Tengri and the shamans

Who holds it

Title

Shamans (bo'e) and clan elders; no holder is named in the sources for 1200

Since

Immemorial

Born

not known

Family

Not applicable.

Confidence

low

The practices are described by Carpini and Rubruck in the 1240s and 1250s and by Rashid, and in the Secret History as it shows the Sky giving victory and protecting the chosen. Nothing here is dated to 1200.

What it holds

• The authority of shamans and elders over the clans' offerings and omens (no named office)
• The sacred heights and river heads of the centre (later tradition): the Bogd Khan Uul, the Khangai, the sources of the Tula and the Orkhon
• Memory of the old khaganates at Khoshoo Tsaidam and Khar Balgas

How it was acquired

Immemorial.

Allies and rivals

The Church of the East in the same camps; the khans, whose luck the shamans read. No open quarrel with the Christians is recorded for the Kereyit.

How things stand that morning

Present everywhere and named nowhere: no Kereyit, Merkit or Khangai shaman is named in what could be read for 1200.

Wealth

Offerings of milk, meat and horses at the sacrifices (later practice); no land.

Threats

• The decay of the old courts with every khan's fall

Places of note

• Bogd Khan Uul (sacred height, inferred): The forested mountain above the Black Forest; its sacredness for 1200 is an inference.
• Khoshoo Tsaidam memorials of the old Turkic khagans: Steles of Kul Tigin (732) and Bilge Qaghan (735) on the upper Orkhon, in Kereyit pastures; the runes are not known to be read in 1200.

Where the sources disagree

• The assignment says Burkhan Khaldun is on mne's side of the line; it is, and it is the one sacred height the sources name for these years.
• The cult of the Bogd Khan Uul is recorded only from 1778 (the Qing protection); the sacredness for 1200 is an inference, as the brief allows.

Evidence: Later travellers and later records describe the practices; the general picture is safe for the steppe in 1200, the particular places and persons are not known.

On the map: Points only. The faith has no ground.

Primary sources for Kereyit

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din). Read online
• The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
• Compendium of Chronicles, Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah Hamadani (1300 to 1311, at Tabriz). The official Ilkhanid history, compiled from Mongol oral tradition and the lost Altan Debter. Read online
• Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
• History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. Read online
• History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
• Journey to the West of the Perfected Changchun (Qiu Chuji), Li Zhichang (李志常) (about 1228, from the journey of 1220 to 1224). A dated eyewitness itinerary across the steppe and the Tarim twenty years after 1200: the Kereyit country and the Ongud frontier, the Naiman mountains, the Uyghur towns of Beshbaliq and the Tarim with their Buddhist and Christian communities, Almaliq of the Qarluq, and Samarkand. Read online