The Secret History of the Mongol Queens

The steppe society where Alaqai grew up differed markedly from the land she went to rule. The Onggud lived south of the Gobi on the borderland between the zones of herding nomads and the settled farmers of China. They had trading towns surrounded by high, thick walls. They lived in buildings for part of the year and in felt gers for the other part, and they worshiped in temples. The Onggud formed one of the oldest civilizations of northern Asia.

To remove competition against the rule of his daughters, Genghis Khan not only removed their husbands to his army, he dismissed all their other wives. Only the Mongol wife would preside. If the guregen already had wives, he had to divorce them in order to marry a royal Mongol woman, and once married he could not take another wife without a rarely issued dispensation from the Great Khan.

Divorcing the other wives did not impede the status of their children. Unlike societies that employed baroque procedures for distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate children, the Mongols accepted all children as equal. No child could be born without the consent of the Eternal Blue Sky. No earthly law or custom could presume to declare the child illegitimate.

The wives might be dismissed and their power curtailed, but the children, particularly the sons, could not be easily displaced as future sources of power. In other societies, such heirs and potential rivals faced nearly certain death, but Alaqai Beki took control of her husband’s other children in order to protect them, and to keep them close enough to prevent one from being set up as a rival ruler.

Alaqai Beki took literally the Mongol nation’s first step from its pastoral homeland into what would become one of the greatest conquests in Asian history. In his nuptial edict, her father charged her with an amazing mission. In preparation for the coming invasions, he told her: “You should be determined to become one of my feet.” He left no doubt that this was a major military assignment. She was not there merely to administer, but to rule—thereby beginning the expansion of the Mongols from a tribal nation into a global empire. “When I am going on an expedition, you should be my helper, when I am galloping, you should be my steed!”

Despite her youth, the importance of her mission demanded that Alaqai Beki act on her own young judgment. “No friend is better than your own wise heart!” Genghis Khan told her. He elaborated on this need for self-reliance, despite what complaints she might hear from those around her. “Although there are many things you can rely on, no one is more reliable than yourself,” he explained. She held ultimate power, and therefore, ultimate responsibility. “Although many people can be your helper, no one should be closer to you than your own consciousness.” He warned her to be careful because her survival was of the highest importance. “Although there are many things you should cherish, no one is more valuable than your own life.”

He also gave her more fatherly advice to protect herself and to foster good habits. He stressed the importance of constant learning as the key to being a successful ruler. He told her to be “prudent, steadfast, and courageous.” In perhaps his most important words, he said, “You have to remember life is short, but fame is everlasting!”

No Mongolian description survives of the coronation of the Mongol queens. The only hint comes from foreign accounts that Mongols raised their queens up to office while they were seated on a white felt rug, which would make their installation identical with that of a newly proclaimed khan.

The departure from home was simple for Alaqai and for each sister leaving her mother’s ger for a new life far away. The mother and daughter stood in front of the ger, and the daughter presented first her right cheek and then her left so that her mother might sniff each one in the traditional kiss of the Mongols. This sniff would help the mother to remember the smell of the child until they met again. Sometimes the mother declined to sniff the second cheek, saying, “I will sniff the left one when you return.” So great is the power of words that by saying it and visualizing it happening, the mother hoped to ensure that they would meet again.