The Secret History of the Mongol Queens by Jack Weatherford

(38)

 

 

The Secret History of the Mongol Queens

By

Jack Weatherford

 

Copyright year: 2010

Publisher: Crown Publishers

 

 

 

우선 A Note on Translation, page 285 에서

 징기스칸의 옳바른 이름 표기는 Chinggis Khan 이고  , 발음은 pronounced CHIN-gis  

허나 그동안 영어로 Genghis Khan 이라고 기록되어 왔기에 

“ …but by tradition it is rendered in English as Genghis Khan “ 이 책에서

 그는 Genghis Khan 을  사용한다고 작가는 알립니다.

 

 

몽골의 역사 기록record keeping 에 관하여 :

“ The Mongols operated possibly the most secretive government in history.

They preserved few records, and those were written in the Mongolian language,

 which their conquered subjects were not allowed to learn.

While Mongol Khans gave away jewels and treasures with little evidence of

covetousness, they locked their documents inside the treasury and kept them

closely guarded “

 (Introduction, page xii)

 타민족들에게는 몽골언어를 배울 기회를  허락하지 않는 방법과 역사 기록을

국고에 깊숙히 감추고 한 장소에 모아두지 않고 따로 따로 분산시켜 보관하는 방법등을

 동원하여 그들은 자신들에 관한 정보를 외부인들에게 감추어왔다고 …

 

“ from age to age, they have kept their true history in Mongolian ｅxpression

and script, unorganized and disarranged, chapter by chapter, scattered in treasuries,

 hidden from the gaze of strangers and specialists, and no one was allowed

access to learn of it.” (page xii, Introduction)

 

몽고제국에 관하여 또 그 유명한 징기스칸에 관하여서도 그동안 아무 관심도 갖지 않으며

 살아왔기에 이 책에 쓰여진 내용은 무척 신선한 충격을 주었으며

순전 개인적인 입장에서 - 주관적으로 어떤 내용들이 흥미로왔는지 나열해보니...,

 

1. 징기스칸은 자신만의 철학을 갖고 leader로서의 독특한 방법을 알아낸 천재적인 지도자였음.

 

Baatuud : “ unlike the Greek heroes, who were males of superhuman physical strength,

 the baatar might be male or female, young or old, and frequently, as in this case,

only a child. Most important, a baatar might spring from any family, but,

in Genghis Khan’s experience, the baatuud rarely came from rich families or

aristocratic and powerful clan. He place such importance on the spirit of the baatuud

 that he built his military and political system around them.

The ideal government for him was rule by these heroic elites,

 by a true aristocracy of the spirit. Page 10

 

2. 징기스칸은 항상 성공만 하며 살아온 사람은 아니었고 마흔이 넘은 나이에 모든것을 버리고 살던곳에서

도망가야만 했던 즉 바닥까지 떨어져 본 경험이 있고 그곳부터 다시 시작하여 세계를 정복하였다고 “

 It was the lowest time in the professional life of Genghis Khan.

After fighting for almost a quarter of a century, he was a failed and defeated middle-aged

 man who had dared to rise above his position in life and think himself equal to the noble

clans of the steppe. His sworn brother and childhood friend, Jamuka, had long ago turned

 against him. Many of his relatives had deserted him, and he had lost of contact with

 others in the confusion after his defeat. He had not even been able to make a

successful marriage for a single one of his children. His sons offered little assistance,

and it now became clear that none was hero.”

Page 17

 

3. 징기스칸은 (Genghis Khan) 자신의 딸과 부인, 며느리들의 능력과 가치를 무시하지 않고

존중하였는데

 

4. 그러나 그의 아들들은 징기스칸의 그러한 여성에 대한 존중 이념을 철저히 배반하고 져버림

4a. Rape of Oirat Girls: “ In the fall of 1237, after eight years in office, Ogodei Khan

( 징기스칸의 뒤를 이은 칸 - 1229-1241 까지-) ordered the most horrendous

crime of his twelve—year reign and one of the worst Mongol atrocities recorded.

The nearly unbearable horror was committed not against enemies,

but against the nation’s daughters.  His soldiers assembled four thousand

Oirat girls above the age of seven together with their male relatives on an open field.

The soldiers separated out the girls form the noble families and hauled them to the

 front of the throng. They stripped the noble girls naked, and one by one the soldiers

came forward to rape them…. 생략…The Persian chroniclers recorded the full cruelty

and sheer evil behind the crime inflicted on these innocent, star-like maidens,

each of whom affected men’s hearts in a different way.

Everyone knew that this barbarous act violated in spirit and in detail the long list of laws

 Genghis Khan had made regarding women. Girls could be married at a young age but

 could not engage in sex until sixteen, and then they initiated the encounter with their

 husbands.

They could not be seized, raped, kidnapped, bartered, or sold. Ogodei violated every

 single one of those laws. The chronicles explain that the episode was punishment

 against the Oirat for not sending girls for Ogodei’s harem.

Ogodei;s debauched appetites at this stage of his life, however, favored alcohol over

girls, and while this excuse may have been proffered, the rape of Oirat virgins was

part of a much larger assault against the power of Genghis Khan’s daughters and

 their lineages.

 Depraved as the violence against the girls was, it did not spring from the mindless

 lust of a wicked old man.

The atrocity grew from a calculating greed and the desire to expand Ogodei’s

 wealth and power. He used this ordeal to seize the lands of his sister Chechyigen,

who most likely had recently died. This act brought the Oirat under Ogodei’s control. 

생략…Somewhere in their wanderings the Mongols had learned the power of sexual

terrorism. 생략…The rape of the Oirat girls was the opening move in a long political,

diplomatic, and terror campaign against the women of Genghis Khan’s Borijin clan.

Through the attack, Ogodei was taking away the powers left to his sisters and

 imposing this own authority over her lands, her people, and her family.

His crime was the beginning of the ruination of everything that his father had

accomplished for his family and nation. Without the father’s restraining hand,

the strongest of his children began to pick off the weaker ones. Page 89-91

 

4b. story of Fatima: 아들은 자신의 어머니와 친하게 지내던 여인 Fatima를 잔인하게

죽이고 : 

 Fatima’s fate was far worse. Guyuk (Guyuk Khan : 1246-48 징기스칸의 손자이며

Ogodei Khan 의 아들)  hated her and wanted a public confession that she had

bewitched his mother. He brought her to his court, naked and bound.

Although Genghis Khan had forbidden the use of torture as part of a trial or

as a punishment, Guyuk found a simple way around that law on the grounds

that Fatima was not a Mongol, much less a member of the royal clan. He

made her torture into a public spectacle as interrogators beat and burned

 her in ways designed to inflict the greatest pain without shedding her blood,

which might pollute the court…생략…

In the end Fatima also confessed to every sin and crime that her torturers

demanded, but then rather than letting her just die from her wounds or

executing her quickly,

Guyuk subjected her to one final ordeal. He ordered the torturers to sew up every

orifice of her body to ensure the most agonizing death possible.

Wrapping her carefully in felt to prevent blood escaping from the stitches,

the executioners then threw Fatima into the river. “ page 100-101

 

4c. Mongke Khan (징기스칸의 손자, 1251-59 아버지는 Tolui 어머니는

 Sorkhokhtani Beki):

“ Although Mongke Khan continued to appoint some women as queens and

 gave them limited power to rule over subservient areas, he made certain that

they had no independent power and prevented anyone else from giving power to

 women. Mongke Khan issued a decree that no woman could be made khatun by

 a shaman or one of Guyuk’s former officials. If any shaman  or other official

recognized a woman as khatun, Mongke Khan ordered the penalty of death,

 using the uniquely Mongol ｅxpression “ They shall see what they shall see.”

What Genghis Khan had spent a lifetime creating was destroyed within another

 lifetime. Page 110

 

5. 자기들끼리의 싸음에 치열했고 서로를 죽이며 징기스칸이 속한  Borijin 후손들을 거의

다 씨를 말렸다니...!

 

6. 원나라를 세운 쿠불라이 칸은 다른 몽고족들에게서는 배척을 받았다??

.

7. 원의 쿠불라이 칸은 자신의 동족을 믿지 않아 서양인들을 (유럽인) 불러들였고

 

8. 쿠불라이칸에 의해 불려들어진 유럽계 서양인들은 명에 의해 원이 망하자 초원의

몽고족과 합류하며 몽고족이 아닌 외향의 몽고인들이 되었음

 

9. 고려에 관한 이야기 :

“ one of the few places where Mongol women continued to exercise an

 important role was Korea, known to the Mongols as the Rainbow Land of

the Son-in-Law Nation.

The invasion of Korea began during the reign of Ogodei, but the country was not

 completely under Mongol control until the reign of Khubilai Khan…생략..

five Korean kings received Borijin daughters as wives for approximately seventy years.

 Like the other

 son-in-law states, Korea maintained its traditional laws, administrative structure, and

 tax system. Unlike the guregen  (son-in-law, 사위, 몽고어로) of Genghis Khan’s time,

the Korean sons-in-law were not sent off to distant wars, thus, the Mogol queens of

 Korea lacked the power to rule that their aunts such as Alaqui Beki had held.

 It had been the last of the foreign countries taken as a son-in-law ally,

but it retained this position until the end of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368.

page 126

 

징기스칸이 살아 있을 때 그가 점령한 나라를 통치하는 한 방법은

 1. 점령한 곳에 딸을 시집보내고

2. 사위를 지도자의 자리에서 폐위시키거나 그 지위를 딸보다 낮추고 

3. 사위의 다른 왕비들도 폐위시켜 추방하며

4. 자신의 딸을 그곳에서 가장 강력한 통치자로 만들어 ( 점령지를 지키게 한다)

 5.. 그러나 폐위시키고 추방한 다른 왕비들 사이에 낳은 배 다른 자녀들은

몽골왕비가 맡아 엄마의 자격으로 친모처럼 책임지며 키우게 하며

 6. 사위는 위험한 전쟁터로 내보내고 딸과 헤어져 있게 하며

7. 사위가 전사하면 사위의 아들들 중에서나 친족들 중에서 다시 사위를 고르는

 등등의 방법을 사용하여왔으나 고려는 사위의 나라이긴허나  

징기스칸의 사후에 맞아들인 사위들이기에 예외가 되었고 시집온 몽고왕비들도

그들의 이모들이 가졌었던 막강한 파워를 갖지 못했다.

 

 

10. The year of Rabbit 그리고 토끼의 저주 :

“ The Mongol Empire ended abruptly on a snowy day in 1399 when the sex-crazed spirit

of a rabbit jumped on Elbeg Khan and captured his soul….생략… The rise of the Borijin

 family stemmed from another snowy day two centuries earlier, around the year 1159,

 the Year  of the Earth Rabbit.  갠지스칸의 아버지가 토끼를 쫒고 있었는데 토끼가 도망친

 눈밭위에 노란 오줌자욱이 있었고 여인이 싼 오줌이란것을 알아본 징기스칸의 아버지가

 토끼를

 사냥하는 대신 여인을 쫒았고 he found her, kidnapped her, and with her produced

Genghis Khan and the Mongol royal family. 징기스칸이 그녀로 부터 태어났음.

 

“ hunting always carried a close association with marriage and sexuality, and

 generally only men hunted. A boy’s first kill symbolized his marriage to a

daughter of the forest,

 and to mark this loss of virginity, older men smeared fat from the animal

onto the boy’s flesh. 생략…

 

somewhere along the way, the Borijin clan forgot about its

relationship with the rabbit and the debt owed to the animal as the source of

the family’s power. When the Yellow (Earth) Rabbit Year returned in 1399,

the Mongol ruler, Elbeg Khan, again met the rabbit at the edge of the forest,

 but this time the encounter produced a much more gruesome result.

Elbeg Khan had had no luck that day and was anxious not to return to camp

without some game. Although the white rabbit was in the white snow,

Elbeg Khan saw it…생략…the sight of the red blood on the white snow created

a hypnotic effect over the Great Khan. He seemingly entered into a trance and

stared transfixed at the peaceful face of the rabbit and at the marked contrast of

the two colors of red blood on white snow (page 135-136)

 

최면에 걸린듯 그는 옆에 있는 Dayuu 라는 자에게 묻습니다. 눈처럼 하얀 피부에

피처럼 붉은 뺨을 갖았다는 아름다운 여자가 있을까? 라고. 함께 사냥을 나온

 Dayuu 라는 자가 며느리들중에 그런 여자가 있다고 말하자 Elbeg Khan 은

그 며느리를 갖기 위해 아들을 죽이고 그녀를 부인으로 삼는데…

그녀는 나중에 복수를 하고…

( 참으로 지나치게 이상한 이야기죠??  아무래도 사실이 아닌듯… 야사인듯)

 

page 140: “ ..but that act proved to be no more than the opening of the

rabbit’s curse on the royal family and the Mongol nation.

They would now fight among themselves,

one Mongol tribe against another, clan against clan, sister against brother, mother

 against son, husband against wife, and daughter against father. “

 

 

11.  Golden Prince 의 짧고 위태로왔던 삶 : Golden Prince의 할아버지 Esen 은

 갓 태어난 자신의 외손자를 죽이려 한다. 징기스칸의 후손을 하나도 남기지 않기위해 .

Esen 의 할머니 Samur 는 자신의 남편과 아들을 전쟁터에서 희생시키며 까지

 징기스칸의 후손들을 구하려고 하였는데 자신의 손자 Esen 의 대에 와서

그녀의 노력이 수포로 돌아갔고 Esen은

그녀의 뜻을 반대하여 오히려 모든 친족을 몰살하였고 손자 Golden Prince 마져

죽이려 드는데…

Samur 와 Golden Prince 의 어머니는 아기를 살리려 성별을 속이고 감추고

결국은 외부로 빼돌려

목숨을 살리지만 열아홉 나이에 고비 사막에서 어이없게 죽임을 당하고 …

 

“ Many dreams ended there in the Year of the Tiger. The beautiful prince,

whose mother hid his genitals to save his life, who crouched in an iron pot

under a mound of dung,

who was tossed in the air at the tip of a bow and rescued by a man racing

on horseback,

who grew up in obscure poverty but briefly reigned beside a khan who dressed him

with gold and silk and told him that he could conquer the world,

was dead at age nineteen.

Bayan Mongke Bolkhu Jinong, the Eternally Rich Rising Golden Prince of the Mongols,

lay stretched out on the Gobi rocks, beltless and lifeless in a silk deel embroidered

with threads of gold and lined with squirrel fur. “ page 185)

 

12. Golden Prince 의 유일한 아들 Batu Mongke, 일곱살의 병약한 소년. 그를 찾아내 

 Great Kahn 으로 지명한 스무살이 넘은 과부 Queen, ( “ In officially making him

 Great Khan,

 Manduhai was also formally marrying the boy, the marriage would be considered

 a temporary formality until the boy was grown. Page 204 )

 그 소년을 아들처럼 키워 소년이 열일곱이 되었을 때 결혼을 완성시키고

그를 Dayan Khan으로 키워내며 이후 여덟명의 아이를 낳고 키우며 임신한 몸으로도

말을 타고 전쟁에 참여하여 뿔뿔히 흩어져버린 몽고인들을 다시 결합하게 한 히로인

Queen Manduhai.

 

“ Manduhai seemed determined not to repeat the painful mistake of Genghis Khan,

 who had been a genius in war, politics, and governing but had failed as a father,

 particularly to his sons. They grew up fearful of him, but undisciplined.

They were rowdy and drunken, more intent of hunting, racing, gambling,

and womanizing than on learning how to rule. Genghis Khan’s

 shortcomings as a father, in the end, helped bring down his empire and thus

undid his lifetime of work.

 

Manduhai did not have the luxury of the problems of so many extra sons.

She had but this one boy ( 여기에서 boy 는 그녀의 남편이지만 마치 아들같은

Dayan Khan 을 말하고 있음), and she was determined to make him into a leader

 in war and in peace.

 

She kept him constantly close to her and guarded and sheltered him

without delegating that responsibility to anyone.

 In the words of the The Jewel Translucent, Manduhai “

 protected her jewel like son. “ (page 222)

 

 그외 silk road 와 trade, 몽고인들의 ger (텐트) 의식주,  철학과 믿음

 등에대하여 흥미로운 이야기들이 많이 있습니다.

 

책의 앞부분에 실린 몽고제국의 지도 또한 책을 읽는 중 여러번 참고하게 되는 유익한

map 이었습니다.