Everyone has a mother, so I'm digging into a new series about the mothers of the famous and the infamous. Let's start with the mother of Genghis Kahn, born Temujin.
In the early 1100s, Hoelun was a girl from a tribe in Mongolia. During a raid led by Yesugei of a neighboring hostile tribe, the girl was captured and taken away from the tribe of her new husband. Back at camp, Hoelun was given to Yesugei as a wife. Their first child was Temujin, later to be called Genghis Kahn.
Hoelun was a trooper whose sole motivation in life seemed to be self preservation. She went along with the opposing tribe, and she went along with the forced marriage, as if any marriage she would find herself in would have been anything but forced. She gave birth to five children, and she assimilated. If she had failed at any one of those tasks, she most likely would not have survived.
When her oldest child was nine or twelve, depending on your source, her husband was poisoned by enemies, and his tribe, previously loyal, abandoned her and her children to the elements with not much more than the clothes on their backs. In modern America, if a woman with children finds herself homeless, it's a nightmare, but there is help from various sources. There is government assistance and shelters and churches with food banks. In the 12th century in Mongolia, there was nothing but every man for himself with hard rock below and cold skies above, and Hoelun set out to keep her children alive.
They fished and hunted and gathered berries and froze and starved and talked about vengeance. When one of the children was caught hording food, Temujin killed him without remorse, and Hoelun scolded Temujin for wasting a potential soldier. "We have no one to fight with us except our own shadows," she said, and she needed everyone she could hang onto to exact her revenge against her dead husband's crappy tribesmen. Little did she know she was raising one of the most vengeful and cold-hearted military leaders ever known to man. Genghis Kahn spread fear and babies and gun powder and the bubonic plague across Asia and Mesopotamia and into Europe, leaving quite a scourge in his wake. And throughout Kahn's fierce reign, Hoelun remained one of his most trusted advisers. What a mom.
In the early 1100s, Hoelun was a girl from a tribe in Mongolia. During a raid led by Yesugei of a neighboring hostile tribe, the girl was captured and taken away from the tribe of her new husband. Back at camp, Hoelun was given to Yesugei as a wife. Their first child was Temujin, later to be called Genghis Kahn.Hoelun was a trooper whose sole motivation in life seemed to be self preservation. She went along with the opposing tribe, and she went along with the forced marriage, as if any marriage she would find herself in would have been anything but forced. She gave birth to five children, and she assimilated. If she had failed at any one of those tasks, she most likely would not have survived.
When her oldest child was nine or twelve, depending on your source, her husband was poisoned by enemies, and his tribe, previously loyal, abandoned her and her children to the elements with not much more than the clothes on their backs. In modern America, if a woman with children finds herself homeless, it's a nightmare, but there is help from various sources. There is government assistance and shelters and churches with food banks. In the 12th century in Mongolia, there was nothing but every man for himself with hard rock below and cold skies above, and Hoelun set out to keep her children alive.
They fished and hunted and gathered berries and froze and starved and talked about vengeance. When one of the children was caught hording food, Temujin killed him without remorse, and Hoelun scolded Temujin for wasting a potential soldier. "We have no one to fight with us except our own shadows," she said, and she needed everyone she could hang onto to exact her revenge against her dead husband's crappy tribesmen. Little did she know she was raising one of the most vengeful and cold-hearted military leaders ever known to man. Genghis Kahn spread fear and babies and gun powder and the bubonic plague across Asia and Mesopotamia and into Europe, leaving quite a scourge in his wake. And throughout Kahn's fierce reign, Hoelun remained one of his most trusted advisers. What a mom.
Comments
At least we now know who to blame for the plague, the downfall of the Roman Empire and the wholesale slaughter of half of Europe.
It was all Mom's fault (it always is … just ask your daughters).
Hee hee.
Mrs. G, any particular mothers you'd like to see here?
Mark, I was afraid someone would ask, and aren't you a history type? Actually, I scanned various internet sources, and picked the few bits they agreed on. I don't stand by my facts, but that won't stop me from posting them.
Lynn, I'll get there. Hang on.