Recommended listening: The Art of Morin Khuur
Story
Life on the steppe a thousand years ago was never easy. The Mongols were poor, centuries away from the glory and riches that Genghis Khan would bring them. Nomads' territories were constantly shifting, and loyalty rarely extended beyond a person's clan. Everyone was just a raid or a bad winter away from ruin. In the steppe valleys east of Lake Baikal, the northernmost Mongol tribes lived as they always had, herding animals to make a living. The people lived in felt gers, yurts they could bundle up and carry on the back of an ox cart when it was time to move on. Although the area around Lake Baikal was rich in game and furs, the people were still on the economic margins of East Asian society. They wore clothes of fur, felt and leather, too poor to afford the silks of their southern neighbours the Liao or the Song.
In recent years, one family had acquired considerable territory, commanding vast pastures where their horses could graze undisturbed. They were ruled by a widow called Nomolun. The name of her husband was disputed by later Mongol historians, but hers was never in doubt. The name meant "mole." Unappealing animal names like these were given to children to protect them from malevolent spirits. Nomolun's parents wanted to trick the spirits into thinking she was inconsequential - yet as time would tell, she was anything but. Nomolun emerges from the misty history of the early Mongols as the first woman with the authority of a khatun, or Mongol queen. When her husband died and her eldest seven sons were all married off, she remained in control of her family's territory. She had full control over the family's possessions, from material goods like their gers to the pastures where they brought their animals in different seasons. Her married sons had moved in with their wives, as the Mongols still practiced matrilocal marriage at this time. Still, they grazed their horses on their mother's land, and between the seven of them there were hundreds of horses in the herd. Given her relative wealth, Nomolun also oversaw the family's staff, servant women who took care of her youngest son Qaidu while she managed her family's assets.
Nomolun's responsibilities also included political and even military roles. As the khatun, she could rally her sons for battle if her territory needed defending. While Mongol women of this period do not seem to have participated directly in battle, Mongol mothers were considered essential teachers of battle skills to their sons. Among the family possessions she managed were her sons' armour and weapons. Like all Mongols, she knew how to ride horses and quite likely how to defend herself, even if she were never meant to ride into battle herself. As for politics, it was Nomolun who represented her clan, the Borjigin, in negotiations with rival groups. In a world where every steppe family was out for itself, she had to protect her own family's interests and territories in the face of raids or even invasion.
It was not an invasion, however, that came to Nomolun's lands in the year 1000. The Jalayir tribe of Mongols were not an army but refugees, driven from their lands by Chinese invasion. Seventy households fled north and ended up uknowingly in the Borjigin territory ruled by Nomolun. On the brink of starvation, they set up their gers and started ripping up anything they could eat in the fields. Little did they know that these were the fields where Nomolun's sons raced their horses. When Nomolun heard that there were people in her fields, she got into her ox-cart and rode out to meet them.
It is here that the histories of the Mongols diverge slightly in their telling of the story. The Secret History of the Mongols omits this story entirely, mentioning Nomolun only as a genealogical note, but two others recount it in detail. These are Rashīd al-Dīn's Universal History and the anonymous Genealogical Record of the Ten Ancestors. Rashīd al-Dīn's telling is sympathetic to Nomolun and portrays what follows as a great tragedy. Arriving at her fields to see that they had been destroyed by the refugees, she asks, "Why do you create such roughness?" The Jalayir immediately ambush her and kill her on the spot. In this version of the story, all she has done is exercise her right as a leader in asking why the newcomers have ruined her fields. The Jalayir's murder of the woman who could have welcomed them after some peaceful negotiations is horrific. Her sons, learning of their mother's murder, ride out to fight the Jalayir. After the resulting battle, only her youngest son Quaidu survives, since he was only a baby and too young to join his brothers. He is rescued by a male relative and, once he is an adult, conquers the Jalayir and sentences them to be hereditary slaves of the Borjigin clan as punishment for the cruel murder of his mother.
The story in the Genealogical Record of the Ten Ancestors is more complicated. The Jalayir are not seventy households but a group of young, hungry boys who have been sent by their tribe to rip up grasses for food. Nomolun, described as tough and enterprising, rides out in her cart to find them in her fields. Insulted and angry, she exclaims, "This field is the place where my sons exercise their horses, and yet this gang of boys dares to do the evil of ruining it!" She urges her cart onwards to return to her camp. As she does so, the ox runs over several boys, some of whom die of their wounds. In retaliation, the furious Jalayir drove away her herds of horses. When her sons hear of this, they immediately go after the Jalayir without stopping to put on their armour. Back at the Borjigin camp, Nomolun worries, telling her servants, "My boys left without putting on armour, and I fear they will not be able to gain victory over the enemy!" She orders the women and children to carry armour out to her sons, but when they arrive to the battlefield, they are already too late. Her eldest sons are dead, and the Jalayir soon bring the battle to the camp, killing Nomolun and all of her family. Once again, the only survivor is the baby Quaidu, who was hidden by his nurse in a pile of firewood. Later, his relative Nachin, who is sometimes a brother, sometimes an uncle, comes to the camp to find only ten sickly old women and Qaidu. Incensed, Nachin finds the Jalayir herding the Borjigin horses and kills them. Further south in the homeland of his wife, he raises Qaidu up to be a great warrior who unites several clans together and enacts revenge upon the Jalayir.
In the second story, Nomolun's actions are much more ambivalent. She provokes the violence of the Jalayir not by fairly asking what they are doing in her lands, but by carelessly running over innocent, hungry children. A more magnanimous leader might have welcome the refugees as new subjects in her territory. Indeed, the same kindness would be offered to Quaidu when the Borjigin were forced to move to their in-laws' territory after the Jalayir took their lands. Which version of the story is true? Like many disputed cases in history, we will likely never know. In both stories, it is clear that Nomolun is the leader of her people, whose decision about how to interact with the refugees has enormous consequences for her family's future. Her areas of influence are similar to those of later khatuns in the Mongol Empire and beyond, with important economic and political duties.
At the same time, Nomolun's story represents the end of an era in Mongol history. After her death, Qaidu organised the clan around his own lineage, shifting the Borjigin from matrinineal to patrilineal inheritance. Although many quasi-legendary ancestresses are mentioned in the histories before Nomolun, after her death, none appears again until Hö'elün, the mother of Genghis Khan, a hundred and fifty years later. By that time, the Borjigin did not consider people on the mother's side of the family to be blood relatives, a stark contrast to Nomolun's time. Genghis Khan dismissed other Mongol tribes who practiced matriliny as those who "still follow the way of consanguinity" and warned others not to intermarry with them. Widows were often made to remarry the brothers of their dead husbands to keep the patriline intact. Gone were the days of women as independent as Nomolun, whose choice not to remarry was considered normal for her time.
Why does Nomolun's story come down to us at all? Two hundred years after her death, the Borjigin clan still held a grudge against the Jalayir and continued to raid those who weren't already their slaves, citing the murder of Nomolun as their justification. And the leader of the Borjigin at that time was none other than Temüjin, better known to history as Genghis Khan. "Mother Monolun," as she was later known thanks to changes in pronounciation, was the ancestress of the great khan himself. Her story was told for generations in oral histories of the Borjigin clan until it was finally written down in the 14th century, by which time their clan had become the ruling class of an empire. This long period of transmission might account for the differences in the versions of the stories - or perhaps different political motivations of the compilers, seeking to portray the family's origins in a more or less sympathetic light. Her death was the origin story of the long-standing enmity between the Jalayir and the Borjigin. If the Jalayir had their own version of the story, it is lost to history. In the unforgiving political and natural landscape of the Siberian steppe, Nomolun was a leader who had to make decisions on behalf of her entire clan. Whether her decision was the right one or the wrong one, it would have ramifications for centuries to come.
In recent years, one family had acquired considerable territory, commanding vast pastures where their horses could graze undisturbed. They were ruled by a widow called Nomolun. The name of her husband was disputed by later Mongol historians, but hers was never in doubt. The name meant "mole." Unappealing animal names like these were given to children to protect them from malevolent spirits. Nomolun's parents wanted to trick the spirits into thinking she was inconsequential - yet as time would tell, she was anything but. Nomolun emerges from the misty history of the early Mongols as the first woman with the authority of a khatun, or Mongol queen. When her husband died and her eldest seven sons were all married off, she remained in control of her family's territory. She had full control over the family's possessions, from material goods like their gers to the pastures where they brought their animals in different seasons. Her married sons had moved in with their wives, as the Mongols still practiced matrilocal marriage at this time. Still, they grazed their horses on their mother's land, and between the seven of them there were hundreds of horses in the herd. Given her relative wealth, Nomolun also oversaw the family's staff, servant women who took care of her youngest son Qaidu while she managed her family's assets.
Nomolun's responsibilities also included political and even military roles. As the khatun, she could rally her sons for battle if her territory needed defending. While Mongol women of this period do not seem to have participated directly in battle, Mongol mothers were considered essential teachers of battle skills to their sons. Among the family possessions she managed were her sons' armour and weapons. Like all Mongols, she knew how to ride horses and quite likely how to defend herself, even if she were never meant to ride into battle herself. As for politics, it was Nomolun who represented her clan, the Borjigin, in negotiations with rival groups. In a world where every steppe family was out for itself, she had to protect her own family's interests and territories in the face of raids or even invasion.
It was not an invasion, however, that came to Nomolun's lands in the year 1000. The Jalayir tribe of Mongols were not an army but refugees, driven from their lands by Chinese invasion. Seventy households fled north and ended up uknowingly in the Borjigin territory ruled by Nomolun. On the brink of starvation, they set up their gers and started ripping up anything they could eat in the fields. Little did they know that these were the fields where Nomolun's sons raced their horses. When Nomolun heard that there were people in her fields, she got into her ox-cart and rode out to meet them.
It is here that the histories of the Mongols diverge slightly in their telling of the story. The Secret History of the Mongols omits this story entirely, mentioning Nomolun only as a genealogical note, but two others recount it in detail. These are Rashīd al-Dīn's Universal History and the anonymous Genealogical Record of the Ten Ancestors. Rashīd al-Dīn's telling is sympathetic to Nomolun and portrays what follows as a great tragedy. Arriving at her fields to see that they had been destroyed by the refugees, she asks, "Why do you create such roughness?" The Jalayir immediately ambush her and kill her on the spot. In this version of the story, all she has done is exercise her right as a leader in asking why the newcomers have ruined her fields. The Jalayir's murder of the woman who could have welcomed them after some peaceful negotiations is horrific. Her sons, learning of their mother's murder, ride out to fight the Jalayir. After the resulting battle, only her youngest son Quaidu survives, since he was only a baby and too young to join his brothers. He is rescued by a male relative and, once he is an adult, conquers the Jalayir and sentences them to be hereditary slaves of the Borjigin clan as punishment for the cruel murder of his mother.
The story in the Genealogical Record of the Ten Ancestors is more complicated. The Jalayir are not seventy households but a group of young, hungry boys who have been sent by their tribe to rip up grasses for food. Nomolun, described as tough and enterprising, rides out in her cart to find them in her fields. Insulted and angry, she exclaims, "This field is the place where my sons exercise their horses, and yet this gang of boys dares to do the evil of ruining it!" She urges her cart onwards to return to her camp. As she does so, the ox runs over several boys, some of whom die of their wounds. In retaliation, the furious Jalayir drove away her herds of horses. When her sons hear of this, they immediately go after the Jalayir without stopping to put on their armour. Back at the Borjigin camp, Nomolun worries, telling her servants, "My boys left without putting on armour, and I fear they will not be able to gain victory over the enemy!" She orders the women and children to carry armour out to her sons, but when they arrive to the battlefield, they are already too late. Her eldest sons are dead, and the Jalayir soon bring the battle to the camp, killing Nomolun and all of her family. Once again, the only survivor is the baby Quaidu, who was hidden by his nurse in a pile of firewood. Later, his relative Nachin, who is sometimes a brother, sometimes an uncle, comes to the camp to find only ten sickly old women and Qaidu. Incensed, Nachin finds the Jalayir herding the Borjigin horses and kills them. Further south in the homeland of his wife, he raises Qaidu up to be a great warrior who unites several clans together and enacts revenge upon the Jalayir.
In the second story, Nomolun's actions are much more ambivalent. She provokes the violence of the Jalayir not by fairly asking what they are doing in her lands, but by carelessly running over innocent, hungry children. A more magnanimous leader might have welcome the refugees as new subjects in her territory. Indeed, the same kindness would be offered to Quaidu when the Borjigin were forced to move to their in-laws' territory after the Jalayir took their lands. Which version of the story is true? Like many disputed cases in history, we will likely never know. In both stories, it is clear that Nomolun is the leader of her people, whose decision about how to interact with the refugees has enormous consequences for her family's future. Her areas of influence are similar to those of later khatuns in the Mongol Empire and beyond, with important economic and political duties.
At the same time, Nomolun's story represents the end of an era in Mongol history. After her death, Qaidu organised the clan around his own lineage, shifting the Borjigin from matrinineal to patrilineal inheritance. Although many quasi-legendary ancestresses are mentioned in the histories before Nomolun, after her death, none appears again until Hö'elün, the mother of Genghis Khan, a hundred and fifty years later. By that time, the Borjigin did not consider people on the mother's side of the family to be blood relatives, a stark contrast to Nomolun's time. Genghis Khan dismissed other Mongol tribes who practiced matriliny as those who "still follow the way of consanguinity" and warned others not to intermarry with them. Widows were often made to remarry the brothers of their dead husbands to keep the patriline intact. Gone were the days of women as independent as Nomolun, whose choice not to remarry was considered normal for her time.
Why does Nomolun's story come down to us at all? Two hundred years after her death, the Borjigin clan still held a grudge against the Jalayir and continued to raid those who weren't already their slaves, citing the murder of Nomolun as their justification. And the leader of the Borjigin at that time was none other than Temüjin, better known to history as Genghis Khan. "Mother Monolun," as she was later known thanks to changes in pronounciation, was the ancestress of the great khan himself. Her story was told for generations in oral histories of the Borjigin clan until it was finally written down in the 14th century, by which time their clan had become the ruling class of an empire. This long period of transmission might account for the differences in the versions of the stories - or perhaps different political motivations of the compilers, seeking to portray the family's origins in a more or less sympathetic light. Her death was the origin story of the long-standing enmity between the Jalayir and the Borjigin. If the Jalayir had their own version of the story, it is lost to history. In the unforgiving political and natural landscape of the Siberian steppe, Nomolun was a leader who had to make decisions on behalf of her entire clan. Whether her decision was the right one or the wrong one, it would have ramifications for centuries to come.
Artist's Comments
Nomolun has been on my list since very early in the project. It's great to finally bring you her story! She's one of the more ambiguous figures in the project, like Zöe Porphyrogenita or Queen Heonae. I really enjoyed researching her and immersing myself in the history of the steppe. This isn't the easiest period of Mongol history to research, since it's 200 years before the rise of Genghis Khan. That said, I was pleasantly surprised by how many sources in English I could find that discussed her.
Nomolun is wearing a felt boqta hat in this illustration. These hats are more famously red, as worn by the khatuns of the Mongol Empire and Yuan Dynasty, but I read that people who couldn't afford silk would wear them in black felt, according to 13th century travellers. Her deel is inspired by one found in a much older archaeological site. The pattern on her boots is inspired by those from the Liao Dynasty and from later historical examples of Mongol boots.
The most-requested place for a Women of 1000 illustration has typically been Russia, though those requests have understandably died down in recent years. Since Nomolun's Borjigin lived east of Lake Baikal, I have finally fulfilled that request. I'm really happy with this picture and feel like it captured exactly the feeling I was going for with Nomolun. Thanks to Ellie for giving me confidence in going with this composition and Sacha for help figuring out the hands. I hope you've all enjoyed learning about Nomolun, the great ancestress of Genghis Khan. ~ March 12, 2024
Nomolun is wearing a felt boqta hat in this illustration. These hats are more famously red, as worn by the khatuns of the Mongol Empire and Yuan Dynasty, but I read that people who couldn't afford silk would wear them in black felt, according to 13th century travellers. Her deel is inspired by one found in a much older archaeological site. The pattern on her boots is inspired by those from the Liao Dynasty and from later historical examples of Mongol boots.
The most-requested place for a Women of 1000 illustration has typically been Russia, though those requests have understandably died down in recent years. Since Nomolun's Borjigin lived east of Lake Baikal, I have finally fulfilled that request. I'm really happy with this picture and feel like it captured exactly the feeling I was going for with Nomolun. Thanks to Ellie for giving me confidence in going with this composition and Sacha for help figuring out the hands. I hope you've all enjoyed learning about Nomolun, the great ancestress of Genghis Khan. ~ March 12, 2024
Resources
Want to learn more about Nomolun and other early Mongol women? Here are some recommended resources.
Women in Mongol Iran: The Khātūns, 1206-1335 by Bruno de Nicola
I found the most complete account of Nomolun's story in the chapter of this book called "Women and Political Affairs in Pre-Imperial Times." The author uses Rashīd al-Dīn's account to tell the story here. He also discusses Nomolun briefly in his article "Women's Role and Participation in Warfare in the Mongol Empire."
"Six Pre-Chinggisid Genealogies in the Mongol Empire" by Christopher P. Atwood
The story of Nomolun from the Genealogical Record of the Ten Ancestors is quoted in full in this article. I like how the author here argues that we can't treat The Secret History of the Mongols as the single authoritative genealogy of Genghis Khan when it's clear that there were alternative stories in circulation at the same time.
"The Early Mongol State" by Isenbike Togan
In this chapter of The Mongol World, Togan argues that the killing of Nomolun symbolizes the trend towards supremacy of the male line over the female line. She has another very helpful chapter in this book called "Mongolia Before Chinggis Khan," which was very helpful for developing my understanding of this general period of Mongol history. There are a lot of great details about everyday life in there, including the role women played in overseeing religious rites. For more in that vein, see also Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire by Anne F. Broadbridge, particularly the chapter "Women in Steppe Society."
"The Female Elite of Mongolia: Unprecedented Power" by Victoria Schroeder
Schroeder describes Nomolun in this article as "the first woman with full authority of a khatun." This is a great general article for learning about elite Mongol women.
"From animal to name, remarks on the semantics of Middle Mongolian personal names" by Volker Rybatzki
This article is where I got the information about why a child would be named after a mole or mole rat! It's possible that it was the first animal Nomolun saw after her birth, leading her parents to name her after it as a protective omen.
Mongol Court Dress, Identity Formation, and Global Exchange by Eiren L. Shea
I love this book! It was so helpful in explaining the development of Mongol women's dress. There are a lot of great details here about pre-Chinggisid clothing, including extended quotations from 13th century European and Chinese travellers. This is where I learned that Nomolun would have worn a black felt boqta instead of a red silk one, and where I learned about the materials that were available for clothing in pre-imperial times. I thought Nomolun should be represented in something formal like this that represented her authority when initiating political negotiation with the Jalayir. There was also a lot of information about Liao clothing, which made me want to redraw Empress Dowager Chengtian in more accurate clothing.
"The Origins and Developments of Mongolian Marital Traditions and the Characteristics of the Mongolian Royal Marriages" by George Qingzhi Zhao
For more detail about the development and function of patriliny among the Mongols, this is a useful chapter. I got the quote from Genghis Khan about matrilineal clans being unsuitable for marriage from here.
Women in Mongol Iran: The Khātūns, 1206-1335 by Bruno de Nicola
I found the most complete account of Nomolun's story in the chapter of this book called "Women and Political Affairs in Pre-Imperial Times." The author uses Rashīd al-Dīn's account to tell the story here. He also discusses Nomolun briefly in his article "Women's Role and Participation in Warfare in the Mongol Empire."
"Six Pre-Chinggisid Genealogies in the Mongol Empire" by Christopher P. Atwood
The story of Nomolun from the Genealogical Record of the Ten Ancestors is quoted in full in this article. I like how the author here argues that we can't treat The Secret History of the Mongols as the single authoritative genealogy of Genghis Khan when it's clear that there were alternative stories in circulation at the same time.
"The Early Mongol State" by Isenbike Togan
In this chapter of The Mongol World, Togan argues that the killing of Nomolun symbolizes the trend towards supremacy of the male line over the female line. She has another very helpful chapter in this book called "Mongolia Before Chinggis Khan," which was very helpful for developing my understanding of this general period of Mongol history. There are a lot of great details about everyday life in there, including the role women played in overseeing religious rites. For more in that vein, see also Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire by Anne F. Broadbridge, particularly the chapter "Women in Steppe Society."
"The Female Elite of Mongolia: Unprecedented Power" by Victoria Schroeder
Schroeder describes Nomolun in this article as "the first woman with full authority of a khatun." This is a great general article for learning about elite Mongol women.
"From animal to name, remarks on the semantics of Middle Mongolian personal names" by Volker Rybatzki
This article is where I got the information about why a child would be named after a mole or mole rat! It's possible that it was the first animal Nomolun saw after her birth, leading her parents to name her after it as a protective omen.
Mongol Court Dress, Identity Formation, and Global Exchange by Eiren L. Shea
I love this book! It was so helpful in explaining the development of Mongol women's dress. There are a lot of great details here about pre-Chinggisid clothing, including extended quotations from 13th century European and Chinese travellers. This is where I learned that Nomolun would have worn a black felt boqta instead of a red silk one, and where I learned about the materials that were available for clothing in pre-imperial times. I thought Nomolun should be represented in something formal like this that represented her authority when initiating political negotiation with the Jalayir. There was also a lot of information about Liao clothing, which made me want to redraw Empress Dowager Chengtian in more accurate clothing.
"The Origins and Developments of Mongolian Marital Traditions and the Characteristics of the Mongolian Royal Marriages" by George Qingzhi Zhao
For more detail about the development and function of patriliny among the Mongols, this is a useful chapter. I got the quote from Genghis Khan about matrilineal clans being unsuitable for marriage from here.