The Secret History of the Mongol Queens

white felt rug Hansgerd Göckenjan and James R. Sweeney, Der Mongolensturm: Berichte von Augenzeugen und Zeitgenossen 1235–1250 (Graz, Austria: Verlag Styria, 1985).

The mother’s blood Alena Oberfalzová, Metaphors and Nomad, translated by Derek Paton (Prague: Charles University, 2006).

pail of milk Ibid.

“It seemed to me as though the sky” 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).

“fifth son” Secret History, § 238.

a slave into a noble Rashid al-Din, Rashiduddin Fazullah’s Jami’u’t-Tawarikh.

“Whereas, by the Protection of Eternal Heaven” Francis Woodman Cleaves, “The Sino-Mongolian Inscription of 1362 in Memory of Prince Hindu,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12, no. ½ (June 1949): 31.

Her nation was her first husband Zhao, Marriage as Political Strategy.

“The area has no rain or snow” D. Sinor, Geng Shimin, and Y. I. Kychanov, “The Uighurs, Kyrgyz and the Tangut (Eighth to the Thirteenth Century),” in History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 4, edited by M. S. Asimov and C. E. Bosworth (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1999).

excavations have uncovered Adam T. Kessler, Empires Beyond the Great Wall: The Heritage of Genghis Khan (Los Angeles: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 1993).

Karluk are also known as Qarlu-ut, Qarluq, and Karluqs.

“How can he be called Arlsan Khan?” Rashid al-Din, Rashiduddin Fazullah’s Jami’u’t-Tawarikh.

Tolai B. Baljinnyam, Mongolchhuudin Buren Tuukhiin Tovchoon, vol. 1 (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: Admon, 2006).

CHAPTER 4

killing of Ala-Qush 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).

Jingue is also referred to as Zhenguo, Jinkhuu, or Jinkhui.

“He recognized no business but merrymaking” Ata-Malik Juvaini, Genghis Khan: The History of the World-Conqueror, translated by J. Boyle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997).

“The demon of temptation” Ibid.

Tokuchar Ebülgâzî Bahadir Han, The Shajrat Ul Atrak: Or, Genealogical Tree of the Turks and Tatars, translated by William Miles (London: Wm. H. Allen, 1838).

“She left no trace” Ghiyas ad-Din Muhammad Khwandamir, Khwandamir Habibu’s Siyar: The Reign of the Mongol and the Turk, translated by W. M. Thackson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, 1994).

“In the exaction of vengeance … rose gardens became furnaces” Juvaini, Genghis Khan.

“rhetorically ornate rhyming words” Rashid al-Din, Rashiduddin Fazullah’s Jami’u’t-Tawarikh.

Genghis Khan then gave the precocious Boyaohe Namio Egami, “Olon-Sume: The Remains of the Royal Capital of the Yuan-Period Ongut Tribe,” Orient: The Reports of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan 30/31 (1995): 2.

“always obtain to wife” Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo: The Complete Yule-Cordier Edition, vol. 1, translated by Henry Yule (New York: Dover, 1993).

“My people of the Five Colors and Four Foreign Lands” Charles Bawden, trans., The Mongol Chronicle Altan Tobŭi (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrossowitz, 1955), § 43.

“water in the desert” Altan Tobŭi, § 46.

“I leave you … one soul” François Pétis de la Croix, The History of Gengizcan the Great (Calcutta, 1816).