The Secret History of the Mongol Queens

Numerous reports maintain Michal Biran, Qaidu Khan and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State in Central Asia (Richmond, UK: Curzon, 1997).

incestuous relationship Rashid al-Din, Rashiduddin Fazullah’s Jami’u’t-Tawarikh.

“She chose him herself” Ibid.

Qaidu Khan decided to try a deception… “illness into dysentery” Ibid.

He was buried… “stirring up sedition and strife” Ibid.

Novel Walther Heissig, “Tracing Some Oral Mongol Motifs in a Chinese Prosimetric Ming Novel of 1478,” Asian Folklore Studies 53 (1996): 238. The novel was titled Hua Guan Suo zhuan (The Story of Hua Guan Suo).

“When our great ancestor” Hidehiro Okada, “Dayan Khan as Yüan Emperor: The Political Legitimacy in 15th Century Mongolia,” Bulletin de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient 81 (1994): 51.

Divine Demon Dancing Girls … “place full of obscenity” George Qingzhi Zhao, Marriage as Political Strategy and Cultural Expression (New York: Peter Lang, 2008).

Erdeni-yin Tobci Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen und ihres Fürstenhauses, verfasst von Ssanang Ssetsen Chungtaidschi der Ordus, translated by Isaac Jacob Schmidt (Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1820).

CHAPTER 7

Altan Tobci The version most often used in this book is the bilingual Mongolian-English edition, Charles Bawden, trans., The Mongol Chronicle Altan Tobŭi (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1955).

Erdeni-yin Tobci The version most often used in this book is the bilingual Mongolian-German edition prepared by command of the Russian tsar Alexander II in 1827 and published two years later as the first Mongolian book translated into a European language. Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen und ihres Fürstenhauses, verfasst von Ssanang Ssetsen Chungtaidschi der Ordus, translated by Isaac Jacob Schmidt (Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1829).

killed the last ruling descendant of Khubilai Khan Hidehiro Okada, “Mongol Chronicles and Chinggisid Genealogies,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 27 (1984): 151.

the ceremony 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).

“She is the wife of your son” The Altan Tobŭi identifies her as the son’s wife, but the Erdene-yin Tobŭi identifies her as the wife of Elbeg’s brother. The two accounts are not necessarily in disagreement since “son” and “younger brother” are often used interchangeably for junior males in the same clan. The account here combines the two texts.

friendly access to senior women Lawrence Krader, Social Organization of the Mongol-Turkic Pastoral Nomads (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963).

Even to bring milk Hidehiro Okada, “Outer Mongolia in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 5 (1972): 70.

dead rabbit In a Tibetan chronicle, the source of the khan’s problem is a monkey spirit that then led him astray. The story was presented seemingly as an excuse to denounce women and the men who love them. Georg Huth, trans., Geschichte des Buddhismus in der Mongolei: Aus dem Tibetischen des Jigs-med nam-mk’a (Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner, 1892).

“when a khan behaves like a commoner” Hidehiro Okada, “The Bilig Literature in Chinggis Qaran-u Cadig,” Mongolica 6 (1995): 459.

Elbeg Khan was about to commit a crime … The turmoil resulting from the Great Khan’s terrible deeds The quotes combine the accounts given in the Altan Tobŭi § 3–65, and the Erdeni-yin Tobŭi.