Khutulun, the Mongolian warrior princess
Genghis Khan‘s great granddaughter, Princess Khutulun was a worthy heir to her illustrious ancestor. Let’s discover together her history still little known today, taking a step back in time in the Mongolia of the thirteenth century.
Surely the Mongol Empire of the XIII century cannot be counted among the places most inclined to propose female emancipation or gender equality: strongly patriarchal structure, clear division of duties between men and women, life dedicated to nomadism and raids.
However, in this environment, strongly characterized by dominant men and forged by the fearsome Asian climate, a female figure little known in the West emerges, Khutulun, the princess known for her martial skills.
Khutulun (“Moonlight” or “Shining Moon”), also known as Aigiarne, Aiyurug, Khotol Tsagaan or Ay Yaruq, was the great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan and the only daughter of Khan Kaidu, cousin of Kublai Khan.
Her history reached the borders of Europe thanks to Marco Polo‘s Il Milione and the great Persian historian and doctor Rashid al-Din Hamadani, however it must be admitted, to date her life is still not very well known.
After dealing with the life of the famous Artemisia I of Caria, we delve into the life of this extraordinary Mongolian woman.
Khutulun was born around 1260, about twenty years before her father became the most powerful Mongol ruler (khan) in Central Asia, with domains extending from western Mongolia to the Amu Darya River, and from the Central Siberian plateau to India.
According to what Marco Polo reported, Khutulun had followed her father into battle countless times, especially since the diatribe between Kublai (more open to Chinese traditions) and Kaidu (a follower of ancient Mongolian customs) had become more intense.
This is not surprising, in fact the princess was raised like all her other fourteen brothers, according to an education usually reserved for males, i.e. horse riding, archery, raiding and wrestling, this led her to devote herself to to actvities usually reserved to men, such as sharpening swords, milking yaks, drinking blood and responding violently to any insult that was addressed to her.
Khutulun proved to be in every discipline or profession in which she ventured, but the hand-to-hand fight was the activity that made her famous throughout Mongolia. According to tradition, no man or woman ever managed to beat her in Mongolian free wrestling, a sport that was extremely violent at the time and which involved the use of punches, kicks and other direct hits.
Her physical strength and ability in archery, horse riding and battle therefore made her a fearsome warrior, perfect right shoulder of her father during military campaigns. Together, the two fought the armies of the Yuan dynasty and maintained their dominions over western Mongolia and China. In addition to helping her father in his military campaigns, Khutulun was a highly listened advisor on military and political matters.
As you can imagine, the princess was a good match for many young Mongolian knights: she was in fact the daughter of one of the most powerful men in Asia, as well as being beautiful and even very rich. Marco Polo the description with these words:
“Khutulun was so well-made in all her limbs, and so tall and strongly built, that she might almost be taken for a giantess and that she was so strong, that there was no young man in the whole kingdom who could overcome her, but she vanquished them all”
However Khutulun was very reluctant to get married, indeed, full of confidence as she was in her fighting skills, she even went so far as to proclaim a public competition to win her hand. Only those who had defeated her in a competition, which involved first a hand-to-hand fight and then a horse race, could have married her. However, accepting this challenge, the candidates had to pledge 10 horses each (or 100, depending on the sources) which would become the property of the princess in case of their defeat. According to Marco Polo, at the time of his encounter with Khutulun the girl already owned 10,000 horses and had not yet been defeated by any warrior, Mongolian or foreign.
According to the sources, Khutulun eventually got married… only the texts do not disclose the name of the groom. To push the princess to take the plunge probably influenced the rumors made circulate by her enemies, who claimed that she had an incestuous relationship with her father, hence the decision not to marry. To protect him from these bad rumors, she decided to get married.
There are various hypotheses about the identity of the husband. Some chronicles report that he was a handsome man of the Choros clan and one of her father’s loyalists. The historian Rashid al-Din says instead that Khutulun fell in love with Ghazan, the khan of the khanate of Persia. According to a perhaps more fictional version, however, Khutulun married Abtakul, an elite soldier sent by Khubilai Khan to kill her father Kaidu. Abtakul was captured and sentenced to be beheaded; the mother intervened and begged to be executed in place of her son, but he stepped forward, and preferred to accept a death worthy of a Mongolian warrior rather than the sacrifice of his mother. Kaidu Khan then canceled the execution and granted Abtakul freedom.
Khutulun was the favorite of all the children of Kaidu, as well as the one whose opinions and political advice were held in the highest regard by him. Kaidu shortly before her death in 1301 tried to name her as his successor in the khanate. However, when Kaidu died, Khutulun’s rise to power was contested by her other brothers, including Chapar and Duwa, who eventually became Kaidu’s successor Khan. In reality it was a compromise between the two, he would have the role of khan, while she would remain the position of general of the knanato.
After spending another five years as a general of his clan, Khutulun died at the age of 45-46, probably in battle or murdered by a hitman from a rival clan (or her own family).
Over the following centuries, memory of hers history was lost but in 1710 the French writer Francois Petis de La Croix composed a story loosely based on hers character entitled “Turandot“, later revived and modified in the Italian opera by Giacomo Puccini which carries the same name.
Khutulun’s memory is still alive in Mongolia: the princess is still today a symbol of strength and stubbornness. The traditional dress used in the Mongolian wrestling is a tribute to her greatness and the victory dances performed after a fight honor the memory of the greatest female wrestler in Mongol history.
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Trained at the University of Turin, where she obtained her three-year degree in Cultural Heritage Sciences and her master's degree in History of Archaeological and Historical-Artistic Heritage, she specialized at the University of Milan, graduating in Archaeological Heritage. Freelancer, she deals with computer archeology and virtual heritage, museum displays, 2D graphics and multimedia products applied to cultural heritage. Collaborates with various public and private bodies in the field of projects related to the research, enhancement, communication and promotion of cultural heritage. She deals with the creation of cultural itineraries relating to the entire Italian Peninsula and the development of content (creation of texts and photographic production) for paper and virtual publications. Her study interests include the development of new techniques and means of communication for the enhancement of cultural heritage and the evolution of the symbolism of power between the Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
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Christabel Choi
It’s good to see Khutulun celebrated here, but the context is misleading. The Mongol Empire you mention in the second paragraph was exactly the place where strong women emerged. It is one of the amazing counterparts to our western/city-based view of history. Mongol women learned the same martial and management skills as their brothers–horse riding, archery, etc were not reserved for males. Nomads cannot afford to be delicate.
You have a lovely site and people will read it for accurate learning. Please check sources and update this misinformation.
Thank you!
L.C.
Hi Christabel, I have never written that “military” education was the exclusive prerogative of males, but that it “usually” was.
Archaeologically speaking, there are findings of alleged female warriors in the Mongolian context, however (and unfortunately) these are isolated cases that suggest only some exceptions in which women (or their parental entourage for them) wanted to be buried with the typical attributes of the warrior.
For example, we have the two burials found in the Hubsgul region, dating back to the 14th century, but there are also older ones, such as those of Airagiin Gozgor and dating back to the Xianbei period (142-552 AD).
I have never ruled out a priori that women were not taught to fight, but we have too little material evidence to generalize about it. At the same time the Persian, Korean and Chinese testimonies present the Mongols as a very free population, where women and men decided on political and military life. We hope that further findings can confirm what the sources reported.
However, you gave me an interesting starting point for a future study and I thank you! If you were in the field and had the time and pleasure to write it yourself, let me know, I am very pleased to collaborate, in fact I find the comparison and cooperation very enriching!