READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

HISTORY OF THE MONGOLS.

CHAPTER II.

THE ORIGINS OF THE MONGOLS

THE name Mongol (according to Schmidt) is derived from the word Mong, meaning brave, daring, bold, an etymology which is acquiesced in by Dr. Schott. Ssanang Setzen says it was first given to the race in the time of Genghis Khan, but it is of much elder date than his time, as we know from the Chinese accounts, in which we must be careful, however, to discriminate between it and a very similar name, Moho, by which the Tungusian tribes of Manchuria were known. The earliest mention of the Mongols eo nomine occurs in the official history of the Thang dynasty (618-907), which was probably written shortly after the latter date. The name, as there given, is Mongu, and it is mentioned under the heading Shi wei, as if the Mongu formed a section of the Shi wei; and on turning to the great Chinese Topographical Work, Hoanyu ki, written in the years 976-984, we find Mongu made a qualifying adjective to Shi wei; the Mongu and their neighbours, the Lotan, being there respectively called the Mongu Shi wei and Lotan Shi wei. The Thang dynasty was succeeded in Northern China by the Khitan, and in the history of that dynasty, written in 1180 by a Southern Chinese named Ye lung li, who lived at Kia-hing-fu, in the province of Che kiang, we have a short description of the tribes to the north-west of Manchuria, and among these he mentions the tribe of the Mongkuli. The Khitans were in turn dispossessed by the Kin, or Golden Tartars, and in a history of their dynasty, entitled Ta-Kin-kuo-chi, we find the Mongku mentioned with considerable details as to their intercourse with China. These various facts prove that the name Mongol is much older than the time of Genghis Khan, and was not a name first given to his subjects by that great conqueror. They point further, as the statements of Raschid do, to the Mongols having at first been merely one tribe of a great confederacy, whose name was probably extended to the whole when the prowess of the Imperial House which governed it gained at the supre­macy. We learn lastly from them that the generic name by which the race was known in early times to the Chinese was Shi wei, the Mongols having, in fact, been a tribe of the Shi wei. For pointing this out in all its clearness we are indebted to Schott, in the paper already cited. Klaproth, in his Tableaux Historiques, makes the Shi wei a Tungusic race, but in this, I believe, he is mistaken. The Shi wei were known to the Chinese from the seventh century; they then consisted of various de­tached hordes, subject to the Thu kiu, or Turks. They were of the same origin as the Khitans; like them they shaved their heads, they used cattle to draw their carts, and lived in huts covered with mats. Like the Turks they used felt tents, which could be transported on carts. They used rafts of inflated skins upon which to cross rivers; instead of a felt they put a quantity of grass on their horses backs, which served them for a saddle, and they used cords for bridles. They slept on pigs’ skins. They used bits of wood arranged in a certain order as a cal­endar. Their country was very cold. They had no sheep and few horses, but many pigs and cattle. They prepared a kind of spirit, with which they intoxicated themselves. The family of the bridegroom paid the family of the bride a sum of money on her marriage; widows were not allowed to re-marry. Mourning was worn for three years for the richer men. Having no corn in their country they got what they needed from Corea. The Southern Shi wei were divided into twenty-five hordes. Further north there lived the Northern Shi wei, who consisted of nine tribes; and whose chiefs bore the title of Ki-in-mo-ho-tu. This name may be a corruption of “Khan of the Mongols,” and I am disposed to think that the nine tribes of the Northern Shi wei constituted the Mongol nation proper subject to the dynasty of the Bordshigs, who were divided in the time of Jingis into nine military divisions, each one led by one of the nine Orloks, whence the national standard of the race con­sisted of a Tuk with nine white Yak tails. The country of the latter was exceedingly cold, and they used sledges there. In the winter the inhabitants retired to the caverns. They lived on fish, and made their clothes from fish skins. Sables and their kin were abundant among them. They wore caps made of the skins of foxes and badgers. One thousand li further north than the Northern Shi wei lived the Po Shi wei, near the mountain I hu pu. They were very numerous. Four days’ journey further west lived the Shi wei of the river Shin mo tan. Several thousand li to the north-west lived the Great Shi wei, in a very mountainous country. Their language differed entirely from that of the other Shi wei. Klaproth adds that in the ninth century, during the reign of the Thang dynasty, the nine hordes of the Northern Shi wei were called Shi wei west of the mountains (Khinggan), Northern Shi wei, Yellow-headed Shi wei, the great Yu chi Shi wei, the little Yu chi Shi wei, Shi wei of Nu pho wo, Shi wei of Ta mu, and the Camel Shi wei. These extracts seem to show that the Chinese, whose ethnography was sometimes very faulty, used the name Shi wei as they sometimes used the name Tartar, as a generic name for the tribes of Dauria and its neighbourhood, both Mongols and Manchus. As I have said, the earliest mention of the name Mongol is in the Thang shu, or official history of the Thang dynasty. In describing the Shi wei, it is there stated that the nearest tribes of this race lived 3,000, and the most distant 6,000 or more li to the north-east of Lieu ching, an old fortified town on the site of the modern Chao ien hien, in the country of the Eastern Tumeds. The most westerly of the race was the tribe U su ku, which lived to the south-west of the Kiu lun lake, and bordered on the Uighurs (who had their capital at Karakorum).

“To the east of the Kiu lun lake were the I sai mu, and further east still, on the north bank of the Chuo, also called the Yen chi, lived the Sai-hu-chi, a very powerful race. To the east of these lived the Hokiai, the Ulohu and the Noli. Directly north of the tribe Ling-si (Ling-si means merely “West of the Mountain pass”), lived the No-pe-chi. And north of them, beyond a great mountain, were the Ta Shi wei, or Great Shi wei, who lived on the banks of the river Shi ki en. This river flowed from the Kiu lun lake, and flowed eastwards.” The Chinese, whose topography of these parts is not very profound, confound the Shilka, or Onon, and the Argun, and make them both spring from the Kiu lun lake. I believe the Shi ki en of the above account to be, in fact, the Shilka, and the Ta Shi wei, the Taidshigods or Taidshuts. South of the Shi ki en (i.e.., of the Onon) lived the tribe Mongu, and north of it the tribe Lotan. This is not a bad approxima­tion to the home land of the Mongols, which we know was on the Onon. Who the Lotan were I don’t know.

The next work which mentions the Mongols is the Topographical Survey, called the Hoan yu ki, which was written in the interval 976-984. In this account the Sai hu chi are placed to the south instead of the north of the river Chuo. The tribe Ulohu, which is also called Ulo, and Ulo hoen, is placed to the east of the Hokiai, as before, and we are further told that it lived north of the mountain Mo kai tu (the Snake Mountain). This account adds that the Ulohu paid tribute from the fourth year of Tai ping, of the dynasty Yuan Wei (443 a.d.) to the ninth year of Tien pao, of the dynasty Thang, 720 a.d.

Two hundred li north-east of the Ulo, and on the banks of the No (the Nonni), lived the remnants of the Uhuan, who had been dispersed by the Hiong nu. They paid tribute under the first two Emperors of the Thang dynasty. “North of them and on the north side of a great mountain lived a tribe called Ta che Shi wei, on the banks oi a river flowing out of the lake Kiu lun into the north-east of the land of the Thu kiu. This river, in its eastern course, watered the country of the Si and the Ta Shi wei (of the Western and Great Shi wei). Then it divided the country of the Mongu Shi wei, who lived south of it, from that of the Lotan Shi wei, who lived to the north. Further east it took in the rivers No and Huhan, and separating the Northern and Southern Hechui, at length fell into the sea.” By this river, whose description is so baffling, is doubtless meant the Amur, and its upper streams the Onon and Shilka. By Ta che Shi wei was meant, according to Schott, the Shi wei with great wagons. It therefore answers somewhat to the He che tse of Visdilou, who lived in this neighbourhood, and whose name in Chinese meant Black Chariots. Now Ta che is merely another form of Tata, or Tartar. So that it may be that we have in these Ta che Shi wei the Tartars who lived near Lake Buyur and its tributaries. They are perhaps the same people as the No pe chi of the Thang annals. It would seem from the confused account of the river, as above given, that the Chinese believed that the Argun was merely the head stream of the Onon and Shilka.

The next mention of the Mongols is in the history of the Liau dynasty, already cited. Having spoken of the Moho, this work goes on to describe the Thie li hi shi kien, a name which Schott splits in two. Thie li is a race name that occurs frequently, and is applied to Turkish as well as to Manchu tribes. Schott identifies the Hi shi kien with the obscure Mongol tribe Kishikten, but it seems to me that it is another form of the name He che tse, mentioned by Visdelou, and that it represents the Tartars. We arc told they lived 4,000 li north-north-east of Shang king, and that they paid no tribute, but only traded with the Chinese. Directly north of, and also about 4,000 li distant from Shang king (Shang king was probably situated near Boro Khotan, in the district of Barin) lived the people called Mong ku li, who lived entirely by hunting and cattle breeding, without any fixed pastures. They noma­dized every year in search of water and grass. Their food consisted of flesh and sour milk (i.e., kumis). They never did the Khitans any harm, and bartered with them the hides of their cattle, sheep, camels, and horses. Here we find the Mongols emerging from the obscurity of a sub­ordinate tribe, and becoming much more important.

In this account their name no doubt connotes much more than it did before, and several of the other tribes are included under it. We are next told that further west than the Mong ku li, and 5,000 li from Shang king, lived the people Yukiu (no doubt the Usuku of the Thang official history), who resembled the Mong ku li in everything. In the thirty-second year of the Emperor Shing tsong (1014) the Yukiu made a raid upon China, but were so beaten by the Imperial army that they had since only come to the Imperial court to trade. They dealt in the same articles as the Mong kuli. Further to the north-west (? south-west) one came to the people Pi-ku-li. Next to whom were the Ta ta (? the Onguts or White Tartars), then some Turkish tribes, and lastly Tangut. In the official history of the Kin dynasty the Mongols are called Mongu, and are described as living to the north-east of the Jurji. Dr. Schott says this is clearly a lapsus penicilli for north-west. Such is the account we can gather from Chinese writers as to the origin of the Mongol race, and it justifies us in tracing it up to the Shi wei.

I do not propose in this work to examine into the very crooked question of the affinities of the earlier tribes of Nomads, the Huns, and others, nor to encumber my already difficult subject with such perplexing questions; but I may say that on tracing the Mongols to the Shi wei, we connect them to some extent with the Khitans, who, according to Matuanlin, the Chinese Encyclopaedist, were descended from the Shi wei, and if this be well grounded we connect them further with the Sian pi and Uhuan, who were of the same stock as the Khitans, and also with the Yuan-Yuan. This last name is singularly like the name adopted by the Mongols for their dynasty in China, namely, Yuen, and as their country was the same as that of the Uirads, it is more than probable that the Yuan-Yuan were the ancestors of the Uirads; but I must postpone these difficult questions for another work.

It is enough to say that between the sixth and the twelfth century the Mongols proper played a very limited role in the world’s history. They were during that period confined to the northern part of Mongolia, that part still held by the Khalkas, and also to the country south-west of the Baikal Sea. After the fall of the Yuan-Yuan, the Turks, by whom they were overthrown, acquired the supreme control of Eastern Asia. They had, under the name of Hiong nu, been masters of the Mongolian desert and its border land from a very early period, and under their new name of Turks they merely re-conquered a position from which they had been driven some centuries before. Everywhere in Mongol history we find evidence of their presence, the titles Khakan, Khan, Bigui or Beg, Terkhan, &c., are common to both races, while the same names occur among Mongol and Turkish chiefs ; but the most convincing proof, and at the same time the most embarrassing result of their presence to the student is the confusion induced in the names of tribes, so that in regard to many of them, such as the Kunkurats, Durbans, &c., it is very difficult to know whether they were Turks or Mongols, these names having been borne apparently in later times by tribes and confederacies both of Turks and of Mongols. This fact of the former predominance of Turkish influence in further Asia supports the traditions collected by Raschid, Abulghazi, &c., to which I shall presently refer, which trace the race of Mongol Khans up to the old royal race of the Turks. It has a most important witness in a notice I have only recently met with. Dr. Bretschneider, at the end of his very valuable translation of the notices of Chinese travellers to the West in Mongol times, gives a letter which was sent by Jingis Khan to Chang chau. In this he refers to the Shan yu, or ruler of the Hiong nu, as “our Shan yu.” The translator adds, this proves that he considered the ancient Hiong nu the ancestors of the Mongols. It rather suggests to my mind that the royal stock to which he belonged was descended from that of the ancient Turkish Hiong nu.

Having considered the origin of the race, I will now turn to that of the royal family and examine the various traditions about it.

Ssanang Setzen makes the Mongol royal stock spring from that of Thibet, and through it from Hindostan. He tells us that Dalai Subin Aru Altan Shireghetu, the king of Thibet, was killed by treachery by his minister Longnam, who thereupon usurped the throne. The murdered Khan’s three sons fled; the eldest, Shiwaghochi, to the land of Ngangbo, the middle one, Borachi, to the land of Bubo, and the youngest, Burtechino, to that of Gongbo. Burtechino did not stay with the people of Gongbo, but having taken the maiden Goa Maral to be his wife, and having settled for a while on the borders of the Tenggis, he set out once more and at length reached the shores of the Baikal Sea, near the mountain Burkhan Khalduna, where he met the people Bede. When they had interrogated him on the motives, for his journey and discovered that he was sprung from the great Indian chief Olana ergukdeksen Khan and from the Thibetan Tul Esen, they said one to another, “This young man is of high lineage and we have no overchief, we will obey him.” Upon which they ranged themselves as his subjectst In this account we have a confusion of two legends, neither of which belongs properly to the Mongols. The story of the usurpation of Longnam we know from Thibetan sources. The Thibetan account was translated into Kalmuk, and is contained in a work entitled Nom gharkhoi todorkhoi Tolli, whence Klaproth and Schmidt have abstracted it. In the original Thibetan the three brothers are called Ja thi, Nia thi, and Sha za thi. Thi, which is written Khri, means throne, and is the surname of all the old Thibetan kings; Ja means bird or fowl, Nia means fish, and Sha za means the flesh eater. The former two are similar in meaning to the names of the two eldest sons of the dispossessed Khan in Ssanang Setzen’s story, namely, Shiwaghochi and Borachi, which respectively mean the fowler and the fisherman, while the third brother, the flesh eater, has been converted into Burtechino, which, as I shall show presently, means the greyish blue or winter-coated wolf, a very typical flesh eater. The Thibetan version takes Sha za as far as Gongbo (the Thibetan province situated north of the upper Brahmaputra), and leaves him there, and there is no mention of his journey to the Baikal, nor of the Bede people. We may safely conclude with Klaproth, Wolff, and others that the identifying of Burtechino with Sha za was the work of the Lamas, who, when the Mongols adopted their religion, desired to flatter them by tracing their reigning house, to that of Thibet, and through it up to Sakiamuni himself. The name of Burtechino and the other incidents of the legend have been borrowed from other than Thibetan sources, and are common to Ssanang Setzen and the Chinese historians, to Raschid and Abulghazi, to the Western as well as the Eastern historians of the Mongols. The legend as it existed before the additions of the Lamas may be found in the Chinese accounts. One of these authors says, “That the ancestor of the Mongol royal house was a wolf of a skyeblue colour, named Burtechino,” adding, “a name which means a wolf of the light colour which their fur wears in winter. This wolf married a white and savage bitch, that is to say, Goa Maral, for maral is a bitch, and goa in Mongol means lady. This first progenitor of the race led a wandering life, and having crossed the lake called Tenghiz, at length arrived at the mountain Burkhan at the sources of the river Onon.” As has been remarked by Klaproth and others, the legend in regard to this wolfish origin of the race is found in the Chinese annals at a much earlier period related of the origins of the Thu kiu or earliest Turks. This legend says that “The ancestors of the Thu kiu lived near the Si hai lake (probably the Issikul lake is meant). Their reigning house was destroyed by a neighbouring people, and all were massacred except a child ten years old, whose hands and feet, however, were cut off. This child was nourished by a wolf. The enemy having again threatened his life, a good genius transported him with the wolf to the east of the lake, whence they went to a mountainous country to the north-west of the country of Kao chang (or of the Uighurs), where they found a cavern bordering on a fertile plain which was only 200 li long. The female wolf there bore ten male young ones, who captured wives for themselves and gave their names to their families. As Asena was the bravest he became their chief, his descendants reigned over the people who lived there. They bore wolf’s heads oh their standards in memory of their origin. According to other accounts the name of their royal family was Sena, wolf. This account and that in Ssanang Setzen in regard to the origin of the Mongols are assuredly identical. The wolf appears prominently in both. In both we have a great lake. In both the hero proceeds eastwards after leaving it. In both he arrives in a mountainous country, and he becomes the chief of the folk who lived there. There is another fact in the two stories which has not been hitherto noticed, so far as I know, and which might have saved a good deal of hard writing by those two somewhat vitriolic persons, Klaproth and Schmidt, anent the term Bede or Bida. Ssanang Setzen tells us Burtechino became the chief of the Beda people, who lived in the Burkhan Khaldun mountains. The Chinese narrative tells us he went to the north-west (? a lapsus penicilli for north-east) of the country of the Kao chang or Uighurs. Now, I have shown in the notes at the end of this book that the Uighurs were called Bede in early times by their Thibetan and other neighbours, that the Uighurs were a section of the Turkish race, and that until the middle of the ninth century they lived in the north-west of Mongolia, close to the Burkhan Khaldun mountains, with their capital at Karakorum. Abulghazi further tells us that when Burtechino went northwards he went from the country of Irgene kun, a valley surrounded with sharp crags. This I take to be the retired valley of the Issikul, called Timurtu gol, or the iron lake, by the Mongols, the seat of the earliest Turkish traditions. The name Irgene kun is probably identical with the Organum, mentioned by Rubruquis. This series of facts make it very clear that just as the Mongols borrowed their Thibetan genealogy from their Lama teachers, so they derived from the Uighurs, who first taught them letters in the thirteenth century, the story of the descent of their Imperial family from the old Turkish Khans. Notwith­standing this, it is more than probable, as I have said, that there was a considerable amount of truth in the latter legend.

Raschid, who had access to the Golden Register of the Mongols, and whose critical powers were very considerable, connects them with the old Turkish royal stock. Like a good Mussulman, he begins with the patriarchs who are such prominent figures both in the Old Testament and the Koran.

The following table shows the earlier descents according to these curious genealogists :—

In this genealogy we have a curious medley, in which Turks and Mongols are confounded. The table is in fact the legendary table of the ancestry of the Turkish tribes, and Kara Khan, Oghuz Khan, and Il Khan are famous names in Turkish history. The country where we are told these princes lived was lake Issikul, the Karakum desert, and the borders of the Jaxartes, that is, the old Turk land; and there can be small doubt that when the Mongols became famous, and the Turkish and Persian historians were at a loss, as the Lamas were at a later date, to find a suitably dignified ancestry for their princes, they boldly tacked them on to the line of old Turkish sovereigns.

We are told that the families descended from Tatar and Mogol Khan were at constant feud with one another, and at length the latter were nearly extirpated. The only remaining members of it being the Kian and Nokuz above mentioned, who with their people took refuge in the famous valley of Irgene kun. Here their descendants remained for 400 years. We are not told who the princes were who reigned during this interval and after its close the story really commences again, and the statement clearly hides one of the joints in the patchwork, and is of value only as showing how the incongruous materials of the genealogy have been pieced together. At length, after 400 years, the Mongols are said to have broken the yoke of the Tartars, and to have issued from the defiles of Irgene kun. Abulghazi says that their king at the time when they left was Burtechino, descended from Kian, and of the tribe of the Kurulas. This Burtechino and the Burtechino of Ssanang Setzen are clearly the same person, proving further that we here have a fresh beginning of the story. The Kurulas were a section of the Turkish tribe of the Kunkurats, thus the connection with the Turks is still kept up in the legend.

According to the Chinese accounts Burtechino had a son Bedetse. Ssanang Setzen, who has merely interpolated certain names in the older lists, gives Bedetse a brother Bedes, making the former the ancestor of the Taidshuts and the latter of the Mongols, contrary to the much better authority of Raschid.

The following table shows the succession according to Ssanang Setzen and the Persian Raschid.

Burtechino.                                  Burtechino.

Bedetse.                                       Bichin Kian.

Tamatsak.                                    Timaj.

Khoritsar Merges.                        Kichi Merguen.

Aghojim Bughurul.                      Kudjum Bughrul.

Sali xihaldshigo.

Nige Nidun (i.e., one-eyed).       Yeke Nidun (large-eyed).

Samsuji.                                       Sam Sauji.

Khali Khartshu.                           Khali Khaju.

So far the two lists are practically identical and clearly derived from the same source, but at this point they diverge.

Ssanang Setzen makes Khali be succeeded by Bordshigetei Mergen, who seems to be merely an eponymous created to explain the family name Bordshig. His wife Mergen Mongholdshin Goa seems to be an equivalent of the Mongol name. Their son he calls Torghaldshin Bayan, who by his wife Borokchin Goa had two sons, named Doa Sokhor and Dobo Mergen. The former is given four sons, namely, Donoi, Dokshin, Emnek, and Erke, who are made the ancestors of the four Uirad tribes. All this except the mention of Dobo Mergen is an interpolation, and one which has been very ingeniously explained. Dobo or Dubun, as he is called by Raschid, has been identified with Topo Khan, the great chief of the Turks, who died in 581. He had a brother named Sekin or Sakui, who is no doubt the Doa Sochor of Ssanang Setzen. We are told that on the death of Topo Khan the Turks were divided into four sections, just as Ssanang Setzen makes Doa Sokhor’s four sons be the heads of the four Uirad tribes. The whole is an ingenious adaptation of the Turk legend, and is of no value. Raschid, who is a much better authority, makes Khali Khaju be immediately succeeded by Dubun Bayan, while Abulghazi interposes the names of Timur Tash, Mingli Khodja, and Yolduz Khan. M. Desmaison says he does not know where he has got them from. With Dubun Bayan, or Dubun the Ox, we get again on common ground. Ssanang Setzen tells us that Doa Sokhor was so called because (like Cyclops) he had only one eye, and this in the midst of his forehead. One day as he and his brother were playing on the mountain Burkhan Khaldun, the elder brother said, there comes a caravan from the district of Toiring Garudi along the river Tunggelik. (This stream is still called the Tungglu. It springs on the west side of the mountains Burkhan Khaldun, and flows into the Karagol.) In one of the wagons there is a girl supernaturally born. We will go and see her, and she shall be your wife. After this they both set out and discovered that she was born of Baraghodshin Goa, the wife of Khoritai Mergen, of the Khoyar Tumed. Raschid says she belonged to the tribe of the Kurulas, (she was a Turk), and that she had a spirit for her father. Her name was Alung Goa, and Dobo Mergen made her his wife, and by her had two sons, Belgetei and Begontei, and then died. After her husband’s death (Abulghazi says some years after) Alung Goa one night had a dream, during which a ray of light penetrated through a hole in the ceiling into her tent, and took the form of a fair-haired youth with blue eyes who lay by her; by him she had three sons, Bughu Khataki, Bughu Saldshigo, and Budantsar Mong Khan.

In reference to this legend, it may be remarked that it is a repetition of the original story of the incarnation of the Buddha Sakiamuni. A similar story is told about the birth of Apaokhi, the founder of the Liau dynasty, and also of Aishin Giyoro, the reputed founder of the Manchu dynasty. The existence of Alung Goa is attested by so many independent witnesses, that it may perhaps be believed. Raschid tells us that, according to the history of the house of Genghis Khan, deposited in the Imperial treasury (the same MS. elsewhere referred to by Raschid as the Altan Defter, or Golden Register), and according to the evidence of very old men, she probably lived four centuries before his time, i.e., in the early years of the Abbasids and the Samanids. This would answer to the date when the name Mongol first appears in the Chinese histories. Her descendants were called Bordshig, probably in reference to the colour of the eyes of their supernatural father, for Abulghazi says that the Mongols called a person with light blue eyes Burjighin. Schmidt tells us that Bordshig means with brownish grey eyes. Ssanang Setzen gives the Mongols the name of Koke Mongols or Blue Mongols, and the whole has reference, no doubt, to the heavenly or supernatural origin of the race.

The three sons who were supernaturally born and their posterity were named Niruns (children of light), to distinguish them from their older brothers and their descendants, who were styled Darlegins. According to Raschid, the Niruns were to the Darlegins as the pearl is to the oyster and the fruit to the tree. This distinction, which is largely insisted upon by the Persian historians, is one full of embarrassment to the student. The Orientals are very poor ethnologists, and their distinctions are rather political than ethnic. We constantly find in the accounts of Arabic and Persian geographers the greatest confusion in regard to race distinctions. In the present instance the confusion is profound. Thus the most important section of the Darlegins, namely, the Kunkurats, who formed a confederacy of six tribes, were, I am convinced, not Mongols at all but Turks, a view for whose justification I must refer to the notes at the end of the volume, where I have also tried to show that their country was not, as D’Ohsson argues, on the borders of Manchuria, but on the western part of the Shamo desert south of the river Onghin. Some of the Nirun tribes I also think were very probably Turks, namely, the Durbans, the Barins, and the Sukanuts, who lived in the central part of the desert, the name of one tribe still remaining attached to the district of Barin or Parin there. There is good reason for believing the Bayauts another Darlegin tribe, to have been also Turks. They lived on the western feeders of the Selinga. On the other hand, the Darlegin tribes of the Umauts, Hushins, Suldus, Ildurkins, and Kingits were probably Mongols, but not subject to the Imperial family to which Genghis Khan belonged, and not immediately governed by his relatives, but, like the Uirads, directly ruled over by another stock. The name Nirun was probably confined to those who obeyed immediately the royal family of the Bordshigs, and can perhaps best be explained by the use of the term “white bones” among the Kazaks of our day, a name they apply to those only who belong to the royal stock. Each of the three sons of Alung Goa who were miraculously born is made the eponymous hero of a distinguished stock. The eldest one of that of the Katakins, the second of the Saljuts, and the third of that of the Bordshigs or Imperial stock of the Mongols. The two former tribes were among the most inveterate enemies of Genghis Khan in his early days. They perhaps looked upon him as only representing the younger branch of the family, as he was descended from Alung Goa’s third son. We are told that Budantsar had a distinguished presence, but that he was simple in his tastes, serious, and talked little, which made his relatives think he had but little spirit. His mother, however, reassured them, and told them he would have a numerous progeny. On her death a quarrel seemed imminent among the brothers in regard to the division of the heritage. “Why embarrass yourself with wealth?” said Bundantsar, are not the plans of man scattered by the will of the gods?”. He thereupon mounted his horse and went to the country of Palitun alan. Ssanang Setzen says that when the heritage was divided nothing was assigned to Budantsar except a tawny horse named Uruk Sussuk. This he mounted and hied him along the river Onon. At Palitun ala he found himself short of pro­visions. Meanwhile he saw a falcon devouring a quarry of the species called Khara Khuru. He caught it with a lasso and trained it to kill game for him, while he obtained drink from a small colony of people who lived close by, separated from their race and without any ruler. His nights he passed in a thatched hut. This account, with slight variations, is common to Ssanang Setzen and the Chinese author translated by De Mailla. But to continue. After a while Budantsar was joined by several families who had left their tribe in the country of Tonkili hulu and had settled around him. His brother Bughu Khataki went to find him and returned with him. On his return home Budantsar told his people that with a small force he could easily subdue the people of Tunkili hulu. Having accordingly got together a body of men he set out for that country, which he conquered. Hyacinthe has corrected Tunkili hulu into Tenggeri-Khura, i.e., the celestial ramparts, by which the chain of Burkhan Khaldun is doubtless meant.

According to Raschid and the Chinese authorities Budantsar left one son. I prefer to follow the orthography of Hyacinthe and to call him Bagaritai Khabitshi. According to Raschid he was succeeded by his son Dutum Menen, called Minen Dudum by Hyacinthe, the Mahatudan of De Mailla, and Makha Todan of Ssanang Setzen. His wife was named Monalun, and by her, according to the Chinese authorities, he had seven sons. Raschid says nine. It is with her that we first meet with an incident to relieve the general monotony of the story, and which is so circumstantially told that we can hardly doubt its having some foundation in fact. The story goes that the Jelairs having been defeated near the river Kerulon by an army of Kin Tartars, seventy of their families took refuge on Mongol territory. These fugitives, to appease their hunger, proceeded to dig some wild roots that grew there. The root, according to Raschid, was called sudusum, and it has been identified with great probability by M. Berezine with a root still called sudu by the Mongols, the sanguisorba camea of botanists, which is used as a substitute for tea. Monalun, who was of a truculent and irritable disposition, inquired harshly how they dared to tear up the ground where her children exercised their horses, and without waiting for an answer, she ran over several of them with her chariot. The Jelairs resented this, made a raid upon the horses of her tribe and captured them. Her sons went in pursuit without waiting to put on their armour. Their mother, fearing for the result, sent off their wives with carts loaded with armour, but they arrived too late. The chiefs had been killed, and the Jelairs returned and put Monalun and such of her family as they could lay hands upon to death. According to the Chinese narrative, which I prefer to follow, there only escaped in this massacre Nachin, the youngest son of Monalun, who was then living in the country of Bargu, where he was married, and Kaidu, the infant child of her eldest son, and who was hid away by his nurse in a bundle of faggots. This Nachin, who no doubt succeeded in some measure to the chief authority among the Mongols, is clearly the Kachi Kuluk of Ssanang Setzen. On hearing of this disaster he returned to the horde, and plotted his revenge. Having disguised himself as a herdsman, he went towards the Jelair country. On his way he met two men, father and son, who were hawking, and some distance apart. Seeing his brother’s hawk on the younger Jelair’s fist, he first told him he had seen some wild ducks and geese, and would conduct him to them. Having taken him some distance, he assassinated him, and returning, also killed his father. He soon after came across a herd of horses, which had also belonged to his brothers. Having killed the young people in charge, he returned with the herd, and with the hawk on his fist. He then removed his father’s uluss and the young Kaidu to the country of Barguchin Tugrum, which from the latter took the name of Kaidu Chunlun. When Kaidu grew up his uncle caused him to be recognised as their chief by the people of Bargu and Tsieku. He then marched against and subdued the Jelairs, and fixed his residence at the river Karakul. Many tribes submitted to him. He became rich in wives and cattle. He built many towns and villages on the banks of the Onon, across which river he also built a bridge, and he was doubtless the real founder of the Mongol power. Kaidu Khan left three sons, Bai Sankur, who succeeded him, Jerke Linkum, who became the chief of the Taidshuts, and Jaujin Urdeki, who became the chief of the Sidshuts and Ertekins. Of these only the eldest is mentioned by Ssanang Setzen and De Mailla. He is called Shingkor Dokshin by the former and Paichongor by the latter. Ssanang Setzen’s is probably the correct orthography, and I shall follow it.

Shingkor Dokshin had a son named Tumbaghai; the Tumene Khan oft Raschid and Abulghazi. On his death Shingkor’s widow married his next brother Jerkeh Lingkum, whose name, according to Raschid, is of Chinese etymology, Lingkum meaning great prince. By her he had two sons, namely, Gendu Jineh and Ulgedshin Jineh, who became the chiefs of the clans Jines; and by another wife two others, named Surkul and Ludshineh. The son and successor of Surkul was Hemukai Khan, to whom I shall revert presently.

Tumbaghai left nine sons, who became the founders of very numerous tribes. So much did they increase that we are told that in A.D. 1300, but two centuries after this time, they numbered nearly 30,000 families. These sons are thus named :—1. Jaksu, the father of Nuyakin, Unit, and Mingkut, the respective chiefs of the tribes bearing those names. 2. Barim Shiratu Khaiju, the chief of a tribe not named. 3. Kajuli, father of Erdemji Berulas, the chief of the Berulas, the tribe to which the great Timur belonged. 4. Sem kadjun, the chief of the Hederkins. 5. Baitkulki, the chief of the Budats. 6. Kabul Khan, the ancestor of Genghis Khan. 7. Udur Bayan, the chief of the Jadjerats or Juriats. 8. Budanjar Doghlan (the cripple), the chief of the Doghlats. And 9. Jintai, the chief of the Yissuts (called Baisuts by Erdmann); he was also styled Utchugen, like the other youngest sons of the Mongol Khans. Utchugen, according to Abulghazi, means “the master of the hearth,” and is derived from the fact that while the other sons were each settled elsewhere, the youngest remained at home and was the heir to his father’s yurt. Schmidt disagrees with this, and says it merely means the youngest or the child.

After the great exploits of Timur in the fourteenth century, it became the fashion of his flatterers to connect his ancestry very closely with that of the family of Genghis Khan, and he is made to descend from Karachar, who is styled the hereditary leader of his forces. The story is contained in several of the later writers. According to Mirkhond the origin of this hereditary position was as follows:—“One day Kajuli, the third son of Tumeneh or Tumbagai, dreamt that a star issued from the thigh of his brother Kabul, but the firmament remained dark; then a second one, and it became twilight; then a third, and it was dusk. Then there came out a very sparkling star, so that the whole sky was lit up with its rays, which imparted a greater lustre to the other stars. Kajuli awoke, and supposed that only a third of the night had passed. He meditated on his dream, and went to sleep again. Again a series of stars issued, but this time from his own thigh. This scries consisted of eight stars, of which the last was again by far the most brilliant. When daylight came Kajuli betook himself to his father Tumeneh, and related his dream. He was much pleased with it, called his son Kabul Khan, and had it repeated to him. The grandees maintained that three princes descended from Kabul Khan would mount the throne; that another of his descend­ants would enjoy the Imperial authority, and would conquer the earth from one end to the other; and after his death his dominions would remain for a long time subject to his descendants. That from Kajuli would also spring seven descendants, who would bear rule, and the eighth would far eclipse them, and also rule the earth. Tumeneh Khan was much struck by this dream, and with the concurrence of his other sons he named Kabul Khan his successor, and appointed Kajuli generalissimo of his forces, and left it in his will that these posts should be hereditary. This will was written in the Uighur character, was sealed with his Tamgha (or monogram), and it was kept in the Imperial treasury. Kabul Khan mounted the throne, and Kajuli Khan Baghatur faithfully performed his office.”

Kabul was apparently the first Mongol sovereign who had intercourse with the Chinese Imperial court. It is said that having been summoned to the court of the Kin Emperor, he astonished him by his immense appetite. One day, being very drunk, he so far forgot himself as to seize the Emperor’s beard. When he became sober, he demanded to be punished, but the Emperor only laughed ; and to show that he had over­looked the fault, presented him with a gold-embroidered silken garment suitable to his size, a crown, and a golden girdle. After his departure, instigated by his courtiers, the Emperor sent messengers to demand his return; and when these messengers tried to take him away forcibly, he had them put to death.

It is probably to this period that we must assign the events referred to in the history of the Kin dynasty styled the Ta kin kwo chi, where we read that during the reign of the Kin Emperor Tai tsung, whose Tungusie name was Ukimai, in the interval between 1123-1137, a great number of the Mongols became subject to him, but in the next reign, 1138-1140, they were rebellious. This surely points to the sub­mission and the subsequent rebellion of Kabul Khan. At this period we also meet with the Mongols in the pages of De Mailla. He tells us that about 1135 they began to be very powerful and a menace to the empire, and that towards the end of this year the Kin Emperor sent his general Hushaku against them. This general was not successful, and Hushaku was obliged to retire. His retreat was the signal for the advance of the Mongols, who captured many of his people and followed him as far as the district of Hai ling, where the Kin general ventured a general engagement, and his army was cut in pieces. Another and more formidable army was sent against them. This was apparently in 1139.

It was in the reign of Kabul Khan that the long feud commenced between the Mongols and Tartars, which ended in the destruction of the latter by Genghis Khan. Kabul’s wife was named Goa Kulkua, and she was of the tribe of the Kunkurats. It happened that her brother, named Sain Tikin, fell ill, and a Tartar Shaman named Jerkil Nuduij was summoned to cure him. Notwithstanding his conjuring, Sain Tikin died, and his relatives wreaked their vengeance on the sorcerer, who was returning quietly home, and killed him. The Tartars took up arms to revenge him. A struggle ensued at a place called Beran Segdan, in which Kedan Behadur distinguished himself in single combat with the Tartar leader Meter Behadur. The struggle was resumed the following year, and led to many fights between the Mongols and the Tartars. One result of this war was that Hemukai, the chief of the Taidshuts, who had gone to fetch his wife from among the Tartars, was taken prisoner by them. He was, as we have seen, a near relative of Kabul Khan. The Tartars sent him as a prisoner to the Kin Emperor, who, to revenge himself upon Kabul Khan for the murder of his envoys, had him put to death in the cruel method adopted in the case of rebels. He was nailed down to a wooden ass, his skin stripped off, and his body hewn into pieces. Kabul Khan marched against the Kin empire and revenged himself. Some time after it would appear that the Tartars captured Ukin Berkak, Kabul Khan’s eldest son, and sent him also as a prisoner to the Kin court. There he was put to death in the same manner as Hemukai.

Kabul Khan had six sons, whose impetuosity and vigour fitly gained them the surname of Kiat, or Kiyat, torrents. Abulghazi says that the Mongols call a mountain torrent Kian, of which the plural is Kiat. Kiat or Kiyat, as is well known was the family name of Genghis Khan, and it seems to be much older than the days of Kabul Khan. The Chinese form of the name is Kian. Kian and Noguz or Nokus were the two sections of the Mongols who sought refuge at Irgene kun; and it is curious that one of the four main divisions of the Turkish Uzbegs is called Kiat Kunghrat or Kiat Kunkurat. This is another proof that the Mongol royal race was descended from that of the Turks. These six sons were named Ukin Berkak, Bardam Behadur, Khutuktu Munker, Kadan Behadur, Kutula Khan, and Tudan Utshugen. (I Have followed the orthography of M. Beresine in the notes to the new edition of Abulghazi.) Of these the most famous was Kutula Khan, called Kubilai by D’Ohsson, and Kutlah Khan by Erdmann. He was a favourite hero of Mongol story. His voice is compared to the thunder in the mountains, his hands were strong like bear’s paws, and with them he could break a man in two as easily as an arrow may be broken. He would lie naked near an immense brazier in the winter, heedless of the cinders and sparks that fell on his body, and, on awakening, would mistake the burns merely for the bites of insects. He ate a sheep a day, and drank immense quantities of kumis. To revenge the murder of their relatives the Mongols now entered upon a great campaign against the Kin empire. Of this expedition Kutula was elected the leader; with him also went Yissugei, the grandson of Kabul Khan and the father of Genghis; Kadan Taishi, the son of Hemukai, and his son Tuda. They defeated the Imperial army and retired with a rich booty. On his return homewards Kutula amused himself with hunting, and got separated from the rest of the army, with only one follower and a slave. He was thus almost alone when he was surprised by the Durbans. On their approach he sped his horse at full gallop and drove it into a marsh, where it sank, but be sprang on the saddle and thence on to the ground. The Durbans, it is said, disdained to touch him, saying, “What can a Mongol do without his horse?” and they accordingly left him, upon which he returned to his horse, seized it by its mane, pulled it out of the quagmire, and returned homewards. Meanwhile the news of his disaster had reached his home, where it was thought he had been killed, and Yissugei had already carried the meats for the funeral feasts to the yurts of Kadan Taishi, and Tuda, the relatives of Hamukai, and to that of Kutula’s widow. But the latter refused to credit the story. “How can he whose voice is like the thunder, and whose hands are like bear’s paws, become a victim to the Durbans? Depend upon it his delay is caused by some other reason, and he will come presently.’’ After recovering his horse he determined not to return home empty handed, but having caught a stallion belonging to the Durbans, he drove a herd of their oxen before him, filled his boots with the eggs of wild geese which he found on the steppe, and rode home barefoot. Nothing of this appears in the pages of Ssanang Setzen, of De Mailla, or of Abulghazi, nor in fact is Kutula mentioned by them at all. They all make Kabul Khan be immediately succeeded by Bartam Behadur, and if the exploits assigned to him are really his, and not his father’s, or rightly belonging to some other hero of Mongol romance, they must be credited to him not as the Khan of the Mongol race but as the bravest of the six Kiats. Although Ssanang Setzen does not mention him individually he does refer to the brothers, and has a story which seems to exclude him effectually from the succession. He says that Kabul Khan had seven sons, and that Ambai, i.e., Hemuki, the chief of the Taidshuts, had ten, and that a strife having arisen between them, the latter fell on the former and killed six of the seven brothers, plundered and subdued their territory. The seventh, Bardam Baghatur (the Bertam Behader of Erdmann), escaped with three wounds, escorted by four “companions,” while his eldest son Yissugei Baghatur, then thirteen years old, speared a mailed warrior through and through, and having seized his horse followed his father. Sain Maral Khayak, the wife of Bardam Baghatur, had meanwhile escaped on foot with her three younger sons, Negun, Mengetu, and Utchugen. We do not know how the Mongols revenged this defeat. We are simply told by Ssanang Setzen that Kabul Khan was succeeded by his son Bardam Baghatur. De Mailla says the same, only he calls him Pardai. Abulghazi also says that on the death of Kabul Khan his son Bartan was proclaimed Khan, and we may take it as clear that these authorities are right. The difficulty about the exact status of Kutula does not affect the truth of the statements about the fight with the Kin empire. This we can confirm from other sources. Thus we read in De Mailla, under the year 1147, that the war between the Kin empire and the Mongols still continued, and the son of Talan, called Chinghoa-tulang, whose country bordered on that of the Mongols, on the death of his father abandoned the cause of the Kins and went over to them, a defection which proved very valuable to them, and the general Uchu, who, on his return from Pien leang, was sent against them was constrained to make peace with them, to surrender twenty-seven fortresses north of the river Si ping ho, and to promise to pay them annually a certain quantity of cattle, sheep, and grain. He wished to give their chief the dignity of prince with the title of Mongfu-kuewang, but the chief refused it and styled himself Emperor of the great empire of the Mongols, with the title Tsuyuen Wangti. The effects of this campaign are doubtless referred to in the history of the Kin dynasty, already mentioned, which speaks in more general terms. There we read that in 1138-1140 the Mongku became rebellious. Since then, it goes on to say, the Mongku have obtained many Khitan and Chinese boys and girls, either in war or by way of ransom, who have coalesced with them; have gradually got accustomed to the use of cooked meats, and become a great nation under the name of Ta Mongu kuô, the kingdom of the Great Mongols. These extracts prove that the Mongols had already consolidated a considerable power some time before the days of Genghis Khan.

The wife of Bardam Baghatur, according to Ssanang Setzen, was called Sain Maral Khayak. She is called Sunigel Fudshin by Erdmann, who tells us she belonged to the tribe of the Barghuts. By her he had four sons, Yissugei Baghatur, Negun Taishi, Mungdu Kian, and Dariti Utchugen. Of these Yissugei was the most famous, and succeeded him on the throne.

Ssanang Setzen has a story that one day Yissugei was hunting in company with his two younger brothers, and was following the tracks of a white hare in the snow. They struck upon the spoor of a waggon, and following it up came to a spot where a woman’s yurt was pitched. Then said Yissugei, “This woman will bear a valiant son.” He dis­covered that she was the damsel Ogelen Eke (the mother of nations), and that she was the wife of Yeke Yilatu, of the Tartar tribe, and was returning home with him. As the strangers drew near her yurt she said to her husband, “Don’t you see the intention of the eldest of the three men?” With these words she took off her under garment, gave it to Jilatu, and said, “Haste you away as quickly as you can.” While this was going on the three brothers drew near, and Yeke Yilatu took to flight. They plundered neither the hut nor its contents, but only carried away Ogelen Eke. She ceased not to cry until the youngest of the three brothers, Dariti Utchugen, addressed her, and said, “We have already crossed three rivers, we already have three mountain ranges behind us. Pursuit is hopeless. Your cries will not be heard.” Upon which our author says she became quieter. Yissugei made her his wife. De Mailla tells us that until his reign the Mongols had been more or less tributaries of the Liau and Kin dynasties in China, and that he was the first to free them from that yoke; and it is not improbable that we must assign to him, and not to an earlier Khan, the events I have already related, when the Mongol Khan refused to accept a Chinese title and styled himself the Emperor of the Great Mongols. Previously the Taidshuts had apparently been the chief tribe among the Mongols, but they were induced to obey the strong hand of Yissugei Baghatur. After the death of Hemukei, the chief of the Taidshuts, there was a grievous contention among his relatives as to who should succeed him, but this was decided, as I have already described, by the choice of Terkutai Kiriltuk.

In 1154 and 1155 Yissugei marched with a large army against the Tartars. He overran their country, laid it waste, and captured its two chiefs, Temujin Ergeh and Kur Buka, and returned home to his encamp­ment on the Onon laden with booty. At this time his wife Ogelen Eke gave birth to his firstborn son, upon which they named the boy Temujin, or rather Temudjin, after the defeated Tartar Khan.

The birthplace of the famous chief, who was to be so widely known in later days, is fortunately easy to fix. It is called “Deligun Buldagba, near the Onon” by Ssanang Setzen, and Tie li vun by Hyacinth. The place is still known under the same name, and is mentioned by a Russian trader named Yurinski, a native of Nertschinsk, who describes Dilun Boldak as a place on the right bank of the Onon, seven versts higher than the island Eke Aral (the great island), and three versts from the Kotshuefshian guard-house. D’Ohsson says that Bulduk in Mongol means hill. Wolff explains the name as meaning “the mole hill”. Deligun Bulduk was doubtless the place where Yissugei had his chief camp and was the focus of his kingdom. According to Ssanang Setzen, Temudjin was proclaimed Khan and took the name of Genghis there, among the places whose memory is invoked in the burial dirge composed for his funeral by Kiluken Baghatur, Deligun Bulduk on the Onon is specially apostrophised and we gather from other sources that the country of the Onon was in fact the cradle land of the Mongols. It is called the land of Onon Kerule by Rubruquis. This name has been interpreted as the land of the Onon and the Kerulon, but I believe it is merely a corruption of Onon Kiher, the plains of the Onon. Those plains are otherwise frequently referred to as Sari Kiher, or the Yellow Plains. The Onon springs in the knot of mountains known as the Kente chain, and called Burkhan Khaldun by the Mongol historians, the sacred peaks to which sacrifices were offered, and whose spirits were looked upon as the special patrons of the Mongols, as those of the White Mountains of Manchuria were of the Manchus.

But we must on with our story. According to the Persian authors followed by De la Croix, the young Temudjin’s horoscope was drawn by the father of Karachar Noyan, the ancestor of Timurlenk, who foretold a bloody career for him. Besides Temudjin, Yissugei had by his wife Ogelen Eke three other sons, namely, Juji Khassar, Khadshiken, and Temugu Utchugen, and by two other wives, named Goa Abaghai and Doghaskhi, two other sons, named Bekter and Belgutei. It is quite clear from the subsequent history that Yissugei was obeyed by all the sections of the Mongol race comprised in the divisions Niruns and Darlighins. We do not realise in this statement how very small the beginnings were of that vast empire built up by his son, nor do we do so until we read that the number of families subject to his father probably did not exceed 40,000, and that his kingdom may therefore be fitly compared, as Erdmann has compared it, with the dukedoms of Oldenburgh or Saxe Weimar Eisenach, assuredly a very small focus out of which in so short a time to build up so large an empire. The assistance of Yissugei was sought by the celebrated Wang Khan of the Keraits, the Prester John of so many romances, whose story will be told in detail in the tenth chapter. He had been driven away from the throne by his uncle Gur Khan. Yissugei marched to his assistance, drove Gur Khan into Tangut, and replaced Wang Khan on the throne. The latter, cap in hand, swore an eternal friendship to his benefactor, in Mongol phrase, became anda or sworn friend. Yissugei died in 1175. According to the Saga of Ssanang Setzen, he was a victim to the treachery of the Tartars, who one day asked him to take food in one of their tents, and then mixed poison with the meat. He was succeeded by his son Temudjin, who acquired a wideworld fame under his title of Genghis Khan. His history forms the subject of the next chapter.

HISTORY OF THE MONGOLS. CHAPTER III. GENGHIS KHAN.