would not find out if the prophecy were true or not. Therefore, as the prophet Dashtseren mentioned,30 prophecy is something that people believe in after the predicted event has come true. Apart from the type of prophecies that can be acted upon, there are other types of prophecies which simply state that things will happen and nothing can be done to prevent them (see, for example, the prophecies of Molon Bagsh in chapter five).

In contemporary Mongolia, people do not always take prophecies at face value. There are certain circumstances when people believe in prophecies and reveal to others that they do believe in them. In present day Mongolia people can be said to have two major ways of thinking, which could be seen to contradict each other. The first way of thinking is based on modern, scientific rationality. The second way of thinking is based on traditional and spiritual reasoning. Before the 1990s, the scientific mode of reasoning dominated Mongolian society. After the advent of democracy, however, both ways of thinking have become popular. Modern scientific reasoning has started to refer more to Western concepts, such as ideas about globalization and democracy. Alongside this, however, traditional and spiritual practices have also re-emerged throughout the country. The two ways of thinking can be seen to govern different parts, or aspects, of society. Nevertheless, distinctions between ‘globalized’ and ‘traditional’ ways of thinking are not always distinct. For example, belief in prophecy is not only thought to be a ‘traditional’ way of thinking in Mongolia. Many people, who consider themselves followers of modern scientific reasoning, also draw on prophetic knowledge. For example, the prophecies of the Bulgarian prophetess Gushterova Vangalia, and Nostradamus (Michel de Nostredame 1503-1566) are both well known and wide-spread across Mongolia.

Using the popular Mongolian distinction between ‘traditional-spiritual’ (ylamjlalt yxaan / shutleg bishrel) and ‘modern-rational’ (shinjlex yxaan) thinking, we can identify two general groups of people in Mongolia. One group of people do not believe in prophecies, regardless of where the prophecies come from. The other group is made up of people who do. However, its should be noted that this classification describes not only two groups of people, but also highlights two types of reasoning which may coexist in a single person. Recourse to globalized and scientific rationality is often something that people commit to publicly. The other type of reasoning is often considered to be something that comes to the fore in private. So what, one might ask, do people think about public state sacrifices and communal acts of ritual worship? The answer we give is that these are mostly symbolic acts.31 One does not need to believe in the real existence of ‘spirits’ in order to take part in and revive public rituals. In public, people hesitate to answer the question whether they believe in prophecies or not. However, in private, among family members or in their local areas, people reveal their belief in spiritual, religious and prophetic reasoning. It is important to note here that the two kinds of reasoning cause many people not to act in accordance with what they really think. More precisely, many people who believe in spiritual and prophetic knowledge cannot admit this in public, especially if they are public figures. People do not officially announce their beliefs in public in order not to be seen as abnormal by people who do not believe in prophecies. For example, when the shaman Tseren and his family received the command from Chinggis Khan, they did not do anything until the warrior Muxulai came and checked if they had issued the predictions. They did not act immediately, not because they did not believe, but because they knew that many others would not believe in them and they were hesitant as to how to proceed. For the shaman, it was safer to send the letter to us, where it has remained. We could have delivered the prophecy to President Ochirbat and he might have acted upon the prophetic information, as we know that he supported his own seer. But he could not have made this public. When his support for the seer was made public, his reputation was put into question. On the other hand, publicly declaring that one does not believe in these kind of knowledge presents a similar kind of danger. Therefore, the best option is to suspend ones belief and attribute these beliefs to others. The conclusion, therefore, is that many people do believe in prophecies and many others do not, and the way in which a prophecy is transmitted and delivered to others depends on who believes in whom and what. People confess their belief or disbelief in private, even if many of the matters raised in the prophecies that have been presented in this chapter actually have the potential to speak to issues that concern the public at large.

Bibliography

Dulam, Bumochir. 2003. Cult of the State: State in the culture of the Mongols, in Acta

Mongolica, a Journal of the National University of Mongolia, Vol. 3, 215: 103-120, Ulaan

Baatar: Press of the National University of Mongolia.

Dulam, Bumochir. 2002. Mongol Shamanic Ritual: Types of Oral Chants. Ulaan Baatar: Mönxiin

Üseg Press.

Dulam, S. 2004. Xüree dörvön uulyn taxilga belgedel (Symbolism and Worship of the Encircling

Four Mountains), Ulaan Baatar: Mönxiin Üseg Press.

Dulam, S and Dulam, B. 1999. Smoke Ceremonies of Mongol Sacrifices. Ed. S. Dulam

and B. Dulam Central Asian Shamanism, Shamanic Cosmology, and Shamanism in

Transition, Papers and abstracts of the 5th conference of the International Society for

Shamanistic Research, Ulaan Baatar: Admon Press.

Haslund, Henning. 1992 [1935]. Men and Gods in Mongolia, London: Kegan Paul

Press.

Humphrey, Caroline.1996. Shamanic Practice and the State in Northern Asia: views from the

center and periphery. Edited by Nicholas Thomas and Caroline Humphrey, in Shamanism,

History, and the State, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Montell, Gösta. 1934. Våra Vänner På Stäppen: genom Mongoliet till Torgoterna vid

Etsingol (Our Friends on the Steppe: Through Mongolia to the Torgots by Etsingol). Stockholm: Lars Hökerbergs Bokförlag.

Mönx-Ochir, D. 1996. The Meaning of Tsövüün Tsag (Tsövüün Tsagiin Uchir), in Dal

Newspaper, No. 4, Ulaan Baatar.

Myagmarsambuu G. 2005. Shashnyg khamgaalagch dogshin choijin (Wrathful Choijins

Protectors of Religion). Ulaan Baatar: Soyombo Printing.

Pürev O. 2002. Mongol böögiin shashin (Mongolian Shamanism). Ulaan Baatar: Admon

Priting.

-------- 2003. Mongol böögiin shashny ner tomyony tailbar toli (Dictionary of Mongol

Shamanic Terminologies). Ulaan Baatar: Admon Printing.

Sükhbat Sh. 2003. Böö (Shaman). Ulaan Baatar: Admon Printing.

1 In Time, Causality and Prophecy in the Mongolian Cultural Region, ed. Rebecca Empson. Inner Asia Series, Cambridge: Globe Oriental, 2006.

2 Gandan Monastery is the main centre of Buddhist authority in Mongolia. It is based in Ulaan Baatar.

3 Although, some monks at Gandan Monastery in Ulaan Baatar hold public lectures concerning how one should interpret previously known prophecies.

4 Pers. comm. S. Dulam (Professor of Mongol studies).

5 He passed away in late summer 2005. We have heard that his body will be embalmed in his shaman temple.

6 B. Dulam and S. Dulam were invited to participate at the symposium of the International Society for Shamanistic Research (ISSR) in Ulan-Ude, in Russian Buryatia.

7 Shamans in Mongolia routinely worship their ancestral spirits three times a month, on the 9th, 19th and 29th of each month of the Lunar calendar. Darxad shamans, from the north, call this worship ongodyn tailga (sacrifice for the spirits), while Buryat shamans from the east call this worship yösöngöö xiix (to do the ninth).

8 Folk teachings and wisdoms, such as the Oyun Tülhüür (Key of Mind) and Chinggisiin Bilig (Wisdom of Chinggis), teach people traditional political ideology and what is right and what is wrong in a poetic form.

9 This is a ritual consisting of burning food to feed spirits. For further information see S. Dulam and B. Dulam (1999).

10 This is similar to what other spirits (ongod) do when they possess a shaman. Spirits greet people in the ceremony, introduce themselves, drink vodka, tea and milk and smoke a cigarette, talk about their previous human lives, give advice on how life should be led on earth, and finally say farewell. For further information, see Bumochir Dulam (2002).

11 Ochirvaani is one of the wrathful deities of Buddhism.

12 Pers. comm. Dr. Hürelbaatar and Dr. Erdenebayar.

13 In Mongolia there are two main categories of shamans. One category is referred to as ‘black’ (xar). This usually refers to the Darxad shamans of Northern Mongolia who do not worship any Buddhist gods. The other category is ‘yellow’ (shar), the colour of Buddhism, referring mostly to Buryat shamans in the East of Mongolia, who do worship Buddhist gods.

14 At the time, it was difficult to pass this information to the public, especially just after the President, Mr. Ochirbat’s reputation had been compromised, in the eyes of some people, by his support for the seer, Dashtseren.

15 The term is spelled in different ways in the Mongolian cultural region, such as: gurtum, gürtüm, gurten and ghurtam (see chapter one). I will use the above version, following contemporary Mongolian usage.

16 Dulamsüren was born in 1938 in Bayanbulag district (sum) of Bayanxongor province (aimag) in central Mongolia. Her father, Norov, was a monk from Xovd province. He married her mother Tsend-Ayush and they moved together to Bayanbulag district.

17 He was a reincarnation of Lama Lash.

18 Buddhist practitioners are called ‘yellow’ (shar) people in Mongolia, referring to the Gelug-pa sects of Buddhism. In contrast, laypeople and state officials are called ‘black’ (xar) people, and the term ‘to become black’ means to stop being a monk.

19 Here the term ‘saxius’ refers to the object or figure representing a spirit, such as the plinth and ochir of Dulamsüren.

20 The literal meaning of the word saxius is ‘guardian spirit’. However, in some contexts, especially for choijin, saxius is ‘god’ rather than ‘guardian spirit’.

21 I (Bumochir Dulam) met a Tibetan gürten in Lhasa, in the summer 2004. Her name is Tseyan. She is ‘xor’, that is, a Tibetan Mongol and a descedent of Chinggis Khan’s armies. When we visited a reincarnated lama together, as soon as we entered his room she began to shake, especially in her right hand, which was raised like when a gürten goes into trance. I remember that she was not holding anything in her hand, only her rosary which she always carries.

22 A 96 year-old lama in Mongolia called Sereeter, told us about the same ritual. He was a lama at Ix Xüree (Gandan Monastery) and saw an actual possession ritual of a choijin. He recalled: ‘When a chojin is possessed by a saxius it is because a lama is sitting next to him reading a special book, when a shaman becomes possessed he can have the saxius enter him by himself’ (Ulaan Baatar, May 2003).

23 An extract from Haslund’s description (1992 [1935]) includes: ‘And the Mystery came. A pair of grotesque apparitions rushed out of the temple closely surrounded by the red-robbed lamas. On their heads were shining helmets and from their backs fluttered long, many-coloured streamers. In their hands they held bows, arrows, swords and other weapons. Their faces expressed complete madness. Their eyes bulged, bloodshot and staring, their cheeks were swollen and livid, and white froth foamed from their slack drooping mouths. The creatures reeled as if drunk. From time to time they crumpled up and would have fallen to the ground had not the attendant lamas held them upright. The air was rent by hideous roaring, and with the strength and agility of wild beasts the two possessed creatures rushed with drawn swords towards some imaginary prey in the fleeing panic-stricken crowd. Countless people were wounded and red blood flowed’ (Haslund 1992 [1935]: 58).

24 We suspect that Gütembe was not his real name; instead it may have been his gürten title.

25 An English language newspaper in Mongolia, The UB Post, recently published an interview with the Mongolian lama G. Pürevbat about the practice of embalmment concerning Luvsanxaidav. The article reports:

[Journalist:] The embalmed mummy of Luvsankhaidav, the brother of Bogd Jebtsundamba, is in the Choijin Lama Temple. What can you tell us about this embalmment?

[Pürevbat:] The great writer B. Rinchen said that it is the embalmed mummy of Luvsankhaidav but I heard that it is just paper …We have not studied it. The legs of the body are different from the Mongolian tradition; its legs are hanging down from the body but [a mummy is usually] made to sit crossed-legged. Most embalmed mummies in Mongolia were destroyed at the time of political persecution around 1937, including the mummies of the seventh and eighth Bogds that were in Gandan Monastery (The UB Post, Self-embalmment in the Buddhist faith, 10th August 2005, www.ubpost.mongolnews.mn/culture, as accessed in December 2005).

26 Xalx Mongols are the largest ethnic group in Mongolia.

27 Ch. Jargal, a researcher and guide at the Choijin Lama Temple Museum.

28 For reasons of privacy, we have not revealed the name of the lama who became a choijin and started his own temple.

29 Interview conducted by Bumochir Dulam in June 2003, in Ulaan Baatar.

30 Interview conducted by Bumochir Dulam in June 2003, in Ulaan Baatar.

31 For further information concerning communal acts of ritual worship, see S. Dulam (2004).

Mongolian History Photos - 1921

2007-05-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

S. Danzan and D. Sukhbaatar

Mongolian representative S. Danzan and D. Sukhbaatar, Mongolian War Minister were sent by Bogd Khan as negotiaters of the first Mongolian international agreement since the ousting of Chinese occupiers during the Mongolian national revolution of 1921.

Mongolian History Photos - 1912

2007-05-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

Mongolian Foreign Minister Khanddorj visits Saint Petersburg in 1912

Mongol leaders worked hard to have their independence recognized by Russia. To that end Mongolia sent its envoys to Russia to negotiate the terms of its recognition. Thus in the winter of 1912 Foreign Minister M. Khanddorj visited Saint Petersburg (the then capital of Russia) and held negotiations with Russian officials. In December of the same year, Russia and China began talks on defining the future status of Mongolia.

Mongolian History Photos

2007-04-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

Javzandamba Khutugtu and Queen Dondogdulam

For more Mongolian history resources visit our main website: www.Mongolianculture.com

In 1911 Javzandamba Khutugtu (religious title granted to reincarnated lamas) was enthroned in Ikh Huree ( today’s capital of Mongolia - Ulaanbaatar ) as Mongolia’s spiritual leader and head of State with the title of Bogd Khan. Five ministries ( for internal, foreign, finance, justice and war affairs ) were set up to run the country.

The Story of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars by Friar Giovanni DiPlano Carpini

2007-03-28T00:26:00.000-07:00

The Story of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars

Branden Publishing Company, Boston

Excerpt from Friar Giovanni Di Plano Carpini's Account of his Embassy to the Court of the Mongol Khan (1245-1247).

John of Plano Carpini was a Franciscan monk sent in 1245 by Pope Innocent IV to learn of Mongol political intentions and bring Christianity to the East. These two excerpts from the History are first, his description of "Tartar" customs, and next, his account of events at the great assembly near Karakorum at which Guyak was proclaimed Great Khan.

Chapter IV

These men, that is to say the Tartars, are more obedient to their masters than any other men in the world, be they religious or seculars; they show great respect to them nor do they lightly lie to them. They rarely or never contend with each other in word, and in action never. Fights, brawls, wounding, murder are never met with among them. Nor are robbers and thieves who steal on a large scale found there; consequently their dwellings and the carts in which they keep their valuables are not secured by bolts and bars. If any animals are lost, whoever comes across them either leaves them alone or takes them to men appointed for this purpose; the owners of the animals apply for them to these men and they get them back without any difficulty. They show considerable respect to each other and are very friendly together, and they willingly share their food with each other, although there is little enough of it. They are also long-suffering. When they are without food, eating nothing at all for one or two days, they do not easily show impatience, but they sing and make merry as if they had eaten well. On horseback they endure great cold and they also put up with excessive heat. Nor are they men fond of luxury; they are not envious of each other; there is practically no litigation among them. No one scorns another but helps him and promotes his good as far as circumstances permit.

Their women are chaste, nor does one hear any mention among them of any shameful behaviour on their part; some of them, however, in jest make use of vile and disgusting language. Discord among them seems to arise rarely or never, and although they may get very drunk, yet in their intoxication they never come to words or blows.

Now that the good characteristics of the Tartars have been described, it is time for something to be said about their bad. They are most arrogant to other people and look down on all, indeed they consider them as nought, be they of high rank or low born.

For at the Emperor's court we saw Jerozlaus, a man of noble birth, a mighty duke of Russia, also the son of the King and Queen of Georgia, and many important sultans; the chief also of the Solangi received no fitting honour from them, but the Tartars who were assigned to them, however base-born they were, went ahead of them and always had the first and highest place; indeed they were often obliged to sit behind their backs.

They consider it a great sin if any food or drink is allowed to be wasted in any way; consequently they do not allow bones to be given to dogs until the marrow has been extracted. They do not wash their clothes nor allow them to be washed, especially from the time when thunderstorms begin until the weather changes. They drink mare's milk in very great quantities if they have it; they also drink the milk of ewes, cows, goats and even camels. They do not have wine, ale or mead unless it is sent or given to them by other nations. In the winter, moreover, unless they are wealthy, they do not have mare's milk. They boil millet in water and make it so thin that they cannot eat it but have to drink it. Each one of them drinks one or two cups in the morning and they eat nothing more during the day; in the evening, however, they are all given a little meat, and they drink the meat broth. But in the summer, seeing they have plenty of mare's milk, they seldom eat meat, unless it happens to be given to them or they catch some animal or bird when hunting.

They also have a law or custom of putting to death any man and woman they find openly committing adultery; similarly if a virgin commit fornication with anyone, they kill both the man and the woman. If anyone is found in the act of plundering or stealing in the territory under their power, he is put to death without any mercy. Again, if anyone reveals their plans, especially when they intend going to war, he is given a hundred stripes on his back, as heavy as a peasant can give with a big stick. When any of the lower class offend in any way, they are not spared by their superiors, but are soundly beaten. There is no distinction between the son of a concubine and the son of a wife, but the father gives to each what he will; and if they are of a family of princes, then the son of a concubine is a prince just the same as the son of a legitimate wife. When a Tartar has many wives, each one has her own dwelling and her household, and the husband eats and drinks and sleeps one day with one, and the next with another. One, however, is chief among the others and with her he stays more often than with the others. In spite of their numbers, they never easily quarrel among themselves.

The men do not make anything at all, with the exception of arrows, and they also sometimes tend the flocks, but they hunt and practise archery, for they are all, big and little, excellent archers, and their children begin as soon as they are two or three years old to ride and manage horses and to gallop on them, and they are given bows to suit their stature and are taught to shoot; they are extremely agile and also intrepid.

Young girls and women ride and gallop on horseback with agility like the men. We even saw them carrying bows and arrows. Both the men and the women are able to endure long stretches of riding. They have very short stirrups; they look after their horses very well, indeed they take the very greatest care of all their possessions. Their women make everything, leather garments, tunics, shoes, leggings and everything made of leather; they also drive the carts and repair them, they load the camels, and in all their tasks they are very swift and energetic. All the women wear breeches and some of them shoot like the men.

Chapter IX
The Countries through which we passed, their position, the witnesses we came across, and the Court of the Emperor of the Tartars and his Princes

…and many a time we arrived so late that we did not eat that night but were given in the morning the food we should have eaten the previous evening. We went as fast as the horses could trot, for the horses were in no way spared since we had fresh ones several times a day, and those which fell out returned, as has already been described, and so we rode swiftly without a break.

On our arrival Cuyuc had us given a tent and provisions, such as it is the custom for the Tartars to give, but they treated us better than other envoys. Nevertheless we were not invited to visit him for he had not yet been elected, nor did he yet concern himself with the government. The translation of the Lord Pope's letter, however, and the things I had said had been sent to him by Bati. After we had stayed there for five or six days he sent us to his mother where the solemn court was assembling. By the time we got there a large pavilion had already been put up made of white velvet, and in my opinion it was so big that more than two thousand men could have got into it. Around it had been erected a wooden palisade, on which various designs were painted. On the second or third day we went with the Tartars who had been appointed to look after us and there all the chiefs were assembled and each one was riding with his followers among the hills and over the plains round about.

On the first day they were all clothed in white velvet, on the second in red-that day Cuyuc came to the tent-on the third day they were all in blue velvet and on the fourth in the finest brocade. In the palisade round the pavilion were two large gates, through one of which the Emperor alone had the right to enter and there were no guards placed at it although it was open, for no one dare enter or leave by it; through the other gate all those who were granted admittance entered and there were guards there with swords and bows and arrows. If anyone approached the tent beyond the fixed limits, he was beaten if caught; if he ran away he was shot at, but with arrows however which had no heads. The horses were, I suppose, two arrow-flights away. The chiefs went about everywhere armed and accompanied by a number of their men, but none, unless their group of ten was complete, could go as far as the horses; indeed those who attempted to do so were severely beaten. There were many of them who had, as far as I could judge, about twenty marks' worth of gold on their bits, breastplates, saddles and cruppers. The chiefs held their conference inside the tent and, so I believe, conducted the election. All the other people however were a long way away outside the afore-mentioned palisade. There they remained until almost mid-day and then they began to drink mare's milk and they drank until the evening, so much that it was amazing to see. We were invited inside and they gave us mead as we would not take mare's milk. They did this to show us great honour, but they kept on plying us with drinks to such an extent that we could not possibly stand it, not being used to it, so we gave them to understand that it was disagreeable to us and they left off pressing us.

Outside were Duke Jerozlaus of Susdal in Russia and several chiefs of the Kitayans and Solangi, also two sons of the King of Georgia, the ambassador of the Caliph of Baghdad, who was a Sultan, and more than ten other Sultans of the Saracens, so I believe and so we were told by the stewards. There were more than four thousand envoys there, counting those who were carrying tribute, those who were bringing gifts, the Sultans and other chiefs who were coming to submit to them, those summoned by the Tartars and the governors of territories. All these were put together outside the palisade and they were given drinks at the same time, but when we were outside with them we and Duke Jerozlaus were always given the best places. I think, if I remember rightly, that we had been there a good four weeks when, as I believe, the election took place; the result however was not made public at that time; the chief ground for my supposition was that whenever Cuyuc left the tent they sang before him and as long as he remained outside they dipped to him beautiful rods on the top of which was scarlet wool, which they did not do for any of the other chiefs. They call this court the Sira Orda.

Leaving there we rode all together for three or four leagues to another place, where on a pleasant plain near a river among the mountains another tent had been set up, which is called by them the Golden Orda; it was here that Cuyuc was to be enthroned on the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, but owing to the hail which fell, as I have already related, the ceremony was put off. This tent was supported by columns covered with gold plates and fastened to other wooden beams with nails of gold, and the roof above and the sides on the interior were of brocade, but outside they were of other materials. We were there until the feast of St. Bartholomew, on which day a vast crowd assembled. They stood facing south, so arranged that some of them were a stone's throw away from the others, and they kept moving forward, going further and further away, saying prayers and genuflecting towards the south. We however, not knowing whether they were uttering incantations or bending the knee to God or another, were unwilling to genuflect. After they had done this for a considerable time, they returned to the tent and placed Cuyuc on the imperial throne, and the chiefs knelt before him and after them all the people, with the exception of us who were not subject to them. Then they started drinking and, as is their custom, they drank without stopping until the evening. After that cooked meat was brought in carts without any salt and they gave one joint between four or five men. Inside however they gave meat with salted broth as sauce and they did this on all the days that they held a feast.

At that place we were summoned into the presence of the Emperor, and Chingay the protonotary wrote down our names and the names of those who had sent us, also the names of the chief of the Solangi and of others, and then calling out in a loud voice he recited them before the Emperor and all the chiefs. When this was finished each one of us genuflected four times on the left knee and they warned us not to touch the lower part of the threshold. After we had been most thoroughly searched for knives and they had found nothing at all, we entered by a door on the east side, for no one dare enter from the west with the sole exception of the Emperor or, if it is a chief's tent, the chief; those of lower rank do not pay much attention to such things. This was the first time since Cuyuc had been made Emperor that we had entered his tent in his presence. He also received all the envoys in that place, but very few entered his tent.

So many gifts were bestowed by the envoys there that it was marvellous to behold-gifts of silk, samite, velvet, brocade, girdles of silk threaded with gold, choice furs and other presents. The Emperor was also given a sunshade or little awning such as is carried over his head, and it was all decorated with precious stones. A certain governor of a province brought a number of camels for him, decked with brocade and with saddles on them having some kind of contrivance inside which men could sit, and there were, I should think, forty or fifty of them; he also brought many horses and mules covered with trappings or armour made of leather or of iron. We in our turn were asked if we wished to present any gifts, but we had by now used up practically everything, so had nothing to give him. There up on a hill a good distance away from the tents were stationed more than five hundred carts, which were all filled with gold and silver and silken garments, and these things were shared out among the Emperor and the chiefs. Each chief divided his share among his men, but according to his own good pleasure.

Leaving there we went to another place where a wonderful tent had been set up all of red velvet, and this had been given by the Kitayans; there also we were taken inside. Whenever we went in we were given mead and wine to drink, and cooked meat was offered us if we wished to have it. A lofty platform of boards had been erected, on which the Emperor's throne was placed. The throne, which was of ivory, was wonderfully carved and there was also gold on it, and precious stones, if I remember rightly, and pearls. Steps led up to it and it was rounded behind. Benches were also placed round the throne, and here the ladies sat in their seats on the left; nobody, however, sat on the right, but the chiefs were on benches in the middle and the rest of the people sat beyond them. Every day a great crowd of ladies came.

The three tents of which I have spoken were very large. The Emperor's wives however had other tents of white felt, which were quite big and beautiful. At that place they separated, the Emperor's mother going in one direction and the Emperor in another to administer justice. The mistress of the Emperor had been arrested; she had murdered his father with poison at the time when their army was in Hungary and as a result the army in these parts retreated. Judgment was passed on her along with a number of others and they were put to death. …

Old Mongolian Manuscript Maps Website

2007-03-19T00:29:00.000-07:00

Old Maps of Mongolia - Source :http://mongol.tufs.ac.jp/landmaps/
Website Name: Old Mongolian Manuscript Maps from the website: 'Perception of the Landscape by the Mongols'.

Mongolia Map 1932

Mongolian Map 1902

Mongolian Map 1864

Old Mongolian Manuscript Maps from the website: 'Perception of the Landscape by the Mongols'. Website: http://mongol.tufs.ac.jp/landmaps/

Manchu Language Dying Out

2007-03-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

Meng Shujing with her grandson, Shi Junguang, and great-grandson, Shi Yaobin, in their hometown of Sanjiazi.
China's Manchu speakers struggle to save language

By David Lague
Published: International Herald Tribune,March 13, 2007

SANJIAZI, China: Seated cross- legged in her farmhouse on the kang, a brick sleeping platform warmed by a fire below, Meng Shujing lifted her chin and sang a lullaby in Manchu, softly but clearly.

After several verses, the 82-year-old widow stopped, her eyes shining.

"Baby, please fall asleep quickly," she said, translating a few lines of the song into Chinese. "Once you fall asleep, Mama can go to work. I need to set the fire, cook and feed the pigs."

After 5 children, 14 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren, Meng has the confidence that comes from long experience. "If you sing like this, a baby gets sleepy right away," she said.

She also knows that most experts believe the day is approaching when no child will doze off to the sound of these comforting words.

Ms. Meng is one of 18 residents of this isolated village in northeastern China, all older than 80, who, according to Chinese linguists and historians, are the last native speakers of Manchu.

Descendants of seminomadic tribesmen who conquered China in the 17th century, they are the last living link to a language that for more than two and a half centuries was the official voice of the Qing Dynasty, the final imperial house to rule from Beijing and one of the richest and most powerful empires the world has known.

With the passing of these villagers, Manchu will also die, experts say. All that will be left will be millions of documents and files in Chinese and foreign archives, along with inscriptions on monuments and important buildings in China, unintelligible to all but a handful of specialists.

"I think it is inevitable," said Zhao Jinchun, an ethnic Manchu born in Sanjiazi who taught at the village primary school for more than two decades before becoming a government official in the city of Qiqihar, 50 kilometers, or 30 miles, to the south. "It is just a matter of time. The Manchu language will face the same fate as some other ethnic minority languages in China and be overwhelmed by the Chinese language and culture."

(While most experts agree that Manchu is doomed, Xibo, a closely related language, is likely to survive a little longer. Xibo is spoken by about 30,000 descendants of members of an ethnic group allied to the Manchus who in the 18th century were sent to the newly conquered western region of Xinjiang. But it too is under relentless pressure from Chinese.)

The disappearance of Manchu will be part of a mass extinction that some experts forecast will lead to the loss of half of the world's 6,800 languages by the end of the century. But few of these threatened languages have risen to prominence and then declined as rapidly as Manchu.

Within decades of establishing their dynasty in 1644, the Qing rulers had brought all of what was then Chinese territory under control. They then embarked on a campaign of expansion that roughly doubled the size of their empire to include Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia and Taiwan. However, the dynasty's fall in 1911 meant that the Manchus were relegated to the ranks of the more than 50 other ethnic minorities in China, their numbers dwarfed by the dominant Han, who today account for 93 percent of the country's 1.3 billion people, according to official statistics.

Indistinguishable by appearance, the Manchus have melded into the general population. There are now about 10 million Chinese citizens who describe themselves as ethnic Manchus. Most live in what are now the northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, although there are also substantial numbers in Beijing and other northern cities.

For generations, the vast majority have spoken Chinese as their first language. Manchu survived only in small, isolated pockets like Sanjiazi, where, until a few decades ago, nearly all the residents were ethnic Manchus. Most are descended from the three main families that made up a military garrison established here in 1683 on the orders of the Qing emperor, Kangxi, to deter Russian territorial ambitions, according to Zhao.

The traditional Manchu-style wood- and-adobe farmhouses have largely been replaced by Chinese-style brick homes, the local residents say. The village now looks just like any other settlement in this region as a biting wind whips snow across the bare ground between the houses and the piles of dried cornstalks, stacked high to feed cattle and pigs through the winter.

Traditional shamanistic rites, along with ethnic dress and customs, have also been mostly abandoned, although some wedding and funeral ceremonies retain elements of Manchu rituals, Zhao said. But, villagers still observe one Manchu taboo that sets them apart from others in China's far northeast."We don't eat dog meat," Zhao said. "And we would never wear a hat made from dog fur." The prohibition, tradition has it, honors a dog credited with having saved the life of Nurhachi, the founder of the Manchu state, who lived from 1559 to 1626.

Even now, about three-quarters of Sanjiazi's 1,054 residents are ethnic Manchus but the use of Chinese has increased dramatically in recent decades as roads and modern communications have increasingly exposed them to the outside world. Only villagers of Meng's generation now prefer to speak Manchu.

"We are still speaking it, we are still using it," said Meng, a cheerful woman with thick gray hair pulled back in a neat bun. "If the other person can't speak Manchu then I'll speak Chinese."

But Meng disputes the findings of visiting linguists that there are 18 villagers left who can still speak fluently. By her standards, only five or six of her neighbors are word-perfect in Manchu.

Zhao, 53, on the other hand, estimates that about 50 people in the village have a working grasp of the language.

"My generation can still communicate in Manchu," he said, although he acknowledged that most villagers speak Chinese almost all the time at home.

Meng supports efforts to keep the language alive. Her 30-year-old grandson, Shi Junguang, has studied hard to improve his Manchu and teaches speaking and writing to the 76 pupils, 7 to 12 years old, at the village school.

This is the only primary school in China that offers classes in Manchu, according to officials from the local ethnic affairs office. These lessons, which Shi shares with one other teacher, take up only a small proportion of classroom time but they are popular with students, say the school's staff and other residents in the village.

"Because they are Manchus, they are interested in these classes," Shi said.

He is also teaching basic conversation to his 5-year-old son, Shi Yaobin, and encourages him to speak with his great-grandmother. "It would be a great blow for us if we lose our language," he said.

But most experts say that with so few people left to speak it, attempts to preserve Manchu are futile.

"The spoken Manchu language is now a living fossil," said Zhao Aping, an ethnic Manchu and an expert on Manchu language and history at Heilongjiang University in the provincial capital, Harbin. "Although we are expending a lot of energy on preserving the language and culture, it is very difficult. The environment is not right."

While scholars agree it is now only a matter of time before Manchu falls silent, in Sanjiazi, Meng clings to hope.

"I don't have much time," she said. "I don't even know if I have tomorrow. But I will use the time to teach my grandchildren.

"It is our language, how can we let it die? We are Manchu people."

Dietary Decadence and Dynastic Decline in the Mongol Empire

2007-03-04T00:36:00.000-08:00

Mongol cup 13th - 14th century

DIETARY DECADENCE AND DYNASTIC DECLINE

IN THE MONGOL EMPIRE by Professor John Masson Smith, Jr.

Published in the Journal of Asian History, 34/1 (2000)

[may contain uncorrected botched accents, etc]

University of California, Berkeley

DIETARY DECADENCE AND DYNASTIC DECLINE

IN THE MONGOL EMPIRE

Most Mongol rulers lived short lives. Those in the Middle East died, on average, at about age 38, and the successors of Qubilai in the Far East at 33 (adding in Qubilai raises the average since he lived, atypically, for 78 years; Chinggis lived into his 60s; for the rest, few passed 50). Comparison of the Mongol and Manchu (Ch'ing) dynasties shows the importance of longevity. In each of the Mongol realms of China, the Middle East and the Golden Horde, an average of eleven Mongols ruled for an average of about a century (107 years):Qubilai and nine successors ruled China for 110 years (1260-1370); the Golden Horde had twelve khans in 132 years (1227-1359); and nine Mongols held the Middle East for 80 years (1255-1335). Nine Manchus, with an average reign of 29 years, occupied the throne of China for over two and a half centuries (1644-1908).

The Middle Eastern Mongol dynasty had further problems: high infant mortality and infertility. Ann Lambton considers that "the possibility cannot be ruled out that once the Mongols settled in Persia, they ceased to be good breeders."1 I suggest that the Mongols' difficulties stemmed in large part from dietary inadequacies and improprieties.

The diet of pre-imperial Mongols was simple, calorically-sufficient--and poorly balanced. Then as now (or until very recently) the average Mongol family possessed a herd consisting largely of sheep, with some goats, and a few each of bovines and camels.2 Then, however, families kept more horses (ponies, actually) to maintain a military capability. For decent subsistence, a family required 100 sheep or the equivalent; for its military role, at least five (gelding) ponies; besides these, perhaps three more ponies and some oxen and camels were useful for transportation; and a mare or two for milking. From these animals the Mongols, like the other nomads of Inner Asia, obtained most of their food.3 In the words of John of Plano Carpini, who visited the Mongols in the 1240s: "[The Mongols] have neither bread nor herbs nor vegetables nor anything else, nothing but meat....They drink mare's milk in very great quantities if they have it; they also drink the milk of ewes, cows, goats and even camels."4 Although many nomads exchange animal products for goods, including foods, from settled peoples, those of Outer Mongolia, where the Mongols under Chinggis Khan got their start, were (and still are) a long way from the nearest substantial farmlands, and for them imported food would have been an expensive, and for the average family, no doubt rare luxury.5

The Mongols' main meat foods were mutton and lamb; although by all accounts, their favorite was horse-meat, it was a preference that the average family could seldom indulge. The other principal type of food was milk (in various processed forms), again chiefly from sheep, but mare's milk by preference. The predominance of sheep in the herd and the importance of mutton and sheep's milk in the diet, as well as the predilection for horse-meat, probably arose from the very high caloric value of these foods, a matter of central importance for practitioners of the hard--and in Mongolia, cold--nomadic life. Beef--our meat mainstay--has 1073 kilocalories [kcal--the same "calories" that we count when dieting] per lb; mutton has 1834, and horse-meat 1855. Likewise, cow's (whole) milk provides around 400 kcal/lb, and sheep's milk 511.6 Pound for pound, pint for pint, you get the best caloric return from sheep and horses.

Fat provides most of these calories: 89% of them in the case of mutton, which is 40% fat; and 67% with sheep's milk (7.5% fat). One low-fat food was available. Since most of the Mongols' animals provided milk for only about 5 months a year (cf. cows at 10-11 months), the Mongols had to process milk into forms that would keep well during the 7 "dry" months. They rendered cow's milk into a dried skim milk solid, the approximate equivalent of our non-fat milk powder. But they kept and ate the by-product, butter, offsetting the healthful effect of the dried skim.7

Interestingly, poor Mongols probably benefited from a better-balanced diet. After Chinggis' father died, most of his family's herds were stolen, so that his mother had to feed her children edible plants: wild pears, bird cherries, garden burnet root, cinquefoil root, wild onion, shallot, lily root, and garlic chives. Despite this diet of what the Mongols considered second-rate foods, Chinggis and the other boys "grew up into fine men" in the words of the Secret History.8

The Mongols, as mentioned, had (and have) a great liking for mare's milk. Not on account of richness of the milk, which, by comparison with the milks of other domesticated animals, is virtually a diet drink at only 214 kcal/lb., but because mare's milk (qumis) becomes alcoholic with fermentation.9 Not very alcoholic, however: ranging from 3.25% down to 1,65. Since, as Plano Carpini noted, "Drunkenness is considered an honorable thing by [the Mongols],"10 they had to develop high-volume drinking habits and customs to offset its weakness. Plano Carpini again: "They drink mare's milk in very great quantities if they have it...."11 And Rubruck amplifies this: "In summer they do not bother about anything except [qumis]....When the master begins to drink, then one of the attendants cries out in a loud voice 'Ha!' and [a] musician strikes his instrument. And when it is a big feast they are holding, they all clap their hands and also dance to the sound of the instrument, the men before the master and the women before the mistress. After the master has drunk, then the attendant cries out as before and the instrument-player breaks off. Then they drink all around, the men and the women, and sometimes vie with each other in drinking in a really disgusting and gluttonous manner.

"When they want to incite anyone to drink they seize him by the ears and pull them vigorously to make his gullet open, and they clap and dance in front of him."12

However, the pre-imperial Mongols were probably largely spared the perils of drink. Mare's milk is generally available only in summer, as Rubruck sugggests, during three to five months' of the mares' lactation period, and most of it is imbibed at that time. To live exclusively off of qumis, at, say, 2000 calories a day, at least nine pints per person would have been needed: that is, the daily milk production of two mares (above and beyond the needs of their foals). Two mares would have been about as many as an ordinary family would have kept.13 They would have sufficed to enable the man of the family to devote himself to qumis during the five milking months of spring and summer. (Observers of Inner Asian nomads have commonly remarked that the men have nothing to do in peacetime.)

So far, then, we have the early Mongols on a high-fat and high-cholesterol diet, somewhat checked by food shortages; and with a penchant for drunkenness offset by the limited supply and low alcoholic content of the only available beverage.

Then came the imperial period. Over the course of about two generations (1206-1279), the Mongols conquered a good part of the known world, including China, Russia and much of the Middle East. From the proceeds of this empire, the Mongol rulers then tried to make more food available to their nomad subjects, and to provide for themselves all they could eat of their favorite dishes, plus a staggering supply of intoxicating drink.

At first, the Mongols relied on commerce to enlarge food supplies. This was very expensive. In 1221 a Chinese traveler encountered a caravan bringing food to Mongolia and reported that "Eight catties [about 100 lbs at 1 1/3 lbs/cattie] of flour here [in western Mongolia] cost as much as fifty pounds of silver, for it is brought on the backs of camels from beyond the [Tien] Shan, some two thousand li [one li is 1364 ft--about a quarter-mile] away by foreign traders from the Western lands."14 By 1234, such prices apparently came to be considered excessive even by Ögödei Qa'an, Chinggis' spendthrift successor, since he established a state program to supplement the food-supply of Outer Mongolia. "[H]e had issued [an edict, (yasa)] to the effect that every day five hundred wagons fully loaded with food and drink should arrive [in Qara-Qorum in central Outer Mongolia] from the [Mongols' Chinese] provinces to be placed in stores and then dispensed therefrom. For [grain] and [wine] there were provided great wagons drawn by six oxen each."15

To calculate the amount of food supplied, we need to estimate the size of the wagon-load.16 Among the Inner Asian vehicles described by Pegolotti, a Florentine trader with knowledge of commerce to East Asia, are a wagon drawn by one ox carrying about 1000 lbs (10 Genoese cantaras), and a three-camel wagon with a load of about 3000 lbs (30 cantaras); Pegolotti does not mention a six-ox wagon.17 If three camels could pull 3000 lbs, it seems to me that six oxen might draw at least 4000 lbs, in which case the supply of food and drink to Qaraqorum could have amounted to 1000 tons a day. If the loads were two-thirds food and one-third drink, most of the people of Outer Mongolia could have received each day two pounds of food (probably grain, flour or pasta), and a pint of drink a day.18

For their own consumption, the Mongol leaders arranged lavish supplies of horsemeat and qumis. Ibn Baððñða, who visited the Golden Horde in Russia in the early fourteenth century, reports, for instance, that he "went one day to the audience of the [Mongol] sultan Uzbak [Özbek] during the month of Ramadan. There was served horse-flesh (this is the meat that they most often eat) and sheep's flesh, and rishta, which is a kind of macaroni cooked and supped with milk."19 On another occasion, the Mongol commander Tughluk Timur invited Ibn Baððñða to a religious ceremonial banquet: "The servants...brought in the dishes, consisting of the flesh of horses, etc., and also brought mares' milk. Afterwards they brought the buza [fermented millet], and when the meal was finished the Qur'an-readers recited with beautiful voices." After this and other religious presentations, "more food was served, and they continued in this fashion until the evening...."20

Qumis was no longer the only alcoholic drink available. Now that the conquered sedentary lands were paying tribute, much of it in kind, including drink (as we have seen in Ögödei's provisioning scheme), the imperial Mongols were also supplied with "rice mead"21 or "rice ale"22; with "honey-mead," that is, fermented honey (bal);23with a fermented millet drink (buza);24 and with a red wine "like the wine of La Rochelle," according to Rubruck.25 Most of these were surely stronger than qumis--much stronger in the case of the red wine--and they were available all year.26 Wine, rice wine, fermented honey, and distilled qumis (qara qumis) were all served at the khan's court in winter.27

The Mongol rulers served up these drinks in some style. "At Caracorum," says Rubruck, "[Möngke Khan (Chinggis' third successor, 1251-58)] has....a large palace...in which he holds his drinking festival twice in the year, once round about Easter when he passes by that way and once in the summer on his return....." (Like their Mongol subjects, the rulers were nomads; they only occupied their misnomered "capitals" part of the year.) "At the entrance to this palace, seeing that it would have been unseemly to put skins of milk and other drinks there, Master William of Paris has made for him a large silver tree, at the foot of which are four silver lions each having a pipe and all belching forth white mares' milk. Inside the trunk four pipes lead up to the top of the tree and the ends of the pipes are bent downwards and over each of them is a gilded serpent, the tail of which twines round the trunk of the tree. One of these pipes pours out wine, another [qara qumis], that is the refined milk of mares [distilled qumis], another boal [bal], which is a honey drink, and another rice mead....At the very top he fashioned an angel holding a trumpet; underneath the tree he made a crypt in which a man can be secreted, and a pipe goes up to the angel through the middle of the tree....Outside the palace there is a chamber in which the drinks are stored, and servants stand there ready to pour them out when they hear the angel sounding the trumpet.....And so when the drinks are getting low the chief butler calls out to the angel to sound his trumpet. Then, hearing this, the man who is hidden in the crypt blows the pipe going up to the angel with all his strength, and the angel, placing the trumpet to his mouth, sounds it very loudly. When the servants in the chamber hear this each one of them pours out his drink into its proper pipe, and the pipes pour them out from above and below into the [silver] basins prepared for this, and then the cup-bearers draw the drinks and carry them round the palace to the men and women."28

For similar large-scale entertainments, seating as many as 40,000 guests, according to Marco Polo,29 Qubilai Khan had "a very fine piece of furniture of great size and splendour in the form of a square chest, each side being three paces [about 8 ft] in length, elaborately carved with figures of animals finely wrought in gold. The inside is hollow and contains a huge golden vessel in the form of a pitcher with the capacity of a butt, which is filled with wine. In each corner of the chest is a vessel with the capacity of a firkin, one filled with mares' milk, one with camels' milk, and the others with other beverages....From [the chest] the wine or other precious beverage is drawn off to fill huge stoups of gold, each containing enough to satisfy eight or ten men. One of these [stoups] is set between every two men seated at the table. Each of the two has a gold cup with a handle, which he fills from the stoup. And for every pair of ladies one stoup and two cups are provided in the same way."30

Qubilai, probably like the other Mongol rulers, provided such lavish service frequently: at the New Year's festival; at the festivals for each of the thirteen lunar months; on assorted "festive occasions"; and on birthdays. The birthdays in particular must have added up to a lot of partying. Marco Polo describes only Qubilai's in detail, but remarks that "all the [Mongols] celebrate their birthdays as festivals"31--and Qubilai had four wives and 22 sons by them (along with an unspecified number of daughters), plus a number of concubines and 25 more sons by them (and surely more daughters as well). And then there were his other relatives, his great commanders, their wives, children, and so on.

At these great banquets, the guests and hosts drank steadily. Plano Carpini attended the post-election and enthronement banquets for Güyük Khan, and reported that "The chiefs held their [electoral] conference inside [a] tent....There they remained until almost mid-day and then they began to drink mare's milk and they drank until the evening, so much that it was amazing to see.....[Some days later] they placed [Güyük] on the imperial throne, and the chiefs knelt before him and after them all the people, with the exception of us who were not subject to them. Then they started drinking and, as is their custom, they drank without stopping until the evening."32

Ibn Baððñða participated in a imperial banquet of the Golden Horde, to which Mongol commanders of a Thousand and above (perhaps 187 of these, assuming that the regular, nomad army of the Golden Horde consisted of 17 tümens, each of ten Thousands33), along with religious dignitaries and distinguished guests (like Ibn Baððñða) were invited. Boiled horse-meat and mutton were served first. "After this, drinking vessels of gold and silver are brought. The beverage they make most use of is fermented liquor of honey, since, being of the Hanafite school of [Islamic] law, they hold fermented liquor to be lawful. When the sultan [Özbek Khan] wishes to drink, his daughter takes the bowl in her hand, pays homage...and then presents the bowl to him. When he has drunk she takes another bowl and presents it to the chief [wife], who drinks from it, after which she presents it to the other [wives] in their order of precedence. The sultan's heir then takes the bowl, pays homage, and presents it to his father, then, when he has drunk, presents it to the [wives] and to his sister after them, paying homage to them all. The second son then rises, takes the bowl and gives it to his brother to drink paying homage to him. Thereafter the great [commanders] rise, and each one of [the 17 of] them gives the cup to the sultan's heir and pays homage to him, after which the (other) members of the royal house rise and each one of them gives the cup to this second son, paying homage to him. The [170] lesser [commanders] then rise and give the sons of the king34 to drink. During all this (ceremony), they sing (songs resembling the) chants sung by oarsmen."35

After this feasting and drinking--a celebration of the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting--Özbek Khan was supposed to attend prayers at the mosque. "The [khan] was late in coming, and some said that he would not come because drunkenness had got the better of him, and other said that he would not fail to attend the Friday service. When it was well past the time he arrived, swaying....We then prayed the Friday prayers and the people withdrew to their residences. The sultan went back to [his great tent]" and, until the afternoon prayers, "continued as before"--drinking, presumably.36

Guests at Özbek's celebration received gifts in addition to hospitality: "To the limit of vision both right and left I saw waggons laden with skins of qumizz, and in due course the sultan ordered them to be distributed among those present. They brought one waggon to me, but I gave it to my Turkish neighbors."37 If this wagon was one of the one-ox type, it could have carried 131 gallons of qumis.

Consumption at one royal Mongol party may be quantifiable. On 24 June 1254, Möngke Khan hosted a "great drinking festival" supplied, according to Rubruck, with "a hundred and five carts laden with mare's milk, and ninety horses [to be eaten]...."38 Mongolian ponies weigh on average around 600 lbs, of which about 240 lbs is meat,39 so 90 ponies would yield about 20,000 lbs of meat. Möngke's view of rations appropriate for his guests may be estimated from his allowance for Rubruck's travelling party of four: one sheep every four days.40 This would have provided a daily ration of three pounds of mutton--5502 kcal--for each man. At three pounds of horse-meat per guest, Möngke's 90 horses would have fed about 7000 persons with 5565 kcal apiece. Assuming 1000-lb loads on the carts carrying drink,each of the 7000 would also have been served about two gallons of qumis, the approximate equivalent of 19 shots of 80-proof whiskey.41

A guest-list of 7000 is plausible: the khan's entourage consisted in large part of his Imperial Guard, the kesig, a force of 10,000 men drawn from the Mongols' best families, and Möngke probably invited them all (Qubilai did so every month, as we are told by Marco Polo) save those on guard and catering duty.42 This duty fell to the night-guards and quiver-bearers, 1000 of each, leaving as likely guests the 8000 day-guards.43

Mongol leaders drank not only at mealtime, but during business hours. Rubruck had several interviews with the Khan Möngke, and at the first he observed that Möngke "appeared to me intoxicated,"44 while at the last, the khan "drank four times, I believe," during the meeting.45

It is important to emphasize that the women of the Mongol ruling establishment drank as heavily as the men. Wives attended and drank like their husbands at the parties of Möngke and Qubilai mentioned earlier. "[S]inging and loud shouting in drunkenness...is not considered reprehensible either in man or woman."46 "[Mongol women]...may get very drunk, yet in their intoxication they never come to words or blows."47 Rubruck and his party were entertained by one of Möngke's wives, who served them "rice ale, red wine...and [qumis]. The lady, holding a full goblet in her hand, knelt down and asked a blessing, and all the priests sang in a loud voice and she drank it all. My companion and I were also obliged to sing another time when she wanted to drink. When they were all nearly intoxicated food was brought, [mutton and carp] and of this I ate a little. In this way they passed the time until evening. Then the lady, now drunk, got into a cart, while the priests sang and howled, and she went her way."48

A generation later royal women still engaged in heavy drinking. Ghazan Khan, ruler of the Mongol Middle East (1295-1304), attempted to set limits to expenditures by princesses on purchases of clothing, animals and provisions; allowances for children, salaries for servants--and the expenses of the sharabkhana, approximately "wine-cellar."49 Specification of wine-supplies as an expense item distinct from "provisions," and the need to control its costs, suggests that the Mongol princesses, like the princes, khans and indeed the Mongols in general, as far as they were able, were still drinking their heads off.

To the moral of the story. Regular and plentiful consumption of high-calorie foods--especially horse-meat--had predictable consequences. Gout, according to Ibn Baððñða, was a common affliction among the Mongols of the Golden Horde.50 In the Far East, Qubilai suffered from it for the last 27 years of his life; he also grew to be "grotesquely fat." Nevertheless, he lived a very long life, 1215-94, for a Mongol ruler.51 Mongol men were not alone in overeating: in Rubruck's view, the Mongol women were "wondrous fat."52 Cardiovascular problems, although not then subject to diagnosis, may be suspected as well.

Heavy drinking, in turn, often led to alcoholism. The Mongols recognized this early on, but were unable to deal with it, even given the warnings and example of Chinggis Khan. Chinggis drank, but in a controlled fashion, unwilling to suffer mental confusion; he knew the symptoms and consequences of binge drinking: dulled senses, impaired physical control, clouding of the mind, and addiction leading to impoverishment. He tried to set limits on indulgence: no more than three drinking binges a month, preferably fewer and best none.53 But custom, holding drunkenness an honorable condition, won out, and, with the ready availability of strong alcoholic beverages augmenting the Mongols' high-volume drinking practice, led many Mongol rulers to drink themselves to death.

Ögödei, Chinggis Khan's successor (1229-41), "drank continuously and to excess," and eventually died of it, despite the efforts of his brother, Chaghtai, who "appointed an emir...to watch over him and not allow him to drink more than a specified number of cups...[but] he used to drink from a large cup instead of a small one, so that the [amount was large although the] number [of cups] remained the same."54 Güyük, Ögödei's successor, likewise overindulged, undermining a weak constitution and leading to an early death and a short reign, 1246-48 (perhaps saving Europe from a second Mongol invasion). Abaqa, ruler in the Middle East from 1265 to 1282, died in delirium tremens, and one of his later successors, Öljeitü (1304-18), expired, at age 35, of "digestive disorder brought on by the intemperate habits common to all the Mongol princes."55

General if less conspicuous overindulgence may also account for a decline in dynastic longevity. Chinggis and two of his sons lived reasonably long lives for the thirteenth century: Chinggis for at least 60 years (perhaps having acquired a taste for vegetables after having to eat them as a child), Chaghatai for some 57 years, and Ögödei, despite his drinking, for 55 years. Tolui, however, died at only about 42.56 Of Tolui's principal sons who died of natural causes (Möngke fell fatally ill on campaign, and Ariq Böke conveniently died in awkward political circumstances), Qubilai, as mentioned, lived for 78 years, but Hülegü, founder of the ruling Middle Eastern lineage, died at 48.57 Most subsequent Middle Eastern rulers did not even approach Hülegü's unremarkable standard. Abaqa also died at 48.58 Hülegü's third successor, Arghun, apparently already concerned about poor health when only in his early thirties, began to take a longevity-medicine made of sulfur and mercury--and soon died.59 Ghazan lived to only 32, Öljeitü to 35, and Abñ Sa‘Ìd, the last real Middle Eastern sovereign, to 30.60 The successors of Qubilai likewise declined rapidly in lifespan. Timur died at age 42, Qaishan at 31, Ayurbarwada Buyantu at 35, Yesün Timur at 35, Tugh Timur at 28, Irinjibal Qutuqtu at 7, and Toghon Timur at about 50.61

Male alcoholism complemented by heavy drinking on the part of Mongol women may have compromised fertility as well as longevity. Just as Qubilai's long life of 78 years shows what might have been, so does his procreativity. He had, as mentioned, 47 sons (and probably about as many daughters), by four wives and numerous concubines. Hülegü had 21 children by 5 wives and some concubines. Abaqa fathered 9 children by 15 women. Arghun begat 8 children, one of whom died as a child, by over 9 women. Ghazan had 7 consorts but only 2 children; one died in infancy. Of Öljeitü's 12 women, 3 had no offspring, and of his 9 children by the others, 6 died as infants. Abñ Sa‘Ìd had only one (posthumous) child by at least two wives.62 Given what we are now told about fetal alcoholism syndrome and the diminution of male fertility from binge drinking, we can perhaps understand this unimpressive record.

-----------[continue, p. 23 0f AOS version; continue, p 17, reconsidering and perhaps adding material on drink from latter part of AOS n.46]------

The corollary of short lifespans was short reigns, as mentioned at the outset. Short reigns, in turn, made for frequent successions, which were often disruptive, since Inner Asian tribal peoples had no firm rules or principles governing the the transmission of chiefly authority. Chinggis had insisted that successions should be settled at a leadership conference (quriltai), but even his decree did not hold for long. After the death of Möngke in 1259--by which time the Mongols had clearly taken the measure of all their opponents and felt less compulsion to solidarity--the Mongol princes increasingly resorted to force or the threat of force in claiming chieftaincy, and increasingly this armed competition led to military stalemate and political fragmentation.

The corollary of infertility in the Middle Eastern lineage was dynastic extinction. After the death of Abñ Sa‘Ìd, no reputable descendants of Hülegü could be found to replace him, except a candidate of desperation, his sister, Sati Beg, whose brief reign was not a success; other failed figureheads included four Hülegüid nonentities, a distant nephew of Hülegü, a descendant of Chinggis' brother, Jochi-Qasar, an obscure individual awarded the great Persian royal name "Anushirvan", and finally, a second "Ghazan", known only from a few coins.63 All of these ephemeral sovereigns were puppets of Mongol generals who, between them, pulled apart the Middle Eastern realm.

Had the descendants of Chinggis spent less time at the table, they might have lasted longer on the throne, and produced more stable, more capable, and even farther-flung government. But in enjoying too thoroughly the pleasures enabled by the vast empire they had seized, their even greater original intention, to conquer the world, became once again only the subject of drunken boasting, as it had been among Inner Asian nomads during the millenium before the coming of Chinggis Khan.64*

NOTES

1 A.K.S. Lambton, Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia (Albany: State University of New York Press for Bibliotheca Persica of the Persian Heritage Foundation, 1988), p. 296.

2 L. Krader, "Ecology of Central Asian Pastoralism", Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 11/4 (1955), 301-326; p. 309, profiled the (Outer) Mongolian domestic animal population as 55% sheep, 22% goats, 9% bovines, 10% horses, and 4% camels (I have rounded off his percentages). Ten sheep or goats may be taken as equivalent to one camel, and one horse or cow equal to five sheep or goats. The average herd suggested by H. H. Vreeland, Mongol Community and Kinship Structure, Third ed. (New Haven: HRAF Press, 1962), 31-32, for the Narobanchin Temple community had 193 sheep, and about half of the families owned between 200 and 300 sheep; most families kept rather few cows and horses.

3 P. Buell, in "Mongol Empire and Turkicization: The Evidence of Food and Foodways", in R. Amitai-Preiss and D. O. Morgan eds., The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 200-223, pp. 206-208, considers game animals and vegetables to have provided important additional foods. I doubt that they were reliable, large-scale sources, as I have attempted to quantify in the case of marmots in "Mongol Campaign Rations: Milk, Marmots, and Blood?" Turks, Hungarians and Kipchaks: A Festschrift in Honor of Tibor Halasi-Kun, vol. 8 (1984) of the Journal of Turkish Studies, 223-228.

4 John of Plano Carpini, History of the Mongols, in Christopher Dawson ed., The Mongol Mission (London: Sheed and Ward, 1955), 16-17.

5 Plano Carpini, 17: "[The Mongols] do not have wine, ale or mead unless it is sent or given to them by other nations."

6 On horse-meat, see W. Martin-Rosset et al., "Rendement et composition des carcasses du poulain de boucherie," Bulletin Technique, Centre des Recherches Zootechniques et V¾t¾rinaires de Theix, 41 (Beaumont, 1980); and [no author given] Nutrient Requirements of Domestic Animals, Number 8, Nutrient Requirements of Dogs (Washington: National Academy of Sciences, 1974), 46.

On milk and meat from Mongolian cattle, see H. Epstein, Domestic Animals of China (Farnham Royal, 1969), 2-3; I. Kh. Ovdiyenko, Economic-Geographical Sketch of the Mongolian People5s Republic (Bloomington: Mongolia Society Occasional Papers, No.3, 1965), 65; G. Dahl and Hjort, Having Herds, (Stockholm, 1976), 25 and 170. Figures for the caloric value of cow's milk vary considerably from region to region and breed to breed.

On sheep, see Dahl and Hjort, 216 on milk (given a range of 1050-1200 kcal/kg, from African rather than Inner Asian sources in this case; cf. S. K. Kon, Milk and Milk Products in Human Nutrition, 2nd rev. ed. [Rome: FAO, UN, 1972], 3); and, for meat, Epstein, 34 and Dahl and Hjort, 201 and 204.

7 William of Rubruck, The Journey of William of Rubruck, in Christopher Dawson ed., The Mongol Mission (London: Sheed and Ward, 1955), 99. (Citations of Rubruck below will continue to refer to the translation in Dawson; the preferable translation by P. Jackson, in P. Jackson and D. Morgan ed., The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, P. Jackson trans; (London: Hakluyt Society, 1990), was not available to me when preparing this paper.)

8 The Secret History of the Mongols, sect 74. The plant names are from P. Buell, "Pleasing the Palate of the Qan: Changing Foodways of the Imperial Mongols," Mongolian Studies, XIII (1990), 57-81; p. 60.

9 For the caloric value of mare's milk, see Kon, 3. Fermentation works with any milk, but best on high-lactose mare's milk (over 6%, while others are under 5%). The Mongols had little choice but to acquire a taste for qumis because, as Plano Carpini observed (see note 4 above), other alcoholic beverages had to be imported. The high prices and problematic transportation of food imports are considered below.

10 Plano Carpini, 16.

11 Plano Carpini, 17.

12 Rubruck, 96-97.

13 Labor requirements markedly increase as a horse herd grows beyond the basic needs of the family for riding animals, which amount to one to three mounts per family, preferably geldings (which, in the good old days, could serve at need as war-horses); see Vreeland, 32-33, 40-42. In Chinggis' youth, his family, headed by his widowed mother, Hö'elün, had eight geldings, and apparently at least two other mounts, even after thefts of their animals by former camp-mates; see Secret History, section 90.

14 Chih-chang Li, Travels of an Alchemist, A. Waley trans. (New York: AMS Press, 1979), 71. Commercially-supplied grain remained, or, possibly as a result of shortcomings in Ögödei's public supply program, again became, expensive in Mongolia by comparison with China: five to seven times as costly in Qaraqorum as in Ta-t'ung during Qubilai's reign, according to Ch'i-ch'ing Hsiao, The Military Establishment of the Yuan Dynasty (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1978), 60.

15 RashÌd al-DÌn, The Successors of Genghis Khan, J. A. Boyle trans. (New York, 1971), 62-3. Notice that Ögödei, not Chinggis, instituted this program; obtaining food for the Mongols was an afterthought of conquest, not a motive for it.

16 Other important characteristics of the supply-system may also be estimated: grain-wagons took four months for the round-trip between Ta-t'ung, the Chinese frontier city that was the starting-point for the Mongolian supply system, and Qaraqorum, according to Hsiao, pp. 59-60. This was a distance, round-trip, of some 1500 miles, thus covered at an average pace of 12.5 miles per day [mpd]--not counting time for loading, repairs, etc. Compare the 17 mpd pace of commercial travel across Inner Asia, from Tana on the Black Sea to Kanchow in China, as listed by Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La Pratica della Mercatura, Allan Evans ed. (Cambridge MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1936), 21; this East-West transport probably moved faster because it used smaller wagons and faster draught animals. At this pace, the 900-odd miles between Beijing and Qara-Qorum could have been covered in 53 days; the round-trip (without allowance for delays in turn-around) in 106 days. So that 500 wagons should arrive at Qara-Qorum each day, 60,000 wagons would have been needed (without allowance for down-time), along with 360,000 oxen, at six per wagon (without allowance for replacements or relays), plus at least 60,000 teamsters (assuming a minimal one per wagon).

17 Pegolotti, 22. Assuming the Genoese cantara weighed 104.83 lbs (47.65 kg); a different value for this cantara, yielding a load of 1250 lbs (presumably for the one-ox wagon) seems to have been used by R.S. Lopez and I.W. Raymond in Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World (New York, 1955), 353 n. 43 and 357-58.

18 Chinggis Khan's army in 1206 numbered some 135,000 men, approximately the whole adult male population of Outer Mongolia, which implies, multiplying by five, a total population of perhaps 675,000; see J. M. Smith, Jr., "Mongol Manpower and Persian Population," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 18 (1975), 271-299; pp. 282-283. A pound of bread provides about 1000 calories. The weight of the drink-containers has not been included in the calculation.

19 Ibn Baððñða, The Travels of Ibn Baððñða, H.A.R. Gibb trans. (Cambridge UK: Cambridge UP, 1962), II, 474. Buell, "Foodways", pp. 205, 208 and 211-213, describes the new foodstuffs and recipes taken up, at least by Mongol royalty, after the attainment of empire and its resources.

20 Ibn Baððñða, 477.

21 Rubruck, 176.

22 Rubruck, 163.

23 Rubruck, 154; Ibn Baððñða, 477.

24 Ibn Baððñða, 477.

25 Rubruck, 163.

26 Paul Buell points out this important consideration in "Pleasing the Palate of the Qan: Changing Foodways of the Imperial Mongols," Mongolian Studies, XIII (1990), 57-81; p. 78 (n. 24 for p. 61).

27 Rubruck, 154. On p. 99, Rubruck characterizes qara qumis as "a very pleasant drink and really potent," but says it was available only to the "great lords".

28 Rubruck, 175-76.

29 Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, R. Latham trans. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958; reprint of 1980 [n.b. pagination varies among reprints]), 137f.

30 Polo, 136. According to the American College Dictionary, a butt equals two hogsheads, each of 63 to 140 gallons; a firkin is one-fourth of a barrel, and a barrel equals 31.5 US gallons.

31 137f.

32 Plano Carpini, 62-63.

33 Smith, "Manpower", pp. 289-290.

34 "Kings" in the translation.

35 Ibn Baððñða 495-6.

36 Ibn Baððñða 496. I have somewhat rearranged the elements of the last sentence of the quotation.

37 Ibn Baððñða, 496.

38 Rubruck, 202.

39 Epstein, 100; Martin-Rosset, "Rendement."

40 Rubruck, 206 in Dawson; clearer in Jackson's

translation, p. 253.

An alternative, less lavish scale of provisioning--and a much longer guest-list--may be estimated from Rubruck's statement, p. 98, that "[The Mongols] feed fifty or a hundred men with the flesh of a single sheep...." Mongolian sheep average 121 lbs in weight (Epstein, 34), of which about 44%, or 53 lbs, is edible, and provides 1834 kcal/lb (Dahl and Hjort, 201, 204). At the more generous of these rates, the 90 horses could have served 20,000 guests--and each of them could have had about 5 pints of qumis, assuming 1000-lb loads on the carts carrying drink.

41 Lactating mares produce only about 2 qts (4.5 lbs) of milk a day surplus to the needs of their foals--see Epstein, 101 (cf. Vreeland, 40)--so Möngke would have needed a sizeable herd of milking mares to provide the roughly 13,000 (U.S.) gallons of qumis for this party, as well as for another, similar one he held five days later, on 29 June. Consider, for example, the 3000 mares that supplied milk to Batu, the khan of the Golden Horde (Rubruck, 99).

42 Polo, 140, for Qubilai's entertainment of his kesig.

Ration-data for the week-long feasting that followed the election of Möngke at the kuriltai in 1251 are also available, in JuvainÌ, The History of the World-Conqueror, J. A. Boyle trans. (Cambridge MA, 1958), 2 vols., II, 573 and RashÌd al-DÌn/Boyle, 207. The feasting Mongols, they say, were provided each day with 2000 wagon-loads of drink: qumis and wine; and 3000 sheep and 300 cattle and horses to eat. The liquid provisions must have consisted in large part of wine, since it would have required about an enormous number of milking mares, giving about two quarts a day (surplus to their foals' needs), to provide the 1.75 million gallons of milk/qumis needed for the week's feast. The number of animals eaten, equivalent to the property of 45 or fewer families, is a reasonable provision. The quantity of rations that so many animals would have yielded is huge, around 240,000 lbs of meat a day, but proportionate to the demand that can be projected from stated or suggested figures for the troops in attendance on the principals at the feast. Batu had provided Möngke with three tümens as guards: perhaps 21,000 men by the customary seven-out-of-ten rule of thumb for calculating troop readiness. Then there were 20 princes and commanders named as attending; three are said to have brought a thousand troops with them, and probably the rest did too. And Möngke probably had his own guard tümen. Finally, if all these troops travelled with their families--say a wife and three children per soldier--the scale of the supply makes sense. By way of comparison, Qubilai, on occasion, hosted parties with more than 40,000 guests (Polo, 136).

43 Secret History, sections 226 and 232. The numbers of day-guards present might have been diminished by the absence of some on the special duties that often fell to these picked men, or the rations might have been somewhat diminished, from three pounds of meat to two and a half, and from two gallons of drink to one and two-thirds.

44 Rubruck, 155.

45 Rubruck, 195.

46 Rubruck, 167.

47 Plano Carpini, 15. Plano Carpini was much impressed by the peaceableness--among themselves--of the Mongols in general.

48 Rubruck, 163.

49 "Approximately" because among the migratory Mongols the "wine-cellar" would have been a "wine-wagon." Lambton, 293-94, translates sharabkhana as "pantry."

50 Ibn Baððñða, 489: "We went to visit...the sultan's daughter....Her husband...was present, and sat with her on the same rug. He was suffering from gout, and was unable for this reason to go about on his feet or to ride a horse, and so used to ride only in a waggon....In the same state too, I saw the amir Naghatay, who was the father of the second [wife of the sultan], and this disease is is widespread among the [Mongols]."

51 M. Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 98, 227.

52 Rubruck, 103. A portrait of Qubilai's wife, Chabui, makes her appear distinctly chubby, supporting Rubruck's appraisal; see W.C. Fong and J.C.Y. Watt, Possessing the Past (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Taipei, National Palace Museum: Abrams distrib., 1996), 265, pl. 137.

53 P. Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 192, citing Yuanshi, 118, 10b; and RashÌd al-DÌn, Sbornik Letopisei (Russian translation of the Jªmi‘ al-TawªrÌkh/Collected Chronicles by Yu. P. Verkhovski [Moscow-Leningrad, 1960]), II, 47.

54 RashÌd al-DÌn, The Successors of Genghis Khan, J. A. Boyle trans. (New York, 1971), 65.

55 J. A. Boyle, "Dynastic and Political History of the •l-khªns," Ch. 4 of The Cambridge History of Iran, V, The Saljuq and Mongol Periods (Cambridge, 1968), 406.

56 Rossabi, Khubilai, 8.

57 Boyle, "•l-khªns," 354.

58 Lambton, 251.

59 Boyle, "•l-khªns," 371-372.

60 Boyle, "•l-khªns," 396: Ghazan; 406: Öljeıtü; 406, 412: Abñ Sa‘Ìd. Cf. Lambton, 251-252. Those dying violent deaths (Ahmad, Geikhatu and Baidu) and Argun, done in by his longevity-medicine (incl. sulfur and mercury), are omitted; Abñ Sa‘Ìd is included although it was rumored that he was poisoned.

61 For these ages at death, except Irinjinbal's, see R. Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers UP, 1970), 320-321: Grousset believed that "their lives were shortened by their hedonistic excesses." For Irinjinbal, see H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, Part I (London: Longmans, Green, 1876; rpt Taipei: Ch'eng Wen, 1970), 310. (N.B. The ages given by Howorth vary from Grousset's in some cases, usually by only one year.) Shidebala Gegen and Qoshila, who were assassinated, are not counted.

62 Lambton, 295-296.

63 For a brief account of most of these last •l-khªns, see Boyle, 413-416. "Ghazan II" is the as-yet unpublished numismatic discovery of Stephen Album (album@sonic.net); a gold

dinar of Ghazan II, struck at Tabriz and dated 757 hijri, has been published and illustrated in Spink & Son, Auction 27: Coins of the Islamic World, 1 June 1988, lot 360.

64 Both the Huns and the Orkhon Turks employed a rhetoric of world-conquest; see C. D. Gordon, The Age of Attila (Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan UP, 1966), 59, 93; and T. Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Publications, 1968), 261, 263, 268 and passim.

Hülegü Moves West: High Living and Heartbreak on the Road to Baghdad

2007-03-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

Hülegü Moves West: High Living and Heartbreak on the Road to Baghdad

John Masson Smith, Jr.

University of California, Berkeley

Hülegü traveled to the Middle East at the command of his elder brother, Möngke, the newly-elected Qan of the Mongol empire, who decided, in 1253, to take care of unfinished business there. Mongol armies had established pastoral bases in Azerbaijan starting in 1229, on the orders of Ögedei, and subjugated many smaller potentates of northern Iran as well as the Cilician Armenians and Rum (Anatolian) Seljuks. But they had failed to overawe or defeat the Caliphal state in Iraq, or the Ismaili "Assassins" in their strongholds scattered across northern Iran. The Caliphate, although no longer the Islamic empire it had once been, still possessed fertile Mesopotamia, a strong army and a great, fortified capital city at Baghdad. The Mongols attacked Baghdad in the 1230s and ca. 1242, but were repulsed.1 The Assassins relied, and had for over a century, on their inaccessible mountain castles and the suicidal murderers whom they dispatched against enemy leaders.2 Möngke, wanting to deal with persistent "rebels" against his empire, now sent Hülegü to the Middle East, and their brother Qubilai ("Kubla Khan") against Song China, the other great hold-out against Mongol supremacy.

Möngke authorized both Hülegü and Qubilai to form an army by taking two men in every ten of the imperial forces, which, by this time, were extremely numerous. They included the current descendants of Chinggis' original army--call this the "Army of Mongolia"--which numbered 145,000 at the time of Chinggis' death. Chinggis' will apportioned this force among his close relatives. 101 regiments (hazaras, Thousands) were based in Mongolia (and to some extent in North China), and commanded at first by Tolui, Chinggis' youngest son by his first wife, Börte. An additional 28,000 men went other members of the imperial Family; each of Tolui's older brothers, Jochi, Chaghadai and Ögedei received four regiments. During Chinggis' lifetime, these brothers had been assigned territories as well, west of Mongolia: Jochi's west from roughly Lake Balkash to the Volga (this came to include not only most of Kazakhstan, but Russia, Ukraine, etc.: the realm of the so-called Golden Horde); Ögedei's ulus (realm) centered on the valleys of the Emil and Qobaq rivers, east of the Ala Kul (Lake) and included the area beyond (north of) the Tarbagatai range; and Chaghadai held the Ili valley, Almalyk and Transoxiana.3 Thus, some 133,000 troops of the Army of Mongolia were stationed in Mongolia or to its east and south and only 12,000 from Mongolia west to Anatolia and Ukraine.

These westerly realms, like Mongolia, supported large nomad populations, predominantly Turkic but otherwise quite like the Mongols; many of them were conscripted into the imperial army, complementing the brothers' four original regiments. Rashiduddin says that in his own time (early fourteenth century) the army of the Ulus Jochi (the Golden Horde) consisted of descendants of these four thousand Mongols, plus Russians, Qipchaq Turks, Circassians and Magyars. It probably numbered some fifteen (nomad) tümens (divisions of Ten Thousands); each region seems to have been limited to a regular nomad army of fifteen tümens, even if more manpower were available, so as not to outnumber the forces of Mongolia proper.4 Ögedei and Chaghadai surely enlarged their followings in the same way.

Hülegü also had to raise most of his army outside Mongolia. Few Mongolian troops could be spared him because Möngke intended to use most of them against China, in a campaign engaging 90 tümens--a nominal 900,000 men. Of these, some considerable part was non-Mongolian: "Jauqut"--Chinese, Tangqut, Manchurian Jurchens, and Koreans. Since 24 Mongol commanders are named (including Möngke and Qubilai), I assume that the 90 tümens included 24 Mongol (cavalry) units and 66 of Jauqut (mostly infantry).5 This suggests a doubling--or more: some forces remained in Mongolia--of the Mongolian population in about 50 years, an increase not implausible in light of Fredrik Barth's study of a nomad tribe that grew by a factor of three per generation.6 Rashiduddin says that the 101,000 men bequeathed by Chinggis to Tolui, and those assigned his other children "have multiplied and become many times the number they were originally."7 Population increase could more than account for the Mongol force used in China. But with so many from the Army of Mongolia involved in this campaign, it seems unlikely that it could have spared a fifth ("two in ten") for Hülegü.

The Journey

Möngke sent Hülegü back to his own ordu in February of 1253, the Ox Year, to prepare for the campaign. In autumn of 1254, the Leopard Year, Hülegü led out his army on a journey that was to cover about 5000 miles.8 He left his a’urughs behind (more on these below).

The long journey took what might seem a very long time. The army reached Baghdad only on 22 January 1258, about 3 years and 3 months (some 1200 days) after it had set out, thus moving at an average pace of only about 4 miles per day (mpd). Compare the progress of the Mongol army sent against West Inner Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe starting in 1236. That army reached Bulghar on the Volga from Mongolia by autumn, 1236, about 3000 miles** in 6 months (assuming a start in spring) at 16.7 mpd. This would have been about top speed for a Mongol force: ponies should only travel for about 4 hours a day to leave time for grazing, and should walk (4 mph) to avoid overexertion.9 Chinggis required his cavalry to travel with their cruppers (which help secure the saddle) and bridles removed, so that they could not “horse around” and exhaust their mounts.10 Let us examine the route and timetable, and discuss factors that slowed Hülegü’s march.

Assuming that Hülegü started in autumn, probably October as in Juvaini (despite Juvaini's mistake about the year11), I suggest that his army made its way from somewhere near Qaraqorum, across (Outer) Mongolia, through passes of the Altai and along river valleys leading to Lake Zaysan. These suggestions, and others below, are based on some guesswork, often guided by convenience. The sources seldom specify or clearly indicate the route taken, but do name significant way-stations: Almalyk, Samarqand, the Oxus river, Shiburgan, etc. I have connected these points by routes that are more or less measurable: more when detailed in guide books, and less when measured by me on a map. This procedure shows about 824 miles (1327 km) from Qaraqorum (I assume Hülegü 's ordu was in central Mongolia) to the western Mongolian border at the Bulgan Nature Preserve.12 From there, a plausible route, with pasture and water, of some 224 miles (approx. 360 km), leads to Lake Zaysan.13 Next, on to the modern town of Ayagoz, about 202 miles (ca. 325 km) from Zaysan; thereafter to Aktogay, roughly another 75 miles (ca. 120 km); then, Ayagoz to Alma-Ata/Almaty, 350 miles (565 km).14 Almaty is fairly near ancient Almalyk, where Hülegü and his force arrived in 255, presumably in spring, since he spent that summer in the mountain pastures of the region.15 This estimate yields a journey of about six months, October to “spring”—say April. The total distance is around 1675 miles (ca. 2697 km). The pace of march, on these data and assumptions, was 9.3 miles per day (mpd).

This part of the journey took place in winter, as often on Mongol campaigns. The steppe climate is fairly dry, and snow accumulations usually slight, so that the larger animals, like ponies, can dig through to grass. Winter even aided the armies, as in Russia, where the cold froze rivers that otherwise would have presented obstacles, or in the Middle East, where the winter temperatures are safer for horses, and the rains provide them better pasture and more water. And the army could keep warm, even on the frigid steppes: each soldier had several ponies, and the animals and men, traveling together in close formation, generated heat enough for comfort.16

Hülegü and the army summered in 1255 on the mountain pastures around Almalyk where the expedition’s ponies could fattened up; the Mongols took great care of their mounts, indeed of all their livestock.17 In late summer, Hülegü left his a'urughs (again, see below) at Almalyk and proceeded on to Samarqand, 772 miles (1243 km), arriving in Sha'ban 653/1255 (5 September- 4 October).18 The rate of march cannot be ascertained; there is no clear start date. They should have left by the end of July to reach Samarqand in Sha'ban at a likely pace.

Hülegü, after spending "nearly forty days," moved on from Samarqand, sometime after 3 November 1255.19 He stopped briefly at Kish (now Shahrisabz, the birthplace, later, of Tamerlane), then proceeded to the Oxus/Amu Darya river and crossed into what is now Afghanistan on 1 January 1256.20 The distance covered is about 200 miles (322 km); the pace 2.4-3.8 mpd, depending on the start date. The army then proceeded to Shiburghan (perhaps 70 mi in 10 days), where heavy snow- and hail-storms shortly set in and compelled it, contrary to plan, to camp for the winter.21

Leaving this involuntary qishlaq in spring, Hülegü led his force to Tun in the region of eastern Iran called Quhistan, where followers of the Assassins held many strongholds. He besieged Tun on 4 May 1256, and took it on 16 May.22 Ket Buqa had left Mongolia before Hülegü to pacify Quhistan in advance of Hülegü 's passage, but had not finished the job.23 Quhistan later became a favorite Mongol qishlaq.24 From Shiburghan to Tun is ca. 530 miles (some 853 km); no date is given for the departure from Shiburghan.

From Tun, the army travelled via Tus (near Mashhad), Radkan, and Khabushan (modern Quchan) to reach Bistam on 2 September 1256. The distance covered was about 697 miles (1123 km), as measured along modern highways and railroads.25 If the army left Tun on 20 May, the average pace was 6.6 mpd.26 Along the way, the army lingered at Tus for a few days, and at Radkan for "some time," to obtain supplies, and fodder for the animals, among other things, from Merv, Yazir and Dihistan, districts north of the mountains separating Iran from Turkmenistan.27 Then they spent a month at Ustuva beyond Khabushan, until the grazing was exhausted.28 Discounting the time at Ustuva, the army moved at 9.3 mpd.

From Bistam, the army, now dividing into several corps traveling separately but to a fixed timetable, approached the Assassins, setting out on 2 September 1256. Hülegü reached Maymun Diz, the Assassin Master's castle, on 7 November 1256.29 The march from Bistam had taken 67 days, covering about 400 miles (ca. 644 km) at a pace of about 6 mpd. The other corps arrived almost simultaneously; the routes taken by the Right and Left were about the same length as those of the Center; forces from the Golden Horde coming via the Caucasus joined too, probably by prearrangement at the kuriltai of 1253.30 The army surrounded the castle; the Master was summoned to yield, and refused (his officers claimed he was not there). On 13 November the Mongol attack began, and on 19 November the Assassin Master, weakened by Mongol cajolery and catapults, finally surrendered.31 He and all his people came to a bad end. The Assassins were finished in Iran, and in history, although some survived in Syria, tolerated and used for a while by the Mamluks, and later restrained by them after an agreement with the Mongols.32 After his victory, Hülegü camped for the winter of 1256—57 near Qazvin and Lammassar.33

Hülegü started for Baghdad from Qazvin in March 1257.34 The direct distance is 511 miles (823 km).35 The journey was complicated, however, by diversions. Hülegü reached Dinavar on 26 April—and then decided to go to Tabriz. He came back to Hamadan on 26 July—and returned to Tabriz. He next reached Hamadan on 21 September, and finally set out for Baghdad.36 Subtracting the time spent traveling back and forth to Tabriz, Hülegü’s 603-mile journey from Qazvin to Baghdad may be divided into two parts, an estimate for the Qazvin-Dinavar part—say 254 miles (409 km) covered between sometime in March and 26 April; if in 30 days, then 8.5 mpd (but adjust to please)—and a fairly precise measure for Hamadan-Baghdad: 349 miles (563 km) in 73 days (10 November-22 January) at 4.8 mpd.37

The distance covered between central Mongolia and Baghdad, adding up the figures given above, was 4947 miles (7966 km). The parts of the journey for which reasonable estimates of the pace may be estimated are: Qaraqorum-Almalyk, 7-8 mpd; Samarqand-Oxus, 2.4-3.8 mpd; Tun-Bistam, 7.2 mpd; Bistam-Maymun Diz, 6 mpd; Hamadan-Baghdad, about 5 mpd. (Low) average mpd: 5.5.

This time-and-motion study shows that, while the journey from Mongolia to Baghdad proceeded at an average speed of about 4 mpd, the movement involved was not continuous, but interrupted by a number of halts of some duration. When in motion, the army proceeded at a pace that averaged 5-6 mpd, where this can be calculated. This was far slower than usual for campaigning Mongols, who could, as noted at the beginning, average 15-16 mpd. At the other extreme, an ordinary Inner Asian nomadic migration, with its full panoply of livestock, sheep, goats, cattle, horses (ponies) and camels, averages only 2-3 mpd.38 Why did Hülegü move at the pace he did?

Logistics

Sieges were awkward for the Mongol cavalry. They required positional warfare instead of the campaigns of movement most congenial to cavalry, especially nomad cavalry operating on steppe with grazing at the end of each march. Möngke had reserved pastures for Hülegü, but during the siege of Maymun Diz, some generals complained that "the horses are lean. Fodder has to be transported from [the regions] from Armenia to Kirman."39 Accessible grazing had clearly been used up. One might speculate that, to reduce reliance on pasture, Hülegü took fewer mounts than the five per soldier usual for a Mongol army; the Crimean Tatars (descendants of the Golden Horde), for instance, took only three.40 Fewer mounts meant more work for each, and care had to be taken not to overwork them.41 Steppe-raised, grazing-dependent equines do not grow very large; the average Mongol pony weighs around 600 lbs (cf. modern, fodder-fed riding horses at 1000-1500 lbs) and cannot therefore bear heavy burdens for long. An appropriate burden for a 600-lb pony is 102 lbs, 17% of body-weight; Mongol riders overburden their ponies, but only for a day at a time, and then give them several days off and ride others (hence the five ponies per soldier).42 If a day's march for troops with five ponies each was 16 miles (at 4 mph; then eight hours of grazing and eight of sleeping), then the length of march appropriate with three each might be around nine, reducing the work-load and burden on pasture, while increasing grazing time. This might help explain the slowness of the journey.

Another explanation involves the pace of ox-wagons. Hülegü expected to conduct sieges, and brought along Chinese artillerists--1000 "families" of them--probably by wagon. They might have walked, given the army's pace, but if their "families" were in fact whole "military households" with three adult males (one a soldier, the others supporting him) and their wives and children, they would have needed wagons.43 Two oxen could draw a cart carrying seven persons, who, if mounted would have needed three to five ponies per person. Cavalry needed ponies to function, artillerists did not. 44

The artillerists did need equipment requiring wagons. They used large engines to project a variety of heavy missiles over considerable distances. Although they constructed some of these weapons on the spot, using trees growing around Maymun Diz to build catapults, they had to bring along, for instance, saws, adzes, hammers, pulleys, ropes, javelins and even some of the major weapon-components: naphtha for incendiaries, and the oversized bow component of the "oxbow" engine would have required manufacture involving special woods given special treatment long in advance to give them the 'Cupid's bow' shape their name suggests.45 All this artillery gear required transportation by wagon. It could, in theory, have been broken down into camel-loads, but, at 300 lbs per camel-load, as against 1000-1500 lbs on a two-ox cart, or 3000 lbs on a three-camel wagon, wheeled vehicles were the obvious choice to reduce the numbers of animals.46 And ox-wagons would have slowed the army: without relays of oxen, they would have made <10 mpd.47

Because the army was possibly not taking the usual complement of ponies for riding and if so probably none for eating, and since (as we shall see) it did not bring along the sheep, goats and cattle that provide subsistence in normal nomadism, Möngke made other arrangements. "In advance of the army envoys were sent to reserve all the meadows and grasslands from Qaraqorum to the banks of the Oxus that had been calculated as lying in the path of [Hülegü 's] army and to build strong bridges across deep canals and rivers ..... From all lands for every individual one taghar of flour and one skin of wine as troop provisions were to be made ready."48 This was not to be a conventional, self-sufficient nomad campaign.

Business and Pleasure

The army made many stops on its way west that afforded opportunities, among other things, for lavish partying, which the Mongols loved.49 While the army rested at Almalyk, Orqina Qatun, the regent of the Ulus Chaghatay, treated Hülegü and his establishment to a series of banquets.50 At Samarqand, Hülegü and his entourage enjoyed some proper high living. The local administrator of “Turkestan and Transoxiana” for the Mongols, Mas‛ud Beg, had summoned all the commanders (amirs) of those regions, and erected a tent of gold brocade with a white felt exterior, in which Hülegü received them. The assembly engaged in "constant merrymaking and revelry" (Juvaini) and "constant drinking" (Rashid) for the nearly forty days they stayed there.51 Möngke had admonished Hülegü, as they parted, to "be awake and sober in all situations," but no source indicates that he departed from Mongol norms either by abstemiousness or excessive drunkenness.52

Somewhat later, after crossing the Oxus river, Hülegü and some of his men enjoyed a different entertainment. While out for a ride by the river, Hülegü noticed tigers (or lions: shir can mean either) in the woods nearby, and sent his guards to encircle them in the usual Mongol fashion (the circle was called nerge and was used in battle as well as hunting). Their ponies sensibly refused to face the tigers, so the soldiers mounted camels and managed to kill ten.53

While snowbound at Shiburghan, Hülegü and his entourage "constantly engaged in pleasure and enjoyment."54 In spring, Arghun Aqa produced an enormous tent, made of embroidered “gold-on-gold” linen cloth, and held up by a thousand tent-pegs. All the princes, officers , administrators, grandees, and regional rulers gathered in it to perform rituals and banquet on food and drink served on and in gold and silver plates and cups embellished with gems.55

Near Tus, Arghun Aqa pitched yet another fine tent for Hülegü. "For a few days they feasted and revelled " there.56 Then they moved on to Radkan, stopping "for a while in order to enjoy the scenery,"--and wine imported from Merv, Yazir and Dihistan (along with fodder for the animals).57 Further on, at Ustuva by Khabushan, the army's animals received their feast, spending a month grazing until "mountain and plain had been denuded of grass" and the army moved on.58

The army now had no rest until Maymun Diz had surrendered. Then, on the way to Alamut, which, like several other Assassin castles, still held out, Hülegü halted at Shahrak nine days for a victory feast.59 After that, having visited Alamut, which shortly yielded, and Lammasar, which did not, Hülegü camped for the winter of 1256—57 near Lammasar and then, from 13 January 1257, near Qazvin, where he celebrated the (Mongolian) New Year with a week of banqueting.60

In March of 1257, Hülegü started for Baghdad.61 No more banquets are reported for the rest of the campaign. Hülegü fell sick on the way back from Baghdad to Hamadan, and had earlier been ill while proceeding to Tun; he may have felt disinclined to engage in the copious drinking obligatory at such events.62

But banquets were not just for hard drinking and heavy eating. Some were also business meetings. Samarqand saw working parties. Amir Mas'ud Beg, "the [Mongol-appointed]lord of Turkistan and Transoxiana," and the region's amirs (commanders) had joined Hülegü. Möngke had ordered them--and all authorities along Hülegü 's intended route--to prepare supplies for the army, and to get ready to accompany Hülegü to Iran with their forces.63 Hülegü had come to collect.

Samarqand lay in the Ulus Chaghatai. To get there, as we have seen, Hülegü had proceeded through the Zaysan region, belonging to the (former) Ulus Ögedei, and along the way, in both uluses, he would have encountered in their winter-quarters (qishlaqs), and with their families, so that they could not escape, the nomads who lived in those regions (and summered in the adjacent highlands). Hülegü conscripted large numbers of them (more on this below).

At Kish, Hülegü stopped for a month and did more business. Arghun Aqa, the Mongols' administrator for Iran, joined Hülegü, along with "the grandees and nobles of Khurasan."64 They ordered the Mongols’ vassal "monarchs and sultans" in Iran to mobilize soldiers and supply weaponry and provisions for the campaign against the Assassins. Local rulers from Anatolia, Fars, Persia, Khurasan, Azerbaijan, Arran, Shirvan and Georgia obeyed.65 Many of them joined Hülegü and his entourage at Shiburghan, to banquet and perform rituals in Arghun Aqa's thousand-peg tent.66 They also must have taken care of business, as the next stages of the journey would bring the army into Iran, where the men and supplies summoned up from Kish would be awaiting further orders, which they would receive at Bistam.

We can see the growth of Hülegü's forces in the increasing number of commanders named as the army proceeds west. For example, Ket Buqa, with Köke Ilgei, started off from Mongolia ahead of Hülegü with 12,000 men; Ket Buqa was in charge, probably commanding a tümen, while Köke Ilgei led two hazaras which were to serve as cadre for future conscripts filling out a tümen.67 Hülegü followed with, presumably, a tümen (it is mentioned later). Thus, the army apparently consisted of two tümens and two hazaras at the outset. By the time the army arrived at Bistam in Iran, it had five tümens, with two more unit commanders named: Tegüder Oghul and Buqa Timur.68 And more were coming.

After taking Maymun Diz, and wintering near Qazvin, Hülegü proceeded to Hamadan in March 1257, and "began outfitting the army," which was apparently completed by mid-April, as he had moved on to Dinawar by 26 April on his way to Baghdad.69

Besides the play-and-work stops, some delays were forced by bad weather: by the blizzard at Shiburghan, and by the dangerous (especially for ponies) summer heat at Baghdad, which Hülegü apparently discovered as he neared Iraq and which caused him to meander during the summer, 26 April (hot weather arrives early in Mesopotamia)-21 September, 1257, between Dinavar, Tabriz, Hamadan, Tabriz and Hamadan, before resuming his march on Baghdad.

Finally, all these play-and-work stops helped the diverse elements of the army become familiar with one another, and their leaders to learn to work together, as they did so well when the time came.

Weaponry, Strategy and Tactics

Military operations also slowed Hülegü 's march. Since his mission targeted mountain strongholds (the Assassins' lairs) and a fortress-city (Baghdad); he had prepared for siege warfare. By this time, the Mongols had conducted many sieges during their campaigns in northern China, Central Asia, Russia and Hungary. Their Mongol (and Turkic) soldiery, all archers, could outshoot the cities' defenders, few of them skilled in archery, while Chinese, Manchurian and other conscripts provided engineers and artillerists; laborers; and "arrow-fodder" for storming fortifications--and, in the worst case, for besieging them until the defenders yielded.70 Hülegü started off with only a few of these troops, about two tümens of Mongols and the 1000 "families" of Chinese soldiers discussed above. He found more manpower en route.

The Chinese soldiers with Hülegü employed state-of-the-art siege engines. One was a catapult of the sort called trebuchet or mangonel in Europe, manjaniq or ‛arradah by the Muslims, pao in China, and orbu’ur by the Mongols.71 By the beginning of the thirteenth century, two types of these had been developed in China. Both had a long pole pivoting on an axle set on a scaffold; the axle divided the pole into a short and a long section; the long section terminated with a sling holding a missile, the short attached to a power-source that turned the pole on its axle and impelled the sling and its shot. The first, older "traction" type was powered by teams of men pulling on ropes tied to the short end. It was labor-intensive, none too powerful, and dangerous to use. A team of 250 men could propel a stone of only 90 lbs for only 33 yards; the enemy's archers could shoot accurately and pierce armor at 50 yards. The other type, the "counterweighted" catapult, resembled the traction variety, except that a weight replaced the ropes at the short end of the pole, and gravity, not muscle, impelled the missile. A crew of only 10 to 15 men could shoot such a catapult 167 yards; others ranged to180 and 233 yards, at the limit or beyond of useful archery.72 No crew sizes are given for these latter; and although no missile weights are given,* later Chinese records, contemporary illustrations, and modern replicas, show that they could reach 250 lbs.73 These weapons could thus operate in safety and hurl an irresistible missile.

The Mongols probably acquired this Chinese counterweighted catapult during their conquest of North China.74 The defenders of Lo-Yang had used them against the Mongols in 1232.75 Earlier, Chinggis had taken a whole tümen of artillerists to Central Asia in 1219-23--and they had failed to take Ashiyar castle in Gharchistan,76 probably because they still used the old-style high-manpower, short-ranged and light-missile traction catapults, no more than 40 of them if 250-man teams were drawn from the 10,000-man unit. Hülegü's siege train included only a thousand families, but they produced better results at Maymun Diz and Baghdad, probably because they could man some 65 of the low-manpower, long-ranged, heavy-missile counterweighted catapults.

Besides catapults, Chinese artillery also included over-sized crossbows, mounted on a stand or cart (that the Romans called arcuballista).77 Hülegü had some: "a kaman-i-gav ["ox's bow"], which had been constructed by Khitayan craftsmen and had a range of 2,500 [gâm], was brought to bear on those fools [the Assassins in Maymun Diz] ... and ... many soldiers were burnt by those meteoric shafts." 78 Boyle, Juvaini's translator, gives "pace" for "gâm," which can also mean foot, cubit, step or pace.79 But the only remotely plausible of these measures is the foot; a gâm of 12 inches would make the range of the "oxbow" 833 yards, about a half-mile (0.47).

No such performance is recorded. Franke documents a Chinese arcuballista with an effective range of 300 pu/paces, which he converts at 2 feet to the pu/pace into "something like 200 yards."80 Needham lists a "large winch-armed" crossbow (which he appears to think was an arcuballista) as shooting 1160 yards, a distance he acknowledges "seems credible only with difficulty."81 More likely, incredible. Compare a European winched crossbow with a 1200 lb-draw and range of (only) 460 yards.82 And consider Needham's "arm-drawn" crossbow with a range of 500 yards (300 pu) in light of the difficulty of drawing (i.e. cocking) by hand a crossbow drawing more than 150 lbs.83 The discrepancies arise from different conversions of the Chinese measure pu. Franke has it as a pace of two feet, and Needham as a "double-pace" of five feet. Using a two-foot pu, Needham's arm-drawn crossbow had a range of 200 yards, and (getting back to the main matter) his large, winch-armed weapon's range was about 460 yards. But with the double-pace dismissed and the gâm reduced from pace to foot, the oxbow still shoots nearly twice as far as any recorded arcuballista.

Juvaini's 2,500 gâm shot may have been powered by hyperbole, but rocket-assistance should also be considered. The thirteenth century saw the development of weapons using the propulsive effect of low-grade gunpowder: "ground-rats," a bamboo tube containing powder which escaped through an aperture on combustion and propelled the tube along or about on or above the ground, originally as an entertainment, eventually to frighten or injure men and horses; and "fire-lances," flame-throwers best visualized as reversed rockets attached to a lance and projecting flaming gas toward the enemy.84

The next step, according to Needham, was taken between 1150 and 1350 when this explosive force was applied to propel arrows and javelins independently of bows or crossbows.85 I imagine an intermediate step, the addition of rockets to the conventional fire-missiles shot from arcuballistas (not from hand-held bows or crossbows because of the rockets' fiery blowback). Winch-cocked siege crossbows and arcuballistae shot about 460 yards, and wholly rocket-powered Chinese missiles by the late sixteenth century flew for 400-467 yards.86 These combined powers should account for the 833-yard range of the missiles of Hülegü's oxbow. After Maymun Diz, no more is heard of the oxbow, perhaps because pre-modern rocketry performed unreliably, and any inconsistency would have produced inaccuracy in the long shots at Maymun Diz. At Baghdad, on level terrain, the range of the unassisted missiles of the arcuballistae sufficed.

As for strategy, Hülegü 's plan for the defeat of the Assassins--and of the Caliph-- was a standard Mongol method: surround the target, immobilize (and demoralize) the enemy, and employ all weapons and as much manpower as possible.87

At Bistam, Hülegü arranged the attack on Maymun Diz, the Assassins' headquarters, arraying the army in the conventional Mongol order of battle: Left Wing, Center and Right Wing. Hülegü’s tümen (here explicitly mentioned) constituted the Center; the Left included forces—probably tümens, as also in the Right—under Ket Buqa and Tegüder Oghul, a Chaghadaid prince, who presumably brought his force from that realm; the Right was made up of the units of Buqa Timur, who had come "with an army of Oyirats," and Köke Ilgei, his original two hazaras now apparently fleshed out into a tümen (Buqa Timur's force may also have needed bulking up).88 In addition to these units that were more or less directly under Hülegü’s management, three more tümens were on their way from the Golden Horde. Assuming that each named commander led a tümen, Hülegü now commanded eight tümens.

Hülegü marched via Firuzkuh, Demavend and Rayy toward the Assassins’ castle of Maymun Diz, where their Master was resident, arriving on 7 November 1256.89 The Left traveled toward the same objective via Khwar and Semnan. The Right proceeded to “Mazandaran,” 90 a region including the extensive pastoral zone where the Gurgan and Atrek rivers approach the Caspian—later a favorite and ample Mongol qishlaq91--and also the narrow zone between the Elburz mountains and the Caspian sea. Hülegü’s Right moved west by this shore route, to cross the mountains and attack Maymun Diz if possible, and at least to block the road, lest the Assassin Master obtain support or shelter from the Assassins' castle at Girdkuh. The Golden Horde units also appeared, a tümen under Quli b. Orda arrived via Khwarezm and Dihistan, and two more, led by the Batuid princes Balaghai and Tutar approached the Assassin strongholds from the east after entering the Middle East through the “Qipchaq Strait” past Darband. The enemy was encircled.92

After the Mongol troops "formed seven coils around" the castle, a circuit "nearly six leagues around," Hülegü surveyed its defenses.93 Some commanders suggested postponing the siege because of the daunting prospect (on which the Assassins were banking94) of becoming snowbound (again). It was already late fall, fodder could not be found, and grazing was apparently inadequate, as the animals were losing weight; preparations were being made to requisition flour for the troops and fodder for the animals, and to seize all animals for transportation and as rations, from all over northern Iran.95 But Maymun Diz, although well-fortified and difficult of access, appeared vulnerable.96 The Mongols' catapults could be placed within range of the defenses, probably within about 200 yards, and if the shots could reach the defenses, they could break them. Hülegü, supported by several of his generals, decided to persist, and the following day fighting began. On the second day of combat, 13 November, the "oxbows" went into action, picking off the defending Assassins as they exposed themselves.97 The catapults needed more time, as they were built (at least in part) from local trees, but with 1000 Chinese artillery specialists on the job, work went quickly; the weapons went into action only six days after the start of construction (12-17 November).98 Once the parts were ready, teams of haulers stationed at about 300-yard intervals moved them "to the top of the hill."99 From there, the catapults began to smash the Assassins' artillery and walls. Two days later, on 19 November 1256, the Assassin Master surrendered.100

Hülegü led a still larger army to Baghdad. Fifteen commanders are named, including Hülegü himself. Two generals, Chormaqan and Baiju, led tümens (presumably) from Anatolia, where they had long been stationed. Hülegü 's Right Wing included Sönitei, Balagha, Tutar, Quli, Buqa Timur, and Su'unchaq. The Left had Ket Buqa, Qudusun and Ilgei. The Center comprised Hülegü himself, Köke Ilgei, Uruqtu and Arghun Aqa; some administrators are also named: Qaraqai, Sayfuddin, Nasiruddin Tusi and ‛Alauddin ‛Ata-Malik (Juvaini, our historian), although it is doubtful whether they led troops. Hülegü 's entourage also included "all the sultans, maliks and atabegs of Iran," who probably were commanders--of "arrow-fodder."101 These forces encircled the city. The two tümens coming from Anatolia via Irbil, crossed the Tigris and approached West Baghdad; they fought, inconclusively at first, with the Caliph's field army, but finally swamped it by opening dams of a lake. Six tümens, Hülegü’s Right wing, came to the left bank of the Tigris above Baghdad, where four of them proceeded down that bank toward the city, and two crossed to join the Anatolian corps. Three tümens, forming Hülegü’s Left wing, moved up the Tigris from Khuzistan. And Hülegü, leading four tümens and the "sultans, maliks," et al., proceeded from Hamadan to Dinavar (where he left his a'urughs), Kirmanshah, Khanaqin and Ctesiphon. They reached Baghdad on 22 January 1258. 102 The attack began on the 29th, the artillery broke down the walls and towers of the city, and the Caliph surrendered on 7 February 1258.103 A massacre followed.

The Mongols relied in their siege warfare on their catapults, on overwhelming manpower--and, if necessary, on large expenditures of it.104 Because heavy losses could be expected in taking a city or fortress, the Mongols would take no chances of needing a second siege, when adequate manpower might no longer be available; the enemy soldiery and militias that had resisted their attack were therefore killed at the end.105 The Caliph too was killed.

This effectively ended the Caliphate. Members of the house of ‛Abbas served the Mamluks as puppet-Caliphs, and the Ottomans later claimed the title, but the perpetuation was only notional.

Heartbreak

These time-and-motion studies show that Hülegü’s army did not take with them their sheep and goats--and families. Nomad wives, helped by their children, manage their families’ subsistence animals. Each family needs about 100 sheep or equivalents to supply its food, so a tümen (10,000 men) with their 10,000 families would have, in addition to its 50,000 ponies, at least a million sheep (the equivalent of 200,000 more ponies). Hülegü did not want to take them. One tümen with ponies, sheep and goats would require as much pasture, or fodder, as five tümens with ponies only. Moreover, sheep and goats cannot travel more than about 2-3 mpd and still obtain adequate nourishment; short sprints may be manageable, but not long distances for a long time. With the sheep and goats, Hülegü might have taken twice as long to get to Baghdad. And if the sheep and goats were left behind, the women and children had to stay to take care of them—and obtain their own support.

The sources say nothing directly about the familial circumstances of the ordinary soldiers, but Hülegü himself had to leave some of his wives behind in Mongolia. He had four principal wives living when the expedition departed; two came with him: Öljei Qatun, and Doquz Qatun (his widowed step-mother), “influential, and extremely domineering”—Möngke ordered Hülegü to heed her advice. The two others, Yesunjin and Qutui, stayed in Mongolia with Möngke.106

Families and flocks left behind as Mongol armies marched to war were called a’urughs. The practice was traditional in Inner Asia, and the Mongolian term frequently appears in our story. Hülegü, setting out from Mongolia in 1254, left his a’ughruqs, including Yesunjin and Qutui, behind with Möngke. Ket Buqa, who had already gone, had doubtless done likewise. More a'ughruqs, presumably those of soldiers newly-recruited in Central Asia, stayed at Almalyk. Others stopped at Hamadan and Khanaqin on the approach to Baghdad, probably those of the troops from Iran that Hülegü had impressed into the Mongol Center, as well as the establishments of his own wives, Dokuz and Öljei, who had traveled with the army.107

Whatever plans Yesunjin and Qutui, and the families of the ordinary soldiery may have made to rejoin Hülegü in Iran were spoiled by the succession-struggle following the death of Möngke in 1259 that stranded them in Mongolia. Not until 1263 was Hülegü able to summon his wives. They started, travelling with Hülegü’s son, Jumqur, who had also been left behind, and reached Samarqand, only to be further delayed when Jumqur died. They eventually reached Iran in 1268, where “Qutui Qatun was told of Hülegü Qan’s death [4 years before], and she cried her eyes out.”108

If reunion was problematic for Mongol rulers, it was still harder for many ordinary soldiers. The troops raised in Iran would have had no difficulty rejoining their families. Of the families left in Mongolia by the (nominally) 22,000 men who departed with Ket Buqa and Hülegü --say 22,000 wives and 66,000 children at the time of separation--some wives and younger children might have been able to leave for Iran when Yesunjin and Qutui did. They could have left their subsistence animals with their older children, some of which would have formed families of their own by that time; this would have speeded the journey and reduced its logistical difficulty. However, other troops in Hülegü 's army had no such possibility.

Missing Persons

When the Ögedeid prince, Qaidu, began his effort to reconstitute the Ulus Ögedei in the late 1260s, he could scarcely scrape up two or three thousand men from its former territories. Its nomads had originally constituted the army of the Ulus, but the army had been disbanded after the attempted Ögedeid coup against Möngke in 1251, seventy-seven of its top officers had been executed--probably the top officers of seven tümens (seven tümen commanders and seventy hazara commanders of a nominal 70,000 men) and their soldiers "distributed" in such a way as left almost none for Qaidu.109 Hülegü, who shortly came through the region, moving from western Mongolia to the Lake Zaysan area to Almalyk, charged to assemble an army for occupation of the Middle East, very likely assisted in the "distribution" by taking with him perhaps 50,000, re-forming and rearming them at Hamadan under five new commanders, adding them to his forces, and leading them against Baghdad.110

Heartbreak II?

Although Hülegü 's wives, and perhaps those of his Mongolian soldiers, eventually reached Iran, those of the ex-Ögedeid soldiers probably did not. They had been left in the a'urughs around Almalyk, and probably remained there. Their husbands were now part of Hülegü 's army, and part of his program, as ordered by Möngke, to occupy Iran, establish themselves in suitable pastures, and stay.111 They could not go home, and it was Mongol policy, probably for the logistical reasons discussed above, not to send their wives to soldiers permanently based abroad. For example, Möngke assigned Sali Noyan (Tatar) to Hülegü and gave him command of two tümens previously stationed in the Qunduz-Baghlan-Badakhshan region to hold the Indian frontier. Sali asked how long he would be there, and Möngke replied, "You will be there forever."112 And his men stayed there without their (original) wives: Sali's troops, and others stationed in eastern Khurasan and even western Iran came to be known as qaraunas , and, according to Marco Polo, "They are called Karaunas, that is mongrels, because they are the offspring of Indian mothers and Tartar fathers."113 The soldiers had had to find new wives.

1 Usman Juzjani, Tabaqat-i Nasiri, H.G. Raverty trans. (London: Gilbert & Rivington, 1881), two vols., II, 1117-8; Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami‛u’t-Tawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles [hereinafter RaD], W. M. Thackston trans. (Cambridge MA: Harvard, 1998-99), three vols., II, 397.

2 Since 1090, according to ‛Ala al-Din ‛Ata-Malik Juvaini, The History of the World-Conqueror, J. A. Boyle trans. (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1958), two vols., II, 670.

3 Juvaini, I, 42-3.

4 When Möngke assigned "two men in ten" from the imperial armies to Hulegu, the Golden Horde sent him three tümens (3 x 5 = 15): Juvaini, II, 607-8.

5 RaD, II, 414-15 mentions that Taghachar, commander of the Left Wing for a time during this campaign, led "100,000 horsemen"; these would be the soldiery commanded by the eleven Mongols named by Rashid as commanders in the Left Wing.

6 F. Barth, Nomads of South Persia: The Basseri Tribe of the Khamseh Confederacy (Oslo UP, 1964), 115.

7 RaD, II, 282; see also, 279-80: the hazara (nominally a Thousand) of Müge Noyan had 4000 even in Chinggis' time, and had further "multiplied and increased" by Rashid's day.

8 The date usually given for the start of Hülegü’s march is 1253. This is consistent both with Juvaini’s information (II, 611): 19 October 1253, and Rashid’s statement ( II, 413: Ox Year). But as Rashid returns to the story ( II, 479) when taking up Hülegü’s history, the departure is restated as autumn of the Leopard (Bars) Year, that is, 1254.

** The direct (airline) mileage Ulaanbaatar-Moscow is 2,889 miles.

9 The campaign of Samuqa in northern China (1216-17) covered 14 mpd; and Ghazan's in Syria (1299-1300) moved at 15.1 mpd: H. Desmond Martin, The Rise of Chingis Khan and his Conquest of North China (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1950), 191 and map of "Chingis Khan's Campaigns in China, 1209-1227"; J. M. Smith, Jr., "‛Ayn Jalut: Mamluk Success or Mongol Failure?" Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 44:2 (1984), 307-45, esp. 335-7.

10 The Secret History of the Mongols, section 199.

11 Juvaini, II, 611 has 24 Sha'ban, which, for 1254 instead of 1253, would have been 10 October.

12 Lonely Planet: Mongolia (Hawthorn, Vic., Australia: Lonely Planet, 1997), 108, 174, 237.

13 I considered sending Hülegü to the upper Irtysh region, where Chinggis Qan assembled his army in preparation for the Khwarezmian campaign, but my sources give no distances for this route, and I have tried to rely as little as possible on map-and-ruler estimates (which I qualify as "approximately," "about," or label ca.).

14 Lonely Planet: Central Asia (Hawthorn, Vi., Australia: Lonely Planet, 1996), 216.

15 RaD II, 480 (the date should be 653); Juvaini, II, 612 (he is also mistaken about the date, which should be 653/1255).

16 L.J.D. Collins, "The Military Organization and Tactics of the Crimean Tatars during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," in War, Technology and Society in the Middle East, V.J. Parry and M.E. Yapp eds. (London: Oxford UP, 1975), 265.

17 RaD, II, 480; Juvaini, II, 612. According to the Armenian prince Haithon, who had campaigned with the Mongols, "The Tartars have much more consideration for their horses than for themselves." See É. Dulaurier, "Les Mongoles d'après les historiens Arméniens," Journal Asiatique, 5th ser., 11 (1858), 172.

18 Juvaini, II, 612. D. Streatfield-James, Silk Road by Rail (Hindhead, Surrey, UK: Trailblazer, 1993), 279, 281.

19 Juvaini, II, 612; RaD, II, 480.

20 RaD, II, 480.

21 RaD, II, 480.

22 RaD, II, 482. Juvaini, II, 615, has Hülegü take Tun "at the beginning of Rabi' I," which was 29 March.

23 RaD, II, 481.

24 Smith, "Mongol Nomadism and Middle Eastern Geography: Qishlaqs and Tümens," in The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy, R. Amitai-Preiss and D.O. Morgan eds. (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 39-56, esp. 53-54.

25 Les Guides Bleus: Moyen-Orient (Paris: Hachette, 1956), 774 (Gurgan-Bistam), 871-2 (Tun-Mashhad), 896 (Mashhad-Gurgan).

26 For the likely date, see RaD, II, 482.

27 Juvaini, II, 616-7;RaD, II, 482.

28 Juvaini, II, 616-18.

29 Juvaini, II, 717.

30 The commanders who led these forces through the Caucasus, Balagai and Tutar, had been with Hülegü in Mongolia, and had set out, presumably for home and with instructions from Hülegü, at the time of Hülegü's departure. See Juvaini, II, 612.

31 Juvaini, II, 630-4.

32 The low-keyed survival of what might be called "post-Assassin" Nizari Ismailism in the regions around Alamut and in Quhistan after Hülegü's campaign is treated by Shafique N. Virani in "The Eagle Returns: Evidence of Continued Ismaili Activity at Alamut and in the South Caspian Region following the Mongol Conquests," Journal of the American Oriental Society, 123:2 (April-June 2003), 351-70.

33 Juvaini, II, 721-2.

34 RaD, II, 486.

35 Les Guides Bleus: Moyen-Orient, 711.

36 RaD,II, 488.

37 RaD, II, 493 and n. 4; Guides Bleus: Moyen-Orient, 705 (Dinavar), 706 (Hamadan).

38 For example, 200 km. in one and a half months: 2.8 mpd, for the modern Yoruk in southern Turkey. D. G. Bates, Nomads and Farmers: A Study of the Yoruk of Southeastern Turkey (Ann Arbor: Michigan UP, 1973), 5, 7.

39 RaD, II, 484.

40 Collins, "Crimean Tatars," 261; but cf. p. 267: some Tatars changed horses five times a day, and one Tatar force moved at 20 mpd: both items imply five horses per soldier, the Mongol standard.

41 A pony measures less than 14 "hands" (56 inches) at the withers--the high point of the back.

42 John of Plano Carpini, History of the Mongols, in Christopher Dawson ed., The Mongol Mission (London: Sheed and Ward, 1955; rpt as Mission to Asia), 47 on rotation; on loads: H. Epstein, Domestic Animals of China (Farnham Royal, UK, 1969): 100; D.W. Engels, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 128. Also, Smith, "Mongol Society and Military in the Middle East: Antecedents and Adaptations," in War & Society in the Eastern Mediterranean, 7th-15th Centuries, Y. Lev ed. (Brill: Leiden, 1997), 249-66, esp. 250-1.

43 Ch'i-ch'ing Hsiao, The Military Establishment of the Yuan Dynasty (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1978), 18-19. The Mongols counted on one soldier per nomad family, but knowing sedentary families tended to be more than nuclear, and needed more subsistence labor, conscripted only one man from Chinese three-man families. Since Hülegü's forces were intended as a permanent garrison for the Middle East, the 1000 "families" of Chinese artillerists, et al., might have been whole extended families.

44 The artillerists included "catapult men, naphtha throwers, and crossbow men": RaD, II, 478. The naphtha throwers, I believe, would have prepared incendiary missiles for use with the catapults and crossbows, which latter would have been the large "ox's bows" mentioned by Juvaini, II, 631, rather than weapons for individual soldiers, since the Mongols' conventional archery was more than sufficient: faster shooting and accurate to greater range.

45 Juvaini, II, 631.

46 Engels, 14 and 14 n.11 for oxen and pack-camels. Pegolotti's fourteenth century commercial manual states that three-camel wagons traveled between Urgench and Otrar (ca, 650 miles) in 35-40 days (16-18 mpd; probably with relays of camels) drawing 3000 lbs; his text on Silk Road trade in the Mongol period in Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La Pratica della Mercatura, Allan Evans ed. (Cambridge MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1936) is translated in R. S. Lopez and I. W. Raymond, Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World (New York, 1955), 355-58.

47 Draught oxen move at 2 mph and work a 5-hour day, according to Engels, 15 (but cf. Epstein, 3: 30 km per day). Using relays of animals, ox-wagons delivering supplies to Outer Mongolia under a program initiated by Ögedei averaged 12.5 mpd,; Western traders traveling to China in the fourteenth century averaged 17 mpd, using horses and camels for the most part instead of oxen. See Smith, "Dietary Decadence and Dynastic Decline in the Mongol Empire," Journal of Asian History, 34/1 (2000), 35-52, and Hsiao, 59-60.

48 RaD II, 478. See also Juvaini, II, 609-10. Ibn Battuta, traveled with the entourage of Bayalun Qatun, the Byzantine wife of Özbek, the Golden Horde ruler, as she journeyed to Constantinople, and "At every halting-place in this land there was brought to the khatun a hospitality-gift of horses, sheep, cattle, dugi, qumizz, and cows' and sheep's milk." See The Travels of Ibn Battuta, H.A.R. Gibb trans. (Cambridge UP, 1962), II, 498-9.

49 Smith, "Dietary Decadence," 35-52.

50 RaD, II, 480; Juvaini, II, 612.

51 RaD, II, 480; Juvaini, II, 612.

52 RaD, II, 479.

53 RaD, II, 480; Juvaini, II, 613-4.

54 RaD, II, 480; see also Juvaini, II, 614.

55 RaD, II, 480-1.

56 Juvaini, II, 616.

57 RaD, II, 482. Juvaini, II, 616-7.

58 Juvaini, II, 617.

59 Juvaini, II, 718.

60 RaD, II, 485; Juvaini, II, 718-9.

61 RaD, II, 486.

62 RaD, II, (Tun): 482; (Hamadan): 500.

63 RaD, II, 479

64 RaD, II, 480. Mongol Khurasan included not only the modern province, but parts of Turkmenistan and much of Afghanistan. See Smith, "Qishlaqs," 53, map 3.

65 RaD, II, 480.

66 RaD, II, 480-1.

67 RaD, II, 481.

68 RaD, II, 483; Juvaini, II, 618

69 RaD, II, 487-8.

70 On Mongol archery, Smith, "'Ayn Jalut," 315-6. Worst case: after the fall of Maymun Diz, the Mongols besieged Assassins in Girdkuh for fifteen years (RaD, III, 535-6). Mongols were also prepared to participate in sieges: every Mongol soldier's equipment included " ropes for hauling [shooting] engines of war": Plano Carpini, 33.

71 Thomas T. Allsen, "The Circulation of Military Technology in the Mongolian Empire," Warfare in Inner Asian History (500-1800) (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 265-93, esp pp. 267-9.

72 Herbert Franke, "Siege and Defense of Towns in Medieval China," in Chinese Ways in Warfare, F.A Kierman, Jr. and J.K. Fairbank eds. (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1974), 167-69.

73 J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, section 30, vol. 5, part 6: Military Technology: Missiles and Sieges (Cambridge UP, 1994), 217. Also "Secrets of Lost Empires: Medieval Siege" (Nova video, available from WGBH Boston). Modern craftsmen using medieval techniques built two large catapults, one very like the Mongol catapult depicted in Rashid al-Din (D. Talbot Rice and B. Gray, The Illustrations to the 'World History' of Rashid al-Din [Edinburgh UP, 1976], ), 52-3, 146-7, 156-7; also The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256-1353, L. Komaroff and Stefano Carboni eds. [New York: Metropolitan Museum; New Haven: Yale UP, 2002], p. 36, fig 33, cat. no. 24), both of which, from 200 yards, hit and broke a wall copied from a Welsh fortress of Edward I. The counterweights, one fixed and one--the Mongol type--pivoting, weighed 6 and 6.5 tons. Construction took forty craftsmen about two weeks (Hülegü's larger work force worked much faster) after obtaining the materials, including poles fashioned from single tree-trunks (weighing one ton on the fixed-counterweight engine). The poles of the Mongol catapults depicted in RaD/ Rice & Gray, 52-3 and Legacy, fig. 33, unlike the replicas', were composites of several shafts bound together, simplifying procurement and fabrication.

* [Additional, post-publication note] Douglas S. Benson, The Mongol Campaigns in Asia [and Europe] (Chicago: Bookmasters, 1991)], 338 provides this information from the Russian Patriarchal Chronicle, Year 6748 and 10 Polnoe Sobranie Russkikh Letopisei 115-17: At the battle of Chernigov, 1240, "they [the Mongols] hurled [catapulted] at [the defenses] with stones of one and a half shotweight: stones requiring four strong men to lift." [stones of ca 200 lbs?]

74 The common impression that the Mongols adopted the counterweighted catapult in the Middle East (see Thomas T. Allsen, "The Circulation of Military Technology in the Mongolian Empire," Warfare in Inner Asian History (500-1800) (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 265-93, esp pp. 267-9; also Needham (1994), 218-20), derives from Qubilai's importation in the 1270s of Arab engineers to design catapults for his Sung China campaigns (Marco Polo falsely claimed the credit). The Arabs' contribution was most likely the metal bushings and axles used in Iranian Mongol catapults: see Rice and Gray, loc. cit. In Chinese catapults, wooden axles turned in sockets or notches in the supporting wooden scaffold. The bearings of the Iranian catapults would have turned more smoothly and suffered less wear from the tremendous forces exerted upon them (by a counterweight of perhaps 6.5 tons to swing a beam of perhaps a ton) and would therefore have shot more reliably, more consistently, more accurately, and farther than their Chinese counterparts.

75 Needham (1994), 218. Clearly a counterweighted catapult from its small crew, but still short ranged.

76 Juzjani, II, 1074-77. Ashiyar eventually fell to starvation.

77 Franke, 166-67. Their effective range, according to Franke, was about 200 yards, similar to that of the counterweighted catapult, and about twice that of a hand-drawn war-bow.

78 Juvaini/Boyle, II, 631. Boyle translates gâm as "pace." For the name "oxbow," compare the limbs of a multiple "composite crossbow" illustrated in Franke, p. 162, with the bows of ox-harness depicted in the fourteenth century paintings of Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute: The Story of Lady Wen-Chi (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974), scenes 16-18.The working of the "composite crossbow" is explained in Needham (1994), 194-95, figs. 63- 64.

79 F. Steingass, Persian-English dictionary (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957), 1072.

80 Op. cit, 166.

81 Needham (1994), 176, 177.

82 W. F. Paterson, A Guide to the Crossbow (Society of Archer-Antiquaries, 1990), 31.

83 Needham (1994), 176, 217. Paterson, 40. Increasing draw-weight does not translate directly into greater range: much of the added power goes into moving the heavier limbs of the bow rather than the impulsion of the projectile.

84 J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, section 30, vol. 5, part 7, Military Technology; The Gunpowder Epic (Cambridge UP, 1986): ground rats, 135; fire-lance, 222-23 and figs. 44-45 (pp. 224-25).

85 Needham (1986), 477.

86 Needham (1994), 176-77, Table 3 for a European siege-crossbow and a large Chinese winch-armed crossbow; (1986), 484, note e for Chinese rockets. I have use the two-foot pu to correct Needham's Chinese ranges.

87 Plano Carpini, 36-8.

88 RaD, II, 483; Juvaini, II, 607-8, 618. Supplemental troops could have been impressed as Tainal Noyan had done during Chinggis' Khwarezmian campaign; he conscripted ten thousand Türkmen to enlarge his army as he passed through these same regions ( they deserted at the first opportunity, only to be caught by Tainal and slaughtered): Juvaini, I, 90.

89 Juvaini, II, 717.

90 RaD, II, 483.

91 Smith, "Qishlaqs," 52-4.

92 RaD, II, 361; Juvaini, I, 626-27; II, 716-7.

93 RaD, II, 484: Juvaini, II, 628.

94 Juvaini, II, 619.

95 Juvaini, II, 621-2; RaD, II, 484.

96 The description, in P.Willey, The Castles of the Assassins (London: Harrap, 1963 rpt Fresno CA: Linden 2001), of other Assassin castles, Alamut (214-24) and the fortress on Mt. Nevisar Shah (238), in the vicinity of Maymun Diz, shows they were much stronger--essentially inaccessible. The Mongols were fortunate that the Master had not holed up in one of these.

97 Juvaini, II, 631.

98 Juvaini, II, 629-32.

99 Juvaini, II, 630. The map in Willey, 171 shows trails ascending the SE side of Maymun Diz to what must have been meant by "the top of the hill." Peter Willey agrees with my view that the Mongol catapults bombarded the NE corner of the fortress (personal communication).

100 Juvaini, II, 634.

101 RaD, II, 493. The nominal strength of the putative fifteen tümens was 150,000 men--plus the "arrow-fodder."

102 RaD, II, 493-495.

103 RaD, II, 495-97.

104 For instance, eight tümens out of ten were lost by Qubilai during his siege of Yauju during Möngke's war against Sung China in 1256-7. See RaD, II, 415.

105 Smith, "Demographic Considerations in Mongol Siege Warfare," Archivum Ottomanicum, XIII (1993-1994).

106 RaD, II, 471-2, 479-80.

107 RaD, II, 473, 479-80, 493, 495, 500. The forces sent by the Golden Horde must have left their a'ughruqs at home too; this might help explain their reluctance to remain subordinate to Hülegü.

108 RaD, III, 519-20.

109 "Distributed" is the word used by J. A. Boyle in his (partial) translation of Rashiduddin, The Successors of Genghis Khan (New York: Columbia UP, 1971), 23. "Dispersed," is Thackston's translation: RaD, II, 306. For the 77 executed officers, see RaD, II, 407

110 Rearming: RaD, II, 487: " Hülegü ...camped in the plains of Hamadan... [and] began outfitting the army." New Commanders: RaD, II, 493: Sönitei, Su'unchaq, Qudusun, Uruqtu, Arghun Aqa; except for Arghun Aqa, these generals had not been mentioned previously in Rashid's account of Hülegü's expedition.

111 RaD, II 479:"From the River Oxus to the farthest reaches of the land of Egypt [said Möngke to Hülegü] .... Conquer the realm of the rebellious through the might of the great god so that your summer and winter pastures may be many ..... [Möngke] imagined that Hülegü would always remain in the realm of Iran ...."

112 RaD, I, 49.

113 Marco Polo, The Travels (Harmondsworth UK: Penguin, rpt 1980), 64-5 [N.B. Pagination varies in these reprints].

Something New Under the Sun: The Mongol Empire’s Innovations in Steppe Political Organization and Military Strategy

2007-02-28T23:40:00.000-08:00

Something New Under the Sun: The Mongol Empire’s Innovations in Steppe Political Organization and Military Strategy

Thomas J. Barfield, Boston University,
The 8th International Congress of Mongolists
Ulaan Baatar, August 5-12, 2002

At the time of Chinggis Khan’s birth in 1162 Mongolia had been weak and divided for more than three centuries. Endemic fighting among the steppe nomadic peoples had made everyday life itself insecure and political unification appeared unachievable. Yet by the time Chinggis Khan died in 1227, Mongolia was united, the center of the world’s largest land empire, and the dominant power in Eurasia. How are we to understand this rapid transformation and its consequences? The most common historical approach explains the emergence of the Mongol Empire as the product of long-term historical developments in Central Eurasia similar to those that had led to the emergence of previous steppe empires such as the Xiongnu (209 B.C.-A.D. 155) or the Turks and Uighurs (552-840). From this perspective, the Mongol Empire was only a structurally larger version of its predecessors, its political and military organization derived from a common steppe heritage that was in no way unique to the Mongols.

In fact the Mongol Empire was striking different from earlier steppe empires and bore little resemblance to them. We can see this in three important areas. First the Mongol Empire arose in opposition to the usual pattern of relationships between China and the steppe that facilitated the emergence of nomadic empires in Mongolia. Second, the Mongol Empire radically transformed steppe nomadic society by breaking up the existing tribal system and replacing it with a centralized political system of rule that had never previously existed on the steppe. Third, the Mongols ended up ruling neighboring sedentary states directly rather than extorting them as earlier steppe empires had done. Because the genesis of these differences all derive from the problems Chinggis Khan faced in uniting the steppe and then maintaining power, his personal contribution to the process was absolutely vital.
The Pattern of Relations between China and Mongolia

The interaction between China, the steppe nomads of Mongolia, and the mixed forest and steppe tribes of Manchuria produced two striking patterns of development that determined both the structure of political relations on the steppe and the pattern of foreign rule in China: 1) a bi-polar frontier with a unified China facing a unified Mongolia and 2) transborder states ruling north China and Mongolia fragmented.[1]
Tandem Unification: Native Chinese Dynasties and Unitary Nomadic Empires

Most successful empires in Mongolia appeared in tandem with native Chinese dynasties that ruled all of China. This pattern is the reverse of the generally accepted premise that the nomads of Mongolia grew stronger as China grew weaker. Instead, nomadic empires and important native Chinese dynasties rose and fell together, a pattern particularly apparent in the relationships between the Han and Xiongnu and the Tang and Turks/Uighurs. These nomadic empires derived their stability from the extortion of direct subsidies and trading privileges from native Chinese dynasties. Far from wishing to conquer China, steppe empires were structurally dependent on the existence of their counterparts to supply them with the wealth they redistributed to their followers in Mongolia. While these relationships were initially established by force, over time they became more symbiotic. Nomadic tribes even protected declining Chinese dynasties against internal rebellions by supplying them with troops. When these dynasties finally collapsed in the face of internal rebellions within China, the steppe nomads lost the major source of revenue that had allowed them to maintain centralized rule. Under these conditions Mongolia also became fragmented politically. Local tribal leaders who had been subordinated within an imperial structure reemerged, but without a prosperous China to extort none were able to reestablish unity. Power on the frontier then shifted to the formerly marginal peoples of Manchuria.
Transborder States: Foreign Dynasties in China and Division in Mongolia

Four out of five of the most important foreign dynasties that ruled north China had their origins in Manchuria (Toba Wei, Liao, Jin, and Qing). All emerged in the periods of disorder that followed the collapse of native dynasties that had ruled all of China of centuries. That so many foreign dynasties should come from the northeast appears to be an anomaly, since it was the tribes from Mongolia that were the major threats to China's frontier in the Han, Tang, and Ming periods. Indeed, when both the steppe nomads and China were powerful it was impossible for independent regional states to arise anywhere along the frontier. However, in times of anarchy after native Chinese dynasties had collapsed local tribal leaders from all sectors of the frontier attempted to create new trans-border kingdoms. Of all these emerging regional states, the Manchurian dynasties proved the most effective because of their strategic location and their development of dual organizations for the administration of conquered territory. Such dual organizations employed separate Chinese and tribal governmental structures, allowing Chinese areas to be ruled by their own officials employing native Chinese practices, while tribal peoples retained their own customary system. Manchurian rulers maintained their power by manipulating these two groups, using Chinese officials and court practices to destroy tribal autonomy while keeping the Chinese under control through the use of elite tribal military units.

In dealing with Mongolia, foreign dynasties employed a distinctive frontier policy of co-optation and disruption that actively impeded the emergence of political centralization there. Normally it was only after these aggressive foreign dynasties were deposed and replaced by more isolationist native Chinese dynasties that the nomads in Mongolia were able to unify. Unlike their foreign counterparts, native Chinese dynasties tended to ignore political events on the steppe and so leaders there needed to concern themselves only with other steppe nomad rivals. Once a steppe empire was united and funded by subsidies from China, the Mongolian frontier became linear and its politics bi-polar.
The Mongols Break the Pattern

The alternation of powerful steppe empires and native Chinese dynasties with equally long periods of Manchurian rule in China and disorder in Mongolia was such a regular occurrence that the pattern was broken only once over a period of 2000 years, by the Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan. This was not because the nomadic leaders who were striving for power on the steppe during periods of disunion were any less ambitious or capable than the leaders who successfully unified Mongolia at other times. Rather it was because the policies of foreign dynasties were designed first to thwart the unification of Mongolia or, if that policy failed, to prevent any unified state from threatening China. They did this by encouraging tribal rivalries and bloodfeuds to prevent any single group from becoming too powerful. And should one tribe become paramount they sent expeditionary forces deep into Mongolia to weaken them or at least prevent them from moving against the Chinese border. For example, in the 5th century the Toba Wei campaigned extensively against the Joujan and captured large numbers of people and animals to keep them on the defensive. In the 17-18th centuries, the Manchu Qing dynasty employed the “banner system” and land allocations to eastern Mongol princes to serve as a bulwark against the more aggressive Zunghars in western Mongolia.

When Chinggis Khan was born Mongolia had been politically fragmented since the fall of the Uighur Empire in 840, a period of more than three centuries in which even the memory of earlier steppe nomadic empires had all but disappeared. Such a long period of division in Mongolia was maintained, in part, by the interventionist policies of two successive Manchurian states that also ruled north China: the Khitan Liao (907-1125) and the Jurchen Jin (1115-1234). These dynasties would ally themselves with weaker tribes against the stronger ones to create an effective coalition that would bring down any tribal leader on the steppe who threatened to become preeminent. Of course by doing so they increased the power of their own allies, so it was only a matter of time before they turned against them too and switched their support to the tribes they had just defeated. During the 12th century, for example, the Jurchen had regularly switched their support from the Tatars to the Mongols and back again to keep these tribes at each other’s throats and to bring about each tribe’s destruction in turn.

Any leader attempting to found a new steppe empire under these conditions therefore faced incredible odds. He not only had to worry about other rival tribal leaders on the steppe who would oppose him, but also the outside interference he could expect to receive from north China and Manchuria should he begin to succeed. As the Mongol Secret History makes clear, many Mongol, Tatar, Naiman and Kerait leaders had earlier attempted the task of unification but none had succeeded. And given the difficulties Chinggis Khan faced just in mobilizing the support of even his own Mongol people, few contemporary observers would have picked him as a likely candidate for the job. Yet in the end Chinggis Khan not only unified Mongolia, he and his successors conquered all of China and created the Yuan dynasty, the only long-lived foreign dynasty that did not have its origins in the Manchurian northeast.
Political Organization of Steppe Empires
The Imperial Confederacy

The predecessors of the Mongol Empire (and indeed its successors in Mongolia following the end of the Yuan dynasty in 1368) were imperial confederations that used the principles of tribal organization and indigenous tribal leaders to rule at the local level while maintaining an imperial state structure with a monopoly on foreign and military affairs. The top level of imperial leadership was drawn from the ruling lineage of the tribe that founded the state. At a secondary level descendants and collateral relatives of the ruler were usually appointed as governors to supervise the indigenous tribal leadership in each region. These local tribal leaders constituted the third level of organization.[2]

What was distinctive about imperial confederacies was their incorporation of local level tribes without destroying them. To outsiders an imperial confederacy might appear fully centralized and in complete command of its component parts because of its monopoly on foreign relations and its control of military affairs. But at the local level component tribes operated much as they had before their incorporation into a unitary state. As members of the indigenous elite of each tribe, local leaders retained considerable autonomy because of their close ties to their own people. And when the imperial structure collapsed they and their tribes were ready to reemerge as autonomous political actors.
The Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire had quite a different structure. It was not an imperial confederacy but an autocratic state that from its inception broke up the existing tribes and redistributed their people into new military units from which they were not allowed to move. This broke up the older steppe political organization based on lineage and clan leaders who were chieftains (tus) of their respective kinship groups regardless of who was running the top levels. Their ability and willingness to transfer their political allegiance from one leader to another if they received a better offer had made it difficult for anyone to centralize power. Chinggis put an end to this after uniting the steppe and from that point on power resided in him and his personal appointees. With the exception of a small number of groups that had been long time supporters or with whom he had formed alliances, none of the leaders had strong kin ties with the people they led. This change was not only unprecedented but remarkably rapid, too. It appears to been accomplished in less than three years between the time he first gained control of the old Kerait confederation in 1203 and when he was proclaimed Great Khan in 1206. Indeed a treasured reward requested by outstanding commanders from Chinggis Khan at the1206 khurilitai was the right to reunite with their own kinsmen.[3]

Imperial appointment, not kinship, determined rank and authority at every level of the Mongol Empire. Chinggis Khan’s relatives and the Mongol tribe in general were kept at the margins of power in favor of talented individuals. In stark contrast to the founders of imperial confederacies who always installed their close relatives in top posts as a means to secure their power, Chinggis Khan looked on his own relatives with considerable suspicion and kept them out of power. During his lifetime political appointments were given almost exclusively to men who owed him personal loyalty, such as his sworn companions (nökör), loyal household servants and adopted sons. They held the all the tümen (units of 10,000) commands and had the most influence on political decision making. Later Chinggis Khan also recruited heavily from the keshig, formerly his personal bodyguard that he had transformed into a special unit of 10,000 whose members were drawn from many different tribes. Because their individual success was tied to their service to the Mongol Empire as a whole, no one tribe (not even the Mongols) was able to dominate the empire’s top level administration exclusively even after the descendants of Chinggis Khan later made the Great Khan position hereditary.

While the centralized and bureaucratic structure of the Mongol Empire was more effective than any previous steppe empire, it was also unique. After the fall of the Yuan dynasty the nomads in Mongolia would revert to their older and less centralized imperial confederacy model of organization. This demonstrates that while the Mongol Empire succeeded in breaking up the existing tribal structure, this change could not be made permanent. Over the next 150 years tribal groups reemerged in Mongolia as central control weakened and by the time the Yuan dynasty was driven out of China decentralized tribal organization was once again the norm in Mongolia. Although it should be noted that the changes wrought had been so great that there was practically no continuity between them and the tribes that had existed at the time of Chinggis Khan.
Mongol military organization and foreign policy

The Mongols created the largest empire the world has ever seen. Unlike earlier nomadic empires that dominated only the steppelands, the Mongols conquered most of Eurasia, destroying powerful and well-armed sedentary states in the process. This raises two questions: Why was the Mongol military so much more effective than previous steppe empires given that the most important weapon for both remained the mounted archer? Why did the Mongol Empire conquer its neighbors rather than extort them as was the more common strategy of steppe empires based in Mongolia?
Military organization

In many ways the Mongol army was similar to its Xiongnu and Turkish predecessors. It consisted almost exclusively of cavalry: mounted archers armed with short and long range arrows, sabers, lances, and maces. They wore steel cap helmets and armor consisting either of lacquered hide or overlapping iron scales. Organized around decimal units of 10, 100, 1000, the largest Mongol tactical division was the tümen of 10,000 men. Although the decimal system had been employed by the Xiongnu, in an imperial confederacy unit commanders were also tribal chiefs in their own right and so often decided on their own what orders to accept. The Mongol armies had no autonomous tribal base so its commanders could expect absolute obedience down the whole chain of command. Like most nomad armies the total number of Mongol troops was surprisingly small. At the time of Chinggis Khan's death in 1227 the it consisted of only about 138,000 effectives, and even at the height of the empire a generation later it had about twice that number.[4]

What distinguished the Mongol military from its predecessors, however, was its iron discipline and central control, a model of organization first developed by the Manchurian Khitan who had conquered northeastern China three centuries earlier, but never previously employed in Mongolia.[5] Xiongnu and Turkish cavalry armies had tended to be disorganized in battle, with each individual fighting for his own gain. The Mongol army was trained to fight as a coordinated group following signals from flags or horns. Those individuals who broke ranks either to advance or retreat, those who engaged in personal combat without regard to orders, or those who stopped to loot were severely punished. Nobody, under pain of death, was allowed to move to another unit without permission. Because his trusted military commanders were not rivals for political power, Chinggis Khan gave them a great deal of autonomy to carry out his overall strategy. And he was a brilliant talent spotter, for out of the Mongol ranks rose a series of worldclass generals who led his armies to victory across Eurasia.

But perhaps Chinggis Khan’s unique innovation was his incorporation of military engineers, Chinese and later Muslim, into the Mongol army after his first campaigns in China. These specialists provided the Mongols with thousands of siege engines that could be used to take fortified cities: catapults for hurling stones, ballistae for throwing javelins, and other machines for throwing fire. They also provided him with the ability to bridge rivers or even divert them to wash away enemy fortifications. All other steppe cavalry armies had been stymied by walled cities. They could attack around them and lay waste to the countryside but they could not take them by direct assault. Without this ability, no nomadic group could ever expect to conquer well-defended sedentary lands. The Mongol army could and did. It became so efficient that none of the great walled cities of Central Asia were able to withstand their power when Chinggis Khan launched his war there against the Khwarazm Khan in 1218.

These innovations gave Chinggis Khan a military machine that was completely under his control, that fought according to a coordinated plan, and that had the ability not only to strike deeply into enemy countries but (unlike any nomads before or since) to engage in effective siegecraft that rendered walled cities vulnerable to a steppe army. It was an army of conquest, not a grand raiding force like those of the Huns in Europe or the Xiongnu against China. And conquer it did.
The Mongol Conquests

Many scholars, citing the assertions of later Mongol rulers, have argued that Chinggis Khan swept out of Mongolia intent on conquering the world. But initially he seems to have had the same more limited goals as leaders of previous imperial confederacies: to bring all the steppe tribes under his sway and then extort large subsidy payments and trading rights from the rich sedentary states that bordered Mongolia. However, because he was opposed by powerful sedentary states that preferred to fight the nomads rather than appease them, the result was wars of annihilation that led to the Mongols becoming rulers the territories they had only intended to extort.[6]

The Mongols initially launched wars against neighboring sedentary states to induce them to make tribute payments or trade agreements. They had no interest in replacing the existing regimes if their demands were met, let alone conquering them. At first it appeared that they, like the Xiongnu and Turks before them, would succeed in gaining what they wanted. The Uighur ruled oases in eastern Turkestan immediately allied themselves with Chinggis Khan and participated in the 1206 khuriltai. The Mongols then attacked the Tangut Xixia kingdom in northwest China in 1207 and 1209, forcing them to sue for peace and send tribute. Mongol campaigns against the Jurchen in north China began in 1211. After suffering three increasingly devastating invasions, the Jurchen Jin dynasty also agreed to pay tribute to the Mongols in 1214. The Mongols then withdrew and left the Jin still in control of most of north China. That same year Chinggis Khan also received an embassy from the Khwarazm Khan in Central Asia to whom he proposed making a treaty that would facilitate trade and gain recognition of Mongol power in the east.

With the exception of the Uighurs,[7] all these budding relationships quickly foundered. The Jurchen had no intention of permanently appeasing the Mongols and before the year was out they and the Mongols were at war again. It was a war that would last twenty years, ending only with the destruction of the Jin dynasty itself in 1234 that would leave the Mongols the masters of north China. Equally troubling, the promising relations with Central Asia that had been secured by a treaty in 1218 soured when the Khwarazm Khan allowed a caravan under Mongol protection to be seized and then murdered a series of Mongol envoys who had been sent to address the matter. Chinggis Khan mobilized the Mongol army to take revenge on the Khwarazm Khan. Xixia used the opportunity to break its tributary obligations when asked to provide troops for this expedition. Even without Xixia’s aid the Mongols overran all of Central Asia to the borders of India and western Iran in a series of campaigns between 1219 and 1223. They utterly destroyed the region’s major cities and Khwarazm Khan’s kingdom collapsed. However, Chinggis Khan did not even attempt to occupy more than a fraction of the territory his armies had overrun. Instead he returned home and led a campaign against the Tanguts to punish their earlier break. It was to be his last campaign: he died in 1227. Soon thereafter the Tangut state was also destroyed and its cities leveled.[8]

At the death of Chinggis Khan the Mongol Empire was no longer just an empire of the steppe, but an empire that incorporated many sedentary kingdoms. Even if Chinggis Khan had little interest in ruling them directly, his descendants did. Therefore one the fundamental changes in Mongol foreign policy that followed Chinggis Khan’s death was his descendants’ decision to reoccupy all the territories their father had only overrun and rule them, as well as to extend Mongol power into new areas of China, Europe and the Middle East. Mongol policy was now truly imperial in a way that the Xiongnu and Turks had never been: combining nomad and sedentary people into a universal empire than spanned a whole continent. If this was not necessarily the vision of Chinggis Khan, it was he who had provided the tools that made it possible.
Chinggis Khan’s Personal Contributions

Many of the innovations described above can be attributed directly to Chinggis Khan, not because he invented them but because he insisted on employing them. They were all solutions to the specific problems he faced in coming to power and then maintaining it. Once instituted, however, they took root and became characteristic of the Mongol Empire until it fell.

Chinggis Khan was forced to seek out new structural solutions because he rose to power from a marginal position. He could not depend on the traditional political or military structures that had so well served the founders of earlier nomadic empires. This insecurity also had a significant impact on his war making strategy, which was much more aggressive and risky than those of other rulers. It also had a psychological component. Chinggis Khan’s unyielding attacks on those who broke their treaty obligations seem rooted in his personal experiences of betrayal before he came to power. In his mind, those broke their word or betrayed their sworn obligations deserved only absolute destruction, whether the offender was a single individual or an entire state.

Unlike the founders of imperial confederacies, who were the established leaders of their own tribes before they unified the steppe, Chinggis Khan had come to power without much help from the Mongols or even his own relatives. A rival Mongol lineage had pushed him into exile as a boy after his father murdered and then tried to kill him. While he had been elected Mongol khan around 1190 he was never able consolidate his authority and often fought with his competitor for Mongol leadership, Jamukha. And when his longstanding alliance with Ong Khan, the Kerait leader, fell apart, he found himself deserted by almost everyone. At his low point in 1203 at Lake Baljuna, just before he was to kill Ong Khan and take control of the Kerait confederation himself, he had only 4600 troops at his disposal. And these were with him because they were personally loyal, not because of tribal connections.[9]

Chinggis Khan’s bitter experiences with steppe politics and the fickleness of tribal military units thus shaped his ideas about political organization and military strategy. He had finally come to hold absolute power in a period of less than three years between 1203 and 1206, but then only when he was a middle-aged man of over forty years with too much experience of tribal politics behind him. Having beaten his opponents on the battlefield, it is clear that he saw the destruction and reorganization of the traditional tribal structure as a necessary next step if he wished to stay in power. His policy innovations all had at their core the transformation of the existing system, which encouraged disunity and parochialism, into a centralized and autocratic state that would direct its energies outward. These changes included the division of people by military units instead of kinship groups, the creation of the pan-tribal institutions like the keshig, and favoring personal appointees over relatives. Such innovations were not only designed to make the Mongol state and its leader more powerful but to eliminate any possibility that the old political order might reemergence. It was a revolution, but not one based on class or ideology. It was a practical revolution designed to stabilize Chinggis Khan’s own power. Similarly the organization of the army into well-disciplined units that worked in a coordinated fashion under a centralized command reduced the possibility of rebellion. He encouraged personal initiative but only in service to the Mongol state.

Chinggis Khan also broke with a time honored nomad military strategy known from the time of the Scythians and Xiongnu: advance before weakness and retreat before strength. Historically when the steppe nomads were outnumbered or confronted with a well-organized opponent, they would refuse to give battle and force their enemies to chase them. Only after the enemy had exhausted himself chasing his illusive prey would the nomads turn to attack in earnest. Similarly during their incursions into China, Xiongnu or Turkish commanders would almost always withdraw when confronted by a powerful Chinese army unless the odds were in their favor. After all, the nomads reasoned, they could always retire to Mongolia and attack again when chances for victory were more certain. By contrast, Chinggis Khan and the Mongol army under his commanders believed in fighting decisive battles even when the odds were against them. They sought out the best tactical position and then attacked. This penchant for fighting decisive battles was due in part to Chinggis Khan’s confidence in his troops and commanders. But because at first he did not have a strong tribal base at home, such prudence could also have been interpreted as a weakness that would have emboldened enemies among the tribes he had only recently conquered. In his career he had experienced first hand the tendency of troops to flock to the banners of victorious commanders and desert those who appeared to be failing. Thus, though he often employed feigned retreats in battle to lure his enemies into traps, he never considered strategic retreats that would have forced him delay a campaign once it had begun even when this appeared to be the safer choice. Chinggis Khan had won power by risking all, and would preserve it by doing the same. Later, when his brilliant victories had solidified his base in Mongolia, his preference for fighting decisive battles ceased being driven by any political calculations. By then the bias toward taking the offensive had simply become one the core military doctrines that were hallmarks of the Mongol army and its commanders.
Some Conclusions

Historians have commonly used the Mongol Empire as a template to understand steppe nomadic empires in Mongolia in general. Since it was the best known and best documented, it seemed to make sense to use well described Mongol institutions to flesh out the organization of its less well-known predecessors. This assumed that nothing the Mongols did was really very new or different, it was just a matter of adjusting for the matter of scale and evolution through time. In fact we have seen the Mongols employed very different structures than their predecessors. And it was not a matter of evolution: following the collapse of the Yuan dynasty the tribes in Mongolia that faced the new Ming dynasty in China had all reverted to the older imperial confederacy model of organization. They had none of the centralizing characteristics of Chinggis Khan’s empire and never again attempted to hold Chinese territory even though they often overran it. For this reason the Mongol Empire needs a fresh examination that would give due credit to its innovations. Because no other empire in Eurasian history was as large or as powerful as the Mongols at their height, surely we should ask why this was so and why no other nomadic empire in Mongolia even partially approached its success.

While Chinggis Khan retains his preeminent stature in Mongol national history, elsewhere there has been a tendency to diminish his personal accomplishments. As historical determinists most Marxist theorists, for example, denied any causal role to individual leaders. They were considered interchangeable products of their social origins in a history that only evolved as material conditions changed. Such theories attempted to explain the rise of the Mongol Empire in terms of class conflict and the rise of “nomadic feudalism.”[10] But little in the pastoral economy had changed at the time Chinggis Khan rose to power and evidence for any permanent class divisions (as opposed to status distinctions) are hard to discern. Worse, if such new structures within the Mongol Empire were the result of a permanent political evolution, why did they revert back to their older forms when the political structure of the empire weakened?

Non-Marxist theorists, however, have been equally suspicious of “Great Man” theories that see history as the product of individuals such as Chinggis Khan. The assumption among these scholars is that conditions for the unification of Mongolia and the spread of nomad power were already in place. Just what such conditions might have been remains a matter of debate: climate change, trade opportunities, military technology, weakness in sedentary lands, are but a few suggestions. But they do tend to agree that if Chinggis Khan had not unified Mongolia, some other leader (perhaps a Kerait or Naiman khan) would have and the nomads would have had a similar impact on history under another name. [11]

My own analysis of the Xiongnu and Turks first predisposed me to this camp since it makes strong structural arguments about when and why steppe empires emerged. But the more I examined the origins of the Mongol Empire, the more I was forced to conclude that Chinggis Khan had played a greater personal role than any other leader in Mongolia before or after. I would go so far as to contend that had Chinggis Khan been permanently defeated or killed before 1206, no world conquering steppe empire in Mongolia would ever have emerged. Once the empire was up and running the personal characteristics of its leaders became less important. If a different son had inherited the khanship after Chinggis Khan, or if Güyüg had lived longer in the next generation, Mongol history would have taken some different turns but not been remarkably different. A powerful structure was already in place. But the establishment of unity in Mongolia under Chinggis Khan and his conquests of sedentary lands were far more contingent events. When a great oak tree dominates the landscape it is easy to forget it began its existence as an acorn, an acorn any squirrel could have eaten. And when Chinggis Khan was born there were very few acorns but many hungry squirrels. Because more attention is generally paid to the great Mongol conquests after 1206, we have underestimated how great an achievement it was for Chinggis Khan to come to power, unify Mongolia and reorganize it into a potent force.

NOTES

[1] Barfield, Thomas J. The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China (Cambridge, MA and Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989).

[2] Barfield, Thomas J. "The Hsiung-nu Imperial Confederacy: Organization and Foreign Policy," Journal of Asian Studies, 41 (1981), 45-61.

[3] The Secret History of the Mongols §213, 218 (Cleaves, Francis, trans., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982, pp. 154, 158).

[4] Martin, H. Desmond. The Rise of Chinggis Khan and his Conquest of North China. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1950.

[5] Wittfogel, Karl and Chia-sheng Feng, The History of Chinese Society: Liao (907-1125). Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1949: 553, 669.

[6] Barfield, Thomas J. "The Devil's Horsemen: Steppe Nomadic Warfare in Historical Perspective." In Studying War: Anthropological Perspectives, edited by S.P. Reyna and R.E. Downs. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 1994, pp. 157-182.

[7] Allsen, Thomas. “The Yüan Dynasty and the Uigurs of Turfan in the 13th Century.” In China among Equals, Morris Rossabi (ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983, pp. 243-280.

[8] Martin, H. Desmond. The Rise of Chinggis Khan and his Conquest of North China. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1950; Barthold, V.V. Turkestan down to the Mongol Invasion. London: Gibb Memorial Series, 1968.

[9] Cleaves, Francis. “The historicity of the Baljuna covenant.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 18 (1955), 357-421.

[10] Vladimirtsov, Boris I. Le régime social des Mongols: Le féodalisme nomade. Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1948.

[11] Cf. Togan, Isenbike. Flexibility and limitation in Steppe Formations: The Kerait Khanate and Chinggis Khan. Leiden: Brill, 1998.

Temujin proclaimed Chinggis Khan

2007-02-27T20:58:00.000-08:00

Brief History of Mongolia

In the 13th century epic chronicle of Mongolian history titled ‘The Secret History of the Mongols’ the story of the Mongol people’s origins begins thus:

“The origins of Chinggis Khan,
There was a blue-grey wolf which was born having his destiny from Heaven above.
His spouse was a fallow doe.
They came, crossing over the Tenggis Sea.
Batachiqan was born to them while they were camped at the source of the Onan River,
At Mount Burkhan Khaldun.”

That is how the creation story of the Mongol people begins in the opening lines of the “Secret History of the Mongols’, the earliest known and most important primary source on Mongolian history. The deep relationship that Mongolians have with Nature and their homeland is clearly conveyed in this historical narrative.

Mongolia today is an independent nation that was unified and created by the will and vision of Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan), the founder of the Mongol nation. Chinggis Khan was born into Mongol tribal nobility in approximately 1162; his given name was Temujin. When Temujin was nine years old his father Yesugei Khan, was poisoned to death by his tribal enemies, the Tartars. Temujin then went on to survive abandonment by his clansmen, near starvation, capture by enemies, war wounds, betrayals and the kidnapping of his wife Borte. Temujin was able to rescue Borte and later attracted a band of followers from many different tribes who saw in him signs of a visionary leader destined for greatness.

Temujin fought and overcame the Dorbets, Tartars, Seljuits, Tonkaits, Merkits, Keraits, Naimans, and other Turkic and Mongol tribes in Mongolia as his power grew. After these successful campaigns he was formally recognized as the supreme leader of the tribes of Mongolia in 1206, and given the title of Chinggis Khan, which means ‘Universal Ruler’ and this was the basis for the formation of the nation of Mongolia.

Chinggis Khan then proceeded to conquer the Central Asian kingdom of the Khwarazmshah in 1220, defeated all the tribes of northern China by 1226 and laid the foundation for the birth of the massive Mongol Empire. Before Chinggis Khan died in 1227 he chose his son Ogodei as successor and advised his sons to expand the empire, recognize Ogodei in writing, and to serve each other for the sake of unified strength.

Ancient gold plaque of nomad warrior resting under a tree.

2007-02-27T00:31:00.000-08:00

Gold plaque showing a nomad warrior lying under a tree with his head in a woman's lap. He wears two swords and his guard holds his horses reins. This object was said to have been found in Siberia and was made part of Peter the Great's collection in the Hermitage in 1859.

The Secret History of the Mongols translated by Prof. Igor de Rachewiltz

2007-02-26T23:33:00.000-08:00

Professor Igor de Rachewiltz's translation of the 'Secret History of the Mongols' is an extremely important contribution to the study of Mongolian history. The two volume set is meant for scholarly research work and includes a philological commentry.

Mongolia History

2007-02-26T23:18:00.000-08:00

Mongolia and its history.