LITMIR.BIZ

      “The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions, to see the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms.” Genghis Khan

      The events of his youth that went to create Genghis Khan make extraordinary reading. Very few contemporary records survive and even the most famous of them, ‘The Secret History of the Mongols’ was almost lost. The original in his own language commissioned by Genghis did not survive the centuries. Fortunately, a version was rendered phonetically in Chinese and it is from that writing that we have most of our knowledge of Temujin of the Borjigin – the Blue Wolves. A translation into English by Arthur Waley became my chief source for Wolf of the Plains.

      Though the exact meaning of the name is disputed, Temujin-Uge was a Tartar killed by Yesugei, who then named his son after the warrior he had defeated. The name has similarities to the Mongolian word for iron and that is generally accepted as its meaning, though it could just be coincidence. Temujin was born holding a clot of blood in his hand, which would have frightened those who looked for such omens.

      Temujin was tall for a Mongol, with ‘cat’s eyes’. Even amongst a hardy people, he was noted for his ability to endure heat and cold and was indifferent to wounds. He had complete mastery of his own body in terms of endurance. As a people, the Mongols have excellent teeth and eyesight, black hair and reddish skin and believe themselves to be related to the native American tribes who crossed the Bering strait while it was frozen and so entered Alaska around 15,000 years ago. The similarities between the peoples are startling.

      In modern Mongolia, the majority of the population still hunt with a bow or rifle, herd sheep and goats and revere ponies. They practise shamanism and any high place will be marked with lengths of blue cloth to honour the sky father. Sky burial – that is, laying out bodies to be torn apart by wild birds in high places – is as I have described it.

      The young Temujin was taken to his mother’s old tribe, the Olkhun’ut, to find him a wife, though his mother Hoelun was taken in the other way of finding a woman – by Yesugei and his brothers kidnapping her from her husband. Yesugei was almost certainly poisoned by his Tartar enemies though exact details are sketchy.

      With his father gone, the tribe chose a new khan and abandoned Hoelun and seven children, down to Temulun, a baby girl. I have not included a half-brother Begutei in this story, as he did not play a major part and there were too many similar names already. In the same way, I have changed names where I felt the original was too long or too complex. Eeluk is far simpler than ‘Tarkhutai-kiriltukh’. Mongolian is not an easy language to pronounce, though it is worth mentioning that they have no ‘k’ sound, so that Khan would be said as ‘Haan’. Kubla Khan, the grandson of Genghis, would have been pronounced as ‘Hoop-Lie Haan’. It is true that Genghis is perhaps better rendered as ‘Chinggis’, but ‘Genghis’ is how I learned it first and the one that resonates for me.

      Hoelun and her children were not expected to survive and it is a testament to that extraordinary woman that not one of them died in the winter that followed. We do not know exactly how they survived starvation and temperatures plunging as low as -20, but the death of Bekter shows how close to the ragged edge they were during that period. That said, my guide in Mongolia slept in his deel in very low temperatures, so that his hair had frozen to the ground on waking. They are a hardy people and to this day, practise three sports of wrestling, archery and horse-riding to the exclusion of everything else.

      Temujin killed Bekter much as I have described it, though it was Khasar, not Kachiun who fired the second shot. After Bekter stole food, both boys ambushed him with bows. To understand this act, I think it must be first necessary to see your family starve. Mongolia is an unforgiving land. The boy, Temujin, was never cruel, and there is no record of him ever taking pleasure from the destruction of his enemies, but he was capable of utter ruthlessness.

      When the tribe sent men back to see what had become of the family they had abandoned, they met fierce resistance and arrow fire from the brothers. After a chase, Temujin hid from them deep in a thicket for nine days without food before starvation eventually forced him out. He was captured, but escaped and hid in a river. The bank of blue ice I described is not in the Secret History, though I saw such a thing on my travels in Mongolia. I changed

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