Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/535

 MONGOLIA

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MONGOLIA

Customs, Language, etc. — The typical Mongol is Bhort and stumpy; the head is shaven, with the excep- tion of a tuft of hair, a souvenir of the Manchu con- quest. Family ties are very loose; marriage being a civil contract the binding force of which is the mere will of the parties. Stock-breeding is the occupation of practically all Mongols. They are remarkable herdsmen, and their ponies which are excellent, are branded. They have herds of camels, and yaks are to be seen in the mountainous parts of northern Mongo- lia. Mr. George J. Kidston (China, No. 3, 1904) ob- serves: "Both in features and in character they are less foreign to the European than the Chinese. They have often almost ruddy complexions; they laugh more heartily, have none of the endless formalities and (to us) crooked ways of thought that distinguish the Chinese, and they have even certain customs that strike one as being distinctly Western. The women, for instance, when they meet, embrace one another and kiss on both cheeks, while the men shake both hands. . . . Perhaps the first thing that strikes a stranger about the Mongols, after their exceeding filthiness, is their love of talking. . . . Hospitality is a uni\ersal virtue, and one may enter any 'yurt' on the plain and be sure of a welcome. . . . They are excit- able, but courage is not their strong point, and dis- putes die out in lengthy warfare of words." They are also lazy and voracious. They live on mutton, milk, and brick tea; they have neither flour, vegetables, nor eggs. "They have one very excellent preparation which the Chinese call ' milk-skin ' ; it is made by boil- ing milk until the cream settles in a thick skin on the top, and it much resembles Devonshire cream. The only native strong drink is made from fermented mare's milk. We were told that it is intoxicating if par- taken of in large quantities. The Mongols, however, have a deciiled weakness for Chinese wine and spirits, and the Chinese always speak of them as a drunken race" (op. cit., 19). the Mongol tent {gher, or yurt) is made of a trellis of wooden staves fastened neatly to- gether with strings of hide, the whole being covered with felt, the best of which comes from Russian Turkestan.

The Mongol language belongs to the Ural-Altaic family, the Kalmuk dialect, though containing a num- ber of Turkish words, being the purer. The Uighur is the basis of the modern Mongol and Manchu char- acters; it is of Syriac origin, introduced into East- ern Turkestan by the early Nestorian missionaries. There is a dialect poem in Uighur, the "Kudatku bibk", dating from A. d. 1069, which was published in 1870 by Arminius Vambery, and in 1S91 by W. Radloff.

History. — When Jenghiz Khan died on 18 Au- gust, 1227, his dominions were divided among his four sons. Juji, the eldest son, died before his father, and was replaced by his own son Batu, who had for his share the plains of Kipchak, the lower course of the Syr-Daria, the Aral and Caspian Seas, the valleys of the Don and the Volga, and northward beyond the Ural River; Chagatai had the Kingdom of Mdvard-un- Nahr, or Transoxiana, and also what is now Chinese Turkestan, Ferghdna, Badakhshan, etc., and his capi- tal was Alraalik; Okkodai, the third son, had the Mon- gol country with the capital, Kardkorum; lastly, Tu-li had the territory between the Kardkorum mountains and the sources of the Onon River. Kardkorum {kara, black; kuren, a camp), was called by the Chi- nese Ho-lin and was chosen for his capital by Jenghiz Khan in 1206. Its full name, Ha-la Ho-lin, was taken from a river to the west. In the spring of 12.35, Ok- kodai had a wall built round Ho-lin. After the death of Kubldi, Ho-lin was altered to Ho-Ning, and m 1320 the name of the province was changed into Lingpe ("mountainous North", i. e., the Ying-shan chain, separating China Proper from Mongolia). Recent researches have fully confirmed the belief that the Erdeni Tso. or Erdeni Chao, monastery, founded in 1586, occupies the site of Kardkorum, near the bank X.— 31

of the Orkhon, between this river and the Kokchin (old)Orkhon. In 1256, Mangku Khan decided to trans- fer the seat of government to Kaiping fu, or Shang-tu, near the present Dolon nor, north of Peking. In 1260, Kiibldi transferred his capital to Ta-tu (Peking), and it was called Khan-baligh. The second Supreme Khan was Okkodai (1229-41), replaced by his son Kuyuk (third Great Khan) (1246-48), Turakina being regent (1241-46); Ogulgaimish was regent (1248-51). The title was then transferred to the Tu-li branch of Jenghiz family, and the fourth great Khan was Mangku, who was killed at the siege of Ho-chou in Sze-ch'uan (1251-57).

Kiibldi, brother of Mangku, who succeeded him in 1260, was the fifth great Khan and the first real Em- peror of China of the Yuan Dynasty (1280). His an- cestors have the following dynastic titles or miao hao: T'ai Tsu (Jenghiz), T'ai Tsung (Okkodai), Ting Tsung (Kuyuk), Hien Tsung (Mangku). Kiibldi himself has the miao hao of She Tsu and the two reign-titles {nien hao) of Chung T'ung (1260) and Che Yuan (1264). The list of his successors according to their miao hao, with nien hao in parentheses, is as fol- lows: Ch'eng Tsung, 1295 (Yuan Cheng, 1295; Ta Teh, 1297); Wu Tsung, 1308 (Che Ta, 1308); Jen Tsung, 1312 (Hwang K'ing, 1312; Yen Yew, 1314); Ying Tsung, 1321 (Che Che, 1321); Tai Ting Ti, 1324; (Tai Ting, 1324; Che Ho, 1328); Ming Tsung, 1329 (T'ien Li, 1329); Wen Ti, 1330 (T'ien Li, 1330, Che Shun, 1330); Shun Ti, 1333 (Yuan Tung, 1333; Che Yuan, 1335; Che Cheng, 1341). The misconduct and weakness of the emperors led a Chinese priest, Chu Yuan-chang, to raise the standard of rebellion and ex- pel the Mongols, in 1368. This priest ascended the throne under the title of Hung Wu, and established his dynasty, the Ming, at Nan-king. Of the Court of Kiibldi Khan the Venetian traveller Marco Polo has left us a glorious account. China was then divided into twelve sheng, or provinces: Cheng Tung, Liao Yang, Chung Shu, Shen-si, Ling Pe (Kardkorum), Kan Su, Sze-ch'wan, Ho-nan Kiang-Pe, Kiang-che, Kiang-si, Hu-Kwang and Yun-Nan.

The younger brother of Kiibldi, Hulaku, captured Bagdad, on 5 Feb., 1258; and the Khalif Mostdsim Billah, the last of the Abbasid sovereigns, surrendered to the Mongol chief on 10 February. Hulaku was thus the founder of the dynasty of Ilkhans of Iran, which included the following princes: Hulaku, until 1265; Abaka (1265-81); Nikudar Ahmed (1281-84); Arghiin (1284-91); Gaikhatu (1291-95); Baidu (1295); Ghazan Mahmud (129.5-1304); Ghiyas ed- din Oljaitu Khudabendeh Mohammed (1304-16); Abu.said Bahadur (1316-35); Moizz ed-dunia we'd-din Arpa (1335-36); Musa (1336); Mohammed (1336- 38); Togha Timur (1338-39); Izz ed-din Djehan- Timur (13.39); Satibeg (1339); Suleiman (13.39-44);- Adil .\nu.shirwan (1344-53). After the death of Almsaid all the.se princes were but nominal sovereigns, ovonul('<l by five small dynasties: (1) Ilkhanian- Jelairid, at Bagdad (1336-1432); (2) Beni Kurt, in Khorasan and Herat (1248-1383); (3) Modhafferian, in Irak, Fars, and Kerman (1335-92); (4) Serbeda- rian, in Khorasan (1335-81); (5) Jubanian, in Azer- baidjan (1337-55). They were all destroyed by Timur or his successors. Among the first Ilkhans, Arglnin and Oljaitu had relations with the kings of France: two letters are preserved in the French .\rchives, one from Arghiin Khan (1289), brought by Buscarel, and the other from his son Oljaitu (May, 1305) to Philip the Fair. These letters are both in the Mongol lan- guage, and, according to Abel R(^musat and other authorities, in the Uighiir character, the parent of the present Mongol writing; facsimiles of tlietn are given in Prince Rolaiiil Bonaparte's "Recucil des documents (le r<5pque mongoli;". Under this dynasty, in 1318, Pope John XXII had created an archbi.shopric at Sulthanyeh, of which Franco of Perugia, William