DE BELLIS BOOKSTORE

Sections

Last Updated: May 14, 2000

Contact: Chris Brantley, brant@erols.com.

Special Feature -- Book Reviews

Tim Severin's In Search of
Genghis Khan

Reviewed by Paul Rice

In Search of Genghis Khan, by Tim Severin (Out of print, 1992).

This is a tale of two Englishmen who ride through the wilds of Mongolia in 1990. Many years back, Severin had written his Master's thesis on the findings of 13th century westerners sent as ambassadors to the Khakhan (Mongol) court, and 19th century western explorers of Mongolia. With that in mind, it started out as a plan of Severin's to mount an expedition to follow the path of 13th century Chinese Taoist scholar Ch'ang Ch'un, who followed the Silk Roads, but after the reclusive Mongolian government responded it had been reconditioned to a Mongolian plan to ride an expedition all the way from Mongolia to France.

According to Severin, the Mongolian outlook on life is so provincial that they honestly believed the environment of Mongolia would be constant all the way to France, thus they would not have to consider factors like crossing forests, highways, or cities. They also felt any groups of people they might run into would be honored to be visited by a group of travelling Mongols, since they are from the most important part of the world.

As it turned out he made a "trial ride" of a week's length or so to the holy mountain Burkhan Khaldun, which saved Chinggis's life and where he is theoretically buried, to shake out bugs (including composition of the team), and then another ride of a few hundred miles.

The Mongolian horse is much smaller than western horses, a pony by our standards. Being shorter, they are also slower, and would even lose long distance races to bred horses. However, they are far more durable and hardy than domesticated horses. Perhaps the most telling anecdote is that in the few months he spent there, Severin never saw an arat feed his horse: the horses were just left to fend for themselves eating whatever they could find. A herdsman would never think to take his horses indoors to protect them from the arctic, sub zero, 50mph weather. As a result, only the hardiest of horses survive. These horses climb mountains and broken terrain like mules.

Some of Severin's arats (herdsman, basically any male outside of a city) were permanently bow-legged, and could barely walk. He commented they never travelled more than twenty paces on foot. Any longer distance, they rode a horse. Severin witnessed many times where his arats strapped themselves into the saddle and slept while riding.

Many changes of horses along the way. At one time their little expedition had over 100 horses. Many herds had a few "wild horses" which were believed to be directly descended from never-domesticated horses. Skeptical.

Outside of the two cities of Ulaan Baatar and Karakorum, life pretty much hasn't changed in seven centuries or longer. The people are still semi-nomadic, herd horses, sheep, and cattle, and live in gers (felt tents aka yurts. Gers appear constantly throughout the book). Their diet is entirely meat and dairy, primarily mutton and beef, and several products from mare's and cow's milk, supplemented by varmints and rodents. Some nomads never eat a vegetable in their entire life. The Englishmen picked wild mushrooms and onions to spice up the diet. Even in 1990, hygiene and sanitation are well below western standards, and practically barbaric. Part of their visit was curtailed by another breakout of the Black Plague.

The religion is a mix of elemental (e.g. earth, fire, sky) shamanism, lamist Buddhism, and a pocket of Islam. However, Chinggis has achieved god status, although Severin refers to his worship as a personality cult. When the communists took over in 1924 (Mongolia was the second communist nation on Earth) they set about destroying the lamaseries, killed many monks in the process, "relocated" 97,000 of the rest; and burnt their holy books. The communists left few of the 1700 lamaseries standing. The travellers found obos, small shrines to the elemental gods, all over the land. I'm reminded of Campbell's assertion that the god of the forest is not the god of the desert is not the god of the plains.

Severin draws many parallels to the American Plains Indians. He makes an accurate analogy: it was as if in the 13th century one man managed to unite the various tribes of the (now US) Great Plains, and then in one lifetime conquered all of the Americas from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego. *That* is what Chinggis Khan did.

Nationwide alcoholism, going back to at least Khan's day. Although the Soviets introduced vodka, the preferred beverage is still (shimiin) arkhi, which is fermented mare's milk.

Severin states it is a complete misnomer to call the Mongols "Tatars". Prior to Temujin, who changed his name to Chinggis, what we now call the Mongols were several "ununited" tribes (e.g., Mongols, Onggirat, Merkid, Tatars, Tayichigud). Temujin started out as a gang leader of outlaws, leading no more than 12 men, and was the first man to ever unite the various tribes. The Tatars were a tribe which Chinggis despised, and he launched a genocidal war to eradicate them.

Chinggis called himself "ruler of all those who live in felt tents." Khan roughly translates as "Oceanic Ruler". This from a landlocked culture hundreds of miles from the Yellow Sea (the nearest oceanic body) and over a thousand miles from the ocean itself. "Oceanic" is due to the wide open vistas of their life: blue sky all around.

Chinggis inherited a courier system (the orto) remarkably similar to the pony express of the US West six centuries later, with a few crucial differences. The Mongol system stretched from the Yellow to the Black Sea, included over three million horses, and riders were expected to deliver the messages personally. That is, they travelled for days at a time without touching the ground, changing mounts in mid-air, strapping themselves into the saddle and sleeping on the ride. The last relay stations were disbanded in 1949!

There is a large Khazak contingent in one portion of Mongolia: leftover Turks. They bring Islam, which among other things, helps out with the alcoholism problem.

Severin relates the interesting story of "Prester John", a mythical medieval Christian king "known" to Europeans from the 12th through 14th centuries who was supposed to rule a Christian nation somewhere in the east and field an invincible army (basically an urban legend). When Crusaders got the word that somebody (Chinggis Khan) was attacking and defeating Muslim nations, they presumed he must be Christian (what else could he be?).

Here's yet another example of a book I picked up, where the thought that it might address the evils of communism never even entered my head. I was looking for a book about Genghis Khan, who died six centuries before Marx and Engels polluted the Earth with their presence, and yet there it was. The communists attempted to eradicate Mongolian culture, trying to change their language, change their very script (characters in written language) replacing it with Cyrillic, which doesn't even support the right phonics, eradicate their religions, eliminate all references to Genghis Khan, not allowing his picture or name to be mentioned (this may be since Khan and the Mongols had soundly defeated Russia, looted it, and put it under their rule for almost 300 years) change the "founding father" of Mongolia from Khan to some traitor in 1924 who supported the communists.

The leader of the expedition, a bonafide party man who was a Ulaan Baatar politician and graduate of the Higher Party college in Leningrad, completely alienated, ostracized, and infuriated his expedition members. On the first day of the main expedition, he so insulted the two arat guides that they mutinied and left the expedition. The alternate plan then was to break the expedition into several "sectors" of 3-5 days each, where two new arats would be assigned to guide them through those 3-5 days. Time after time their party boss managed to infuriate his arats on the first day -- once by terrorizing and torturing one of his horses -- who generally ignored him after that or also mutinied and went home. A few times the group even left the leader behind. He always managed to catch up, and was never killed in the process.

On the plus side, the Soviets brought medicine and literacy to Mongolia.

The author lightly references "Inner Mongolia" -- as defined by the Chinese some time between the 14th and 19th centuries -- which is now behind the Silk Curtain, and impenetrable to Severin.

Severin's writing style is candid, witty, wonderfully British, and refreshing.

De Bellis Bookstore | Rice's Reviews | DBA Resource Page | Fanaticus