The Secret History of the Mongol Queens

A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION

FIFTEENTH-CENTURY MONGOLIAN HISTORY HAS BEEN ONE of the most confusing times for scholars because of the difficulty of establishing a clear timeline. The chronicles using the animal cycle of years are often difficult to correlate with one another or with the modern calendar. The best chronology available has been published in Mongolian in three comprehensive volumes by Professor B. Baljinnyam, and whenever possible I rely upon his dates.English-speaking scholars use many different ways of transliterating classical and modern Mongolian names and words. The correct title for the founder of Mongolia is Chinggis Khan, pronounced CHIN-gis, but by tradition it is rendered in English as Genghis Khan. Generally, I use the spelling that is easiest for the reader rather than adhering to only one system. For example in the name Qaidu Khan, the Q and Kh represent the same guttural sound. I use the Qaidu spelling solely because the reader can find more additional information on him under that spelling; yet, for his daughter Khutulun, more can be found using the Kh spelling. For the same sound I use only an h as in the common spelling Manduhai (rather than Mandukhai or Manduqai), because it better approximates the pronunciation of Man-du-HI.Similarly, I use classical and modern spellings, depending on the need, and avoid alternate spelling for the different Turkic and Mongolian dialects of different eras. Thus for simplification, khan is used for khaghan, khan, and khagan or the modern khaan; similarly, beki is used for bek, beg, beghi, bägi, and begi. Scholars will recognize the underlying form, but for most readers, using only a single form will be easier.Modern Mongolian names are usually written with an initial preceding the name. In the twentieth century, the use of clan names was forbidden, and since Mongolians generally have only one name, they added the initial of the father’s, or sometimes the mother’s, name to distinguish them from others with the same name.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

“Let us reward our female offspring” Igor de Rachewiltz, trans., The Secret History of the Mongols (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2004), §§ 214–15. The sentence is repeated in both sections, but in order to make sense of the text, many translators and editors have omitted the duplication or filled in this section with words cut from other parts of the document.

“From age to age” Rashid al-Din, Rashiduddin Fazullah’s Jami’u’t-Tawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles, translated by W. M. Thackson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Department of Eastern Languages and Civilizations, 1998).

“Genghis Khan loved this one” Ibid.

“a great luster” François Pétis de la Croix, The History of Gengizcan the Great (Calcutta, 1816).

PART I

“There is a khan’s daughter” Nicholas Poppe, trans., Tsongol Folklore: The Language and Collective Farm Poetry of the Buriat Mongols of the Selenga River (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1978).

CHAPTER 1

A renegade Tatar Igor de Rachewiltz, trans., The Secret History of the Mongols (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2004), § 214. His name was Qargil Sira or Khargil Shira; an alternate version of the story is found in Rashid al-Din, Rashiduddin Fazullah’s Jami’u’t-Tawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles, translated by W. M. Thackson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Department of Eastern Languages and Civilizations, 1998).

baatuud The heroes were known collectively as the baatuud.

“looked like so many white demons” N. Elias and E. Denison Ross, A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia: Being the Tarikhi-I-Rashidi of Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlát (London: Curzon, 1895).

Several Chinese commentators Peter Olbricht and Elisabeth Pinks, Meng-Ta Pei-Lu und Hei-Ta Shih-Lüeh: Chinesische Gesandtenberichte über die frühen Mongolen 1221 und 1237 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1980).

“their eyes were so narrow” A History of the Moghuls.

Queen Gurbesu Secret History, § 189.

“If one is concluding a marriage” Paul Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1991).