March 22, 2017 • 26 mins
Khutulun's story is a little bit cloudy, in part because it’s many hundreds of years old, and in part because accounts of her life involve a combination of propaganda and an outsider’s interpretation of it.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Uh. And
today we're going to cover a lady with a story
that's a little bit cloudy, in part because it's many
(00:22):
hundreds of years old, and in part because accounts of
her life involve a combination of propaganda, and a pretty
significant account of her life is an outsider's interpretation of it.
So we're talking about the Mongol warrior Princess Kuda Yune,
and we will mention there are many variations on ways
to say her name, and there's actually debate, I think,
even among scholars on which is the correct one. Additionally,
(00:45):
Tracy and I do not speak Mongolian, so the sort
of breathier uh sound of consonance is not what we're
gonna go with because it would sound very silly and
probably at best patronizing for us to attempt it. Yeah. Yes,
As I similarly was listening to Mongolian speakers say the
(01:07):
names in this I quickly concluded that if you and
I attempted to mimic that it would be disruptive and
distracting and not respectful. Yeah. So for her name pronunciation,
we were going with Kuda Yune. If that's not the
way you like to hear it, said, We're sorry, but
(01:27):
that's the scoop. We did that after we reviewed a
number of different speakers saying it. Uh. Yeah, it's decisions
have to be made. We had a lengthy conversation about
how to say words this morning, Yes we did. Jengis
Khan's great great granddaughter was born in twelve sixty. That
was about fifty four years after the Mongol Empire was
(01:49):
founded in twelve or six, and she would ultimately become
a legendary figure in Mongol history. Could's father was Kai
Do Khan of Mongol Leah from twelve sixty to thirteen
o one, and Kaidu's leadership was in opposition to that
of Kublai Khan, who was the fifth emperor of the
Yuan dynasty, which I am also probably saying in the
(02:10):
most horrible way I mentionable. Uh. In twelve sixty, around
the same time that Kouda Yun was born, the Mongolian
Empire really had begun to seriously fracture in a civil war,
as different family lines tried to claim the title of
Great Khan, and as this fracturing continued, the kaid Kublai
War began in twelve sixty eight. Kaidu may have been
(02:32):
motivated more by his beliefs in the traditional Mongol lifestyle
than in a desire for land or power, finding the
increasingly sedentary, indulgent court life to be an affront to
the nomadic roots of the Mongols, and Kaidu spent the
rest of his life from twelve sixty nine uh fighting
Kubla Khan over control of the Mongol territories, and Kaidu's
(02:56):
daughter figured prominently in that effort. Kaid had first in
the province of Turkestan through military alliance after first claiming
it in twelve sixty three, and by the end of
that decade he was recognized as khan by a significant
number of Mongol chieftains, and it was through that support
that he was able to wage war on Kubla Khan.
As Kubla Khan's reign reached into the twelve seventies, Kaidi
(03:19):
and his supporters asserted more and more that they were
the true Mongols, and the land that they had occupied
started to be called Mangoulistan. During Jengis Khan's reign, he
had made a law that the title of khan being
given to anyone had to be approved by all the
branches of the royal lineage. So Kubla Khan's reign was
(03:41):
truly seen as illegitimate because of all this fracturing within
the Mongol Empire. Yes, so just to try to clarify
a little, there are several people that are using the
title con but they are all arguing over who really
has the right to use it uh in its official capacity.
So Kaidu's daughter is given multiple different names in historical
(04:03):
accounts of her life, but the most common is Kuda Yune,
which you will sometimes see spelled with a kh at
the beginning, and sometimes a que. And the primary account
that the West has had for information on her is
the writing of Marco Polo. So keep in mind that
her story, at least from the Western perspective, has been
viewed largely through the eyes as I said at the
(04:24):
top of the episode of an Outsider, and we're going
to talk about that a little bit more Towards the
end of the episode. The Venetian Explorer wrote of her
quote now you must know that King Kaid had a
daughter whose name was iDRAC, which in the Tartar is
as much to say the bright moon. This damsel was
very beautiful, but also so strong and brave that in
(04:46):
all her father's realm there was no man who could
outdo her in feats of strength. In all trials, she
showed greater strength than any man of them. I also
have to wonder how much she would enjoy being called
a damn zoul, But there's a whole translation thing going
on there, so we won't get hung up on it.
In terms of physical appearance, Marco Polo described her as
(05:09):
almost like a giantess, tall, muscular, stout, and shapely as
a young woman. Could you completely issued the trappings of
court life that her blood relatives enjoyed much as her
father had. And just for clarity on all of these
bloodline arguments, Kublai Khan was in fact her cousin Cutian was,
as Polo's description suggests, powerful and athletic. She was a
(05:32):
horsewoman and archer, a wrestler, and a military warrior. She
had fourteen brothers, and growing up she participated in all
of their competitive activities and the Mongolian approach to wrestling
did not match opponents to one another based on weight
class or size, so anyone could wrestle anyone. Additionally, the
style involved no time limits and the competitors were not
(05:55):
confined to a specific space. Matches started with the opponent's
standing and they would kind of grab each other at
the waist and sometimes the arm, and if any part
of the competitor of a competitor touched the ground other
than their feet, that was the end of the match.
And Kodyune was really good at wrestling, even though she
was oftentimes wrestling with men much larger than she was.
(06:18):
While she's the most famous for her wrestling prowess, you
could also make the case that what really sets cut
apart as a unique figure in Mongolian history as the
fact that she was an active participant in the military,
serving alongside her father. And we'll talk a little bit
about that and why it both is and is not unique,
uh in just a little bit. But part of the
(06:40):
reason that she was accepted in a military leadership role
and was willingly followed by the majority of the men
who served under her was actually her wrestling ability, and
that was because she was a champion athletically, so she
was believed to have been blessed by divine powers. So
her father's army, which was approximately forty men, were pretty
(07:00):
comfortable following somebody that they thought had higher powers on
her side into battle. He had also her father had
also given her what historian Jack Weatherford refers to as
a gurgey, which it's probably an approximation on pronunciation, and
this was a medallion made of precious metal that was
(07:21):
warn hanging like a pendant, that denoted her position as
status as bestowed by a khan with the will of
higher spiritual powers. Normally these were only issued two men.
There was also another type of medallion that a woman
could be given as a symbol of status, but Kudun
was granted the men's seal, and to the best of
(07:42):
my knowledge and at least one of the um historians
that I read talking about this said that she is
the only woman on record as receiving the men's seal
and justice. With wrestling, she excelled in battle, and her methodology,
at least in the early part of any given skirmish
was somewhat surprising, so as she and her father would
approach the enemy on horseback. She would ride next to
(08:05):
her father initially, and then she would bolt towards the
opponent force. She would seize one of their men. This
is often described quote as deftly as a hawk pounces
on a bird, and that's according to Marco Polo's writing.
And then she would take that man, her prey, back
to her father. This was that a move that she
did once that became legendary. She did it over and
(08:27):
over and it terrified her enemies. Her repeated success and
using this technique to so fear in the ranks of
enemy troops also added to her image among her own
people as a woman who was blessed and acted with
divine powers on her side. Yeah, it's one of those
things you think about, think, how can that work? Over
and over? Didn't they know it was coming? Uh There's
(08:49):
not a lot of research that I could find about
how their various military opponents viewed this, like how they
prepared for it, or if they prepared for Maybe it's
like when you know there's a jump scare coming and
the anticipation of it makes it worse. That is a
very good, uh um guess at what might be the
(09:11):
case there. But together she and Kaidu Khan defended the
Step region of western Mongolia successfully for years, and while
Kubla Khan and his dynasty sent army after army of
men to Mongolia in an effort to make a land grab,
kud You and her father defeated every such attempt. Coming up,
we're going to talk about Coodyn's requirements for any suitor
(09:32):
who wanted to marry her. But first we're going to
take a quick pause for a word from a sponsor.
So the big thing about Coodian story that people often
fixate on is her unwillingness to marry unless a man
could best her in wrestling. Because of her familial status
(09:55):
and her military skill, she was an extremely desirable bride,
so many men took a cha lenge many men When
a man challenged her, he also had some wager horses
in the deal, and initially the number is said to
have been ten horses. That it increased until the standard
wager was a hundred horses. If the challenger were to win,
(10:16):
Coodyun would become his bride, but if he were to lose,
she got to keep all the horses. She allegedly accumulated
a herd of ten thousand horses by collecting her winnings
from her opponents. This was a livestock accumulation that would
have rivaled that of the Emperor himself. That's a lot
of horses. I don't even looking after ten thousand horses. Yeah,
(10:41):
I mean, I'm sure they had people to do that.
But according to the account of Coudyune, again written by
Marco Polo, one thousand horses came from a single suitor
around twelve eighty, when Kuda Yun would have been about
twenty years old, and Polo's writing indicates that her parents
had grown pretty concerned about her lack of a husband
by at this point, and they had urged her to
(11:01):
throw this match so that she could marry the man
in question, because he was a very desirable match. He
was a prince, although we don't really know much more
than that, and the match drew a lot of excitement
from the community. Allegedly, could you had told her parents
that she was on board with this whole idea of
letting the prince win, but when the time actually came
(11:22):
to wrestle him, her competitive spirit got the better of
her and she did not stick to the plan. All
of this is completely unsubstantiated. We don't really know, one
way or another how she felt about this particular prince.
She may have never even considered letting him win. Yeah, again,
that's one of those things that isn't it could potentially
be true, could also be an embellishment of a historian.
(11:44):
We don't know. And the prince was actually, in addition
to being a desirable match as a husband, was a
pretty good match for her in terms of wrestling skill.
This bout lasted a long time with no clear dominator
until could you had this moment where she summoned all
her strength for one powerful move in which she was
able to pitch the prince to the ground. Obviously, she won,
(12:09):
but this had other consequences. First, the prince, who was
humiliated in front of her parents royal court, took off,
leaving his thousand horses behind, and to quote Marco Polo's
version of the story, quote, and when he found himself
thus thrown and her standing over him great, indeed was
his shame and discomfiture, he got him up straight away
(12:30):
and without more Ado departed with all his company and
returned to his father, full of shame and vexation that
he who had never yet found a man that could
stand before him should have been thus worsted by a girl.
But additionally, this dissuaded most other prospects from stepping up
to challenge guda Yune. She might have had an inkling
(12:53):
to marry her Persian cousin il kan gasign that two
of them did seem to have a relationship with some sort,
and they exchanged some correspondence, But to marry him she
would have had to leave her life live in a
more subservient role to her husband. Coudy Eune and her
cousin did not wed. Some versions of the story suggest
(13:13):
that it was her father who put an end to
this possible union, and then the rumors began. Yes so
as an unmarried woman who spent so much time with
her father, coudi In began to be the subject of
gossip and rumors, and the enemies that Coudyune and her
father had faced, possibly out of spite because they had
(13:34):
all lost, asserted that Coudyune wasn't interested in a husband
because father and daughter had an incestuous relationship. This propaganda
spread very quickly, and it was deeply damaging to the family.
Whether there was any element of truth to it, we
do not know. There are writings that say that she
said things like I don't want to marry anyone. I
want to be with my father forever. Hintink it a
(13:55):
romantic thing. But again those are written from the point
of view of people that probably we weren't fans of
hers to begin with, so they could be completely fabricated.
It was eventually those damaging rumors that led Kutian to
put aside her rule about suitors having to wrestle her
to claim her as a bride. Her father was a
man of strict habits who deeply valued honor, so to
(14:18):
have such dishonorable gossip associated his name was truly upsetting
to him and in turn to his daughter. So to
help restore her father's name and put an end to
the rumors that plagued the family, could you chose a
husband for herself from the men who were loyal to
her father, And she chose a man named Abdicol, and
the two were married. And since she hadn't made her
(14:40):
new husband best her in athletic ability, she did remain
undefeated as a wrestler, but her marriage just added another
character to the bazaar and lurid rumors. There's a fanciful
story that started a circulating that Abdicol was actually an
assassin sent to murder Kidie got captured and behaved in
(15:01):
such an honorable way that Kaidi made him an officer
in the military, and that was allegedly how he met Kodyune,
which when he was injured on the battlefield during an engagement. Yeah,
we don't know if there's any veracity to that at all, uh,
but we do know that Kodyune, even after her marriage,
did continue to serve in her military role along with
(15:24):
her father, and that he trusted her basically above all
his other children. In early one kaid with his daughter
at his side as usual, launched a military campaign that
struck deeper into Mongolia to engage Kubla Khan's forces, and
this battle lasted for days, but on the fourth day,
Kaidu was injured and he didn't manage to win the
(15:45):
battle through a wacky bit of deception and sort of
sleight of hand and confusing the enemy, but he became
gravely ill. While he received treatment for what had started
as bad stomach pain, Kaidu's condition only got worse. He
developed dysentery and died in February of one Kaidu is
(16:06):
alleged to have attempted to name Kuda Yun as his
successor as the next khan of their people, but whether
because of her own desire or because her brothers were
chagrined by the idea of Kuda Yun as khan, it
appears that she made the case that she would rather
be the leader of the Mongol military than the khan,
and she instead supported one of her brothers as the
(16:26):
next leader of their people. There is an account of
all this written by Rashid Alden that indicates that while
Kudyun may have been accepted as a military official while
her father was alive, the concept of a woman khan
was just a bit too far, and with kaid Do gone,
sentiments against her that might have been more hidden while
her father was alive started to surface. An adversary who
(16:49):
wanted the title of khan for himself, allegedly insulted her
by saying, you should mind your scissors and needles. What
have you to do with kingship and chieftainship? Coulda you
only lived for five years after her father died, and
her death is something of a mystery. The age of
forty five or forty six, so that would have been
thirteen o six. She was suddenly deceased. The cause is unknown,
(17:12):
although the two most popular speculations are either that she
died in battle or that she was the victim of
an assassination. Next up, we'll talk about some of the
critical thinking that you have to do when you're talking
about this particular piece of history, but before that, we'll
have one more quick word from a sponsor. At this point,
(17:35):
we should point out that while kuda Une is lauded
for her military service when discussed as a historical figure,
she was certainly not the only Mongol woman to have
fought in battles and to have had excellent horsemanship skills
as well as archery skills. So keep in mind that
while the style of warfare that was favored at the
time and many cultures involved a lot of hand to
(17:55):
hand combat among the men, that a woman would have
clearly been disadvantaged at Mongolian warfare on the steps relied
heavily on bow and arrow combat, and a woman with
a bow and arrow on horseback could be a formidable
opponent just as a man could. Girls and boys alike
were trained in archery from a young age, and they
had to protect their familiar livestock against predatory animals like wolves.
(18:18):
There are accounts of Mongolian women warriors and Muslim and
Christian writings dating back at twelve thirty four, which were
once again recorded instances of secondhand accounts that were penned,
in this case by a Dominican friar and archbishop after
interviewing refugees that had run from the Mongols into Russia. Yeah,
(18:38):
and that's colored uh by sort of the fear that
the Mongols are going to attack Christendom. So there's there's
a whole patina over that account that may not be
entirely accurate either, But as those in other accounts were
several decades earlier than Kodon's birth, there was some pretty
solid precedent her status in the military as a woman.
(19:03):
She may have been unusually high ranking, but she was
not an outlier being a woman in combat. But it
does appear that Kodun was unique and that she held
a position of leadership and was considered by many to
be superior to her male counterparts. She does appear to
have been truly singular as a woman who bested all
challengers and wrestling, though there are enough overlapping accounts of
(19:24):
her and her wrestling from varying sources that we can
be reasonably certain that that particular aspect of her life
story is at least rooted in truth. The other thing
to think about when looking at this piece of Mongolian
history is how much of it really does rely on
the account of Marco Polo. Historian Jack Weatherford, who we
referenced earlier, mentioned in his book The Secret History of
(19:46):
the Mongol Queens that Marco Polo was not really privy
to the long history of indecisive battling that had been
going on among the warring factions of the Mongols for
a while, so he was in many cases relying on
accounts of battles it were told to him by those factions,
likely with embellishment, so to some degree he was getting
and relaying propaganda rather than accurate history. Additionally, as we
(20:11):
mentioned at the top of the episode, what we get
from Polo's narrative is probably more indicative of how Europeans
perceived Mongolian culture than how the so social structure of
the culture actually functioned. Yeah, and then uh, Kodian's life
story has been dramatized in multiple places throughout the years.
(20:32):
In seventeen ten, Francois Petito la Qua included her in
a book of Asian stories and fables, and in that telling,
she is referred to as Tourando title which translates roughly
to Turkish daughter, and she challenges her would be suitors
to battles of wit rather than wrestling. They have to
answer several riddles, but the losers in that dramatized telling
give up their lives rather than horses if they lose. Toronto,
(20:56):
Princess of China was a play first penned by Italian
Carlos Yotzi in the mid eighteenth century and then adapted
by German writer Friedrich von Schiller. And of course there's
a Puccini opera of the same name, which the composer
was working on when he died in If you've ever
heard of any of the many performances of Neiss and Dorma,
(21:17):
one of the most famous pieces of opera of all time,
you've heard part of Toronto. Yeah, that's one of those
pieces that you hear all the time. It's absolutely beautiful. Uh.
And of course in current media. The Netflix series Marco
Polo also features Kuda Unit as a character. Oh, this
is a very fictionalized and very sexualized version of the
(21:37):
historical Mongolian woman. Uh So, if you're interested and you
turn to that police know that it's very sexualized. And
if you like it, that's cool, and it may be
really funny candy, but it is definitely not an adherent
to a historical fact. It basically starts her. Her appearance
in that series, which I think ran for two seasons,
basically starts with the cliche of the man wrestles with
(22:01):
the lady and then it escalates immediately from there. Yeah,
and they you will note there that wrestling is not
the kind of wrestling we described here. It's very much
the role on the ground kind more like Greco Roman wrestling. Yeah,
it's kind of a trope. Also, Coudaun is featured on
(22:23):
Rejected Princesses, which you know we love Rejected Princesses. Yeah,
you may recall Jason was a guest on our show,
so it all ties together. We all love Kudyuan. She's
a really fascinating figure and people love her. But it
is one of those things where there's a lot of
like head scratchy, how much of this is the truth
and how much of this is crabby people that didn't
(22:44):
like her writing about her, like even at the time,
that's very propaganda oriented. And then of course it's been
romanticized so much that it's hard to pick out what
exactly is is truly based in reality. And when you're
one source is Marco Polo flo one? Yet you're one source,
(23:05):
it's Marco Polo. Hey, Holly, what podcasts are you listening to? Um?
So this one has absolutely nothing to do with history.
But one of my very favorite podcasts is What's the
Tea with Rupaula Michelle Visage. I highly recommend it to
lots of people. It's very uplifting, super fun. I have
never laughed so hard in my life. I'm saying that
(23:25):
with absolute conviction. As the episode where niece Nash is
against that show, um, super duper fun. Definitely some adult language,
so take that into consideration if you go looking for it.
But it is really delightful. And we're mentioning this because
throughout the month of March, podcasters are sharing some of
the things they love. But we're also encouraging you listeners
(23:46):
of podcasts to share the things you love about podcasting
and the titles that you love with people that you
think might like podcasts and maybe haven't gotten into them yet. So, uh,
if you think what's the tea with pol and michell
visage might be good for a friend of yours, let
them know about it. They would probably delighted and who
doesn't want to laugh? Uh? So you can do that,
go ahead and recommend things to people, but also share
(24:08):
them on social media, use the hashtag try t r
y pod tripod and uh you can also just look
at that hashtag and see what other people are recommending
and talking about. It's it's kind of an effort to
just make sure people know about the vast wealth of
podcasts available to them. There's literally something for everybody. Uh.
So with that, we will then hop into listener mail,
(24:30):
which is from our listener, a Lease. I think that
is how she pronounces her name. She sent us a
little parcel of cards as a Marti Gras present, says
happy Marti Gras. Hello, ladies. I'm writing to thank you
for the many hours of informational entertainment. I had written
you before, but neglected to put your address on it. Oops.
Please ignore that message. I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
(24:50):
and would love to have an episode about Hue p Long.
I love the episodes on Morti Gras and really think
you'd love Hughie's story. And closed are some postcards from
l You Hill Memorial Library. Please enjoy sincerely. At least
there are some really fun historical postcards. I will take
a picture of those and share them. Thank you so
much at least for writing us and sharing these beautiful
(25:11):
images with us. One in particular is absolutely stunning. It
is uh the launch of a fashion line from an
unidentified designer, but it's just a beautiful photograph composition wise,
So thank you, thank you, thank you. Uh. If you
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at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com. We
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(25:33):
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(25:55):
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(26:39):
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
it how stuff works dot com
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Uh. And
today we're going to cover a lady with a story
that's a little bit cloudy, in part because it's many
(00:22):
hundreds of years old, and in part because accounts of
her life involve a combination of propaganda, and a pretty
significant account of her life is an outsider's interpretation of it.
So we're talking about the Mongol warrior Princess Kuda Yune,
and we will mention there are many variations on ways
to say her name, and there's actually debate, I think,
even among scholars on which is the correct one. Additionally,
(00:45):
Tracy and I do not speak Mongolian, so the sort
of breathier uh sound of consonance is not what we're
gonna go with because it would sound very silly and
probably at best patronizing for us to attempt it. Yeah. Yes,
As I similarly was listening to Mongolian speakers say the
(01:07):
names in this I quickly concluded that if you and
I attempted to mimic that it would be disruptive and
distracting and not respectful. Yeah. So for her name pronunciation,
we were going with Kuda Yune. If that's not the
way you like to hear it, said, We're sorry, but
(01:27):
that's the scoop. We did that after we reviewed a
number of different speakers saying it. Uh. Yeah, it's decisions
have to be made. We had a lengthy conversation about
how to say words this morning, Yes we did. Jengis
Khan's great great granddaughter was born in twelve sixty. That
was about fifty four years after the Mongol Empire was
(01:49):
founded in twelve or six, and she would ultimately become
a legendary figure in Mongol history. Could's father was Kai
Do Khan of Mongol Leah from twelve sixty to thirteen
o one, and Kaidu's leadership was in opposition to that
of Kublai Khan, who was the fifth emperor of the
Yuan dynasty, which I am also probably saying in the
(02:10):
most horrible way I mentionable. Uh. In twelve sixty, around
the same time that Kouda Yun was born, the Mongolian
Empire really had begun to seriously fracture in a civil war,
as different family lines tried to claim the title of
Great Khan, and as this fracturing continued, the kaid Kublai
War began in twelve sixty eight. Kaidu may have been
(02:32):
motivated more by his beliefs in the traditional Mongol lifestyle
than in a desire for land or power, finding the
increasingly sedentary, indulgent court life to be an affront to
the nomadic roots of the Mongols, and Kaidu spent the
rest of his life from twelve sixty nine uh fighting
Kubla Khan over control of the Mongol territories, and Kaidu's
(02:56):
daughter figured prominently in that effort. Kaid had first in
the province of Turkestan through military alliance after first claiming
it in twelve sixty three, and by the end of
that decade he was recognized as khan by a significant
number of Mongol chieftains, and it was through that support
that he was able to wage war on Kubla Khan.
As Kubla Khan's reign reached into the twelve seventies, Kaidi
(03:19):
and his supporters asserted more and more that they were
the true Mongols, and the land that they had occupied
started to be called Mangoulistan. During Jengis Khan's reign, he
had made a law that the title of khan being
given to anyone had to be approved by all the
branches of the royal lineage. So Kubla Khan's reign was
(03:41):
truly seen as illegitimate because of all this fracturing within
the Mongol Empire. Yes, so just to try to clarify
a little, there are several people that are using the
title con but they are all arguing over who really
has the right to use it uh in its official capacity.
So Kaidu's daughter is given multiple different names in historical
(04:03):
accounts of her life, but the most common is Kuda Yune,
which you will sometimes see spelled with a kh at
the beginning, and sometimes a que. And the primary account
that the West has had for information on her is
the writing of Marco Polo. So keep in mind that
her story, at least from the Western perspective, has been
viewed largely through the eyes as I said at the
(04:24):
top of the episode of an Outsider, and we're going
to talk about that a little bit more Towards the
end of the episode. The Venetian Explorer wrote of her
quote now you must know that King Kaid had a
daughter whose name was iDRAC, which in the Tartar is
as much to say the bright moon. This damsel was
very beautiful, but also so strong and brave that in
(04:46):
all her father's realm there was no man who could
outdo her in feats of strength. In all trials, she
showed greater strength than any man of them. I also
have to wonder how much she would enjoy being called
a damn zoul, But there's a whole translation thing going
on there, so we won't get hung up on it.
In terms of physical appearance, Marco Polo described her as
(05:09):
almost like a giantess, tall, muscular, stout, and shapely as
a young woman. Could you completely issued the trappings of
court life that her blood relatives enjoyed much as her
father had. And just for clarity on all of these
bloodline arguments, Kublai Khan was in fact her cousin Cutian was,
as Polo's description suggests, powerful and athletic. She was a
(05:32):
horsewoman and archer, a wrestler, and a military warrior. She
had fourteen brothers, and growing up she participated in all
of their competitive activities and the Mongolian approach to wrestling
did not match opponents to one another based on weight
class or size, so anyone could wrestle anyone. Additionally, the
style involved no time limits and the competitors were not
(05:55):
confined to a specific space. Matches started with the opponent's
standing and they would kind of grab each other at
the waist and sometimes the arm, and if any part
of the competitor of a competitor touched the ground other
than their feet, that was the end of the match.
And Kodyune was really good at wrestling, even though she
was oftentimes wrestling with men much larger than she was.
(06:18):
While she's the most famous for her wrestling prowess, you
could also make the case that what really sets cut
apart as a unique figure in Mongolian history as the
fact that she was an active participant in the military,
serving alongside her father. And we'll talk a little bit
about that and why it both is and is not unique,
uh in just a little bit. But part of the
(06:40):
reason that she was accepted in a military leadership role
and was willingly followed by the majority of the men
who served under her was actually her wrestling ability, and
that was because she was a champion athletically, so she
was believed to have been blessed by divine powers. So
her father's army, which was approximately forty men, were pretty
(07:00):
comfortable following somebody that they thought had higher powers on
her side into battle. He had also her father had
also given her what historian Jack Weatherford refers to as
a gurgey, which it's probably an approximation on pronunciation, and
this was a medallion made of precious metal that was
(07:21):
warn hanging like a pendant, that denoted her position as
status as bestowed by a khan with the will of
higher spiritual powers. Normally these were only issued two men.
There was also another type of medallion that a woman
could be given as a symbol of status, but Kudun
was granted the men's seal, and to the best of
(07:42):
my knowledge and at least one of the um historians
that I read talking about this said that she is
the only woman on record as receiving the men's seal
and justice. With wrestling, she excelled in battle, and her methodology,
at least in the early part of any given skirmish
was somewhat surprising, so as she and her father would
approach the enemy on horseback. She would ride next to
(08:05):
her father initially, and then she would bolt towards the
opponent force. She would seize one of their men. This
is often described quote as deftly as a hawk pounces
on a bird, and that's according to Marco Polo's writing.
And then she would take that man, her prey, back
to her father. This was that a move that she
did once that became legendary. She did it over and
(08:27):
over and it terrified her enemies. Her repeated success and
using this technique to so fear in the ranks of
enemy troops also added to her image among her own
people as a woman who was blessed and acted with
divine powers on her side. Yeah, it's one of those
things you think about, think, how can that work? Over
and over? Didn't they know it was coming? Uh There's
(08:49):
not a lot of research that I could find about
how their various military opponents viewed this, like how they
prepared for it, or if they prepared for Maybe it's
like when you know there's a jump scare coming and
the anticipation of it makes it worse. That is a
very good, uh um guess at what might be the
(09:11):
case there. But together she and Kaidu Khan defended the
Step region of western Mongolia successfully for years, and while
Kubla Khan and his dynasty sent army after army of
men to Mongolia in an effort to make a land grab,
kud You and her father defeated every such attempt. Coming up,
we're going to talk about Coodyn's requirements for any suitor
(09:32):
who wanted to marry her. But first we're going to
take a quick pause for a word from a sponsor.
So the big thing about Coodian story that people often
fixate on is her unwillingness to marry unless a man
could best her in wrestling. Because of her familial status
(09:55):
and her military skill, she was an extremely desirable bride,
so many men took a cha lenge many men When
a man challenged her, he also had some wager horses
in the deal, and initially the number is said to
have been ten horses. That it increased until the standard
wager was a hundred horses. If the challenger were to win,
(10:16):
Coodyun would become his bride, but if he were to lose,
she got to keep all the horses. She allegedly accumulated
a herd of ten thousand horses by collecting her winnings
from her opponents. This was a livestock accumulation that would
have rivaled that of the Emperor himself. That's a lot
of horses. I don't even looking after ten thousand horses. Yeah,
(10:41):
I mean, I'm sure they had people to do that.
But according to the account of Coudyune, again written by
Marco Polo, one thousand horses came from a single suitor
around twelve eighty, when Kuda Yun would have been about
twenty years old, and Polo's writing indicates that her parents
had grown pretty concerned about her lack of a husband
by at this point, and they had urged her to
(11:01):
throw this match so that she could marry the man
in question, because he was a very desirable match. He
was a prince, although we don't really know much more
than that, and the match drew a lot of excitement
from the community. Allegedly, could you had told her parents
that she was on board with this whole idea of
letting the prince win, but when the time actually came
(11:22):
to wrestle him, her competitive spirit got the better of
her and she did not stick to the plan. All
of this is completely unsubstantiated. We don't really know, one
way or another how she felt about this particular prince.
She may have never even considered letting him win. Yeah, again,
that's one of those things that isn't it could potentially
be true, could also be an embellishment of a historian.
(11:44):
We don't know. And the prince was actually, in addition
to being a desirable match as a husband, was a
pretty good match for her in terms of wrestling skill.
This bout lasted a long time with no clear dominator
until could you had this moment where she summoned all
her strength for one powerful move in which she was
able to pitch the prince to the ground. Obviously, she won,
(12:09):
but this had other consequences. First, the prince, who was
humiliated in front of her parents royal court, took off,
leaving his thousand horses behind, and to quote Marco Polo's
version of the story, quote, and when he found himself
thus thrown and her standing over him great, indeed was
his shame and discomfiture, he got him up straight away
(12:30):
and without more Ado departed with all his company and
returned to his father, full of shame and vexation that
he who had never yet found a man that could
stand before him should have been thus worsted by a girl.
But additionally, this dissuaded most other prospects from stepping up
to challenge guda Yune. She might have had an inkling
(12:53):
to marry her Persian cousin il kan gasign that two
of them did seem to have a relationship with some sort,
and they exchanged some correspondence, But to marry him she
would have had to leave her life live in a
more subservient role to her husband. Coudy Eune and her
cousin did not wed. Some versions of the story suggest
(13:13):
that it was her father who put an end to
this possible union, and then the rumors began. Yes so
as an unmarried woman who spent so much time with
her father, coudi In began to be the subject of
gossip and rumors, and the enemies that Coudyune and her
father had faced, possibly out of spite because they had
(13:34):
all lost, asserted that Coudyune wasn't interested in a husband
because father and daughter had an incestuous relationship. This propaganda
spread very quickly, and it was deeply damaging to the family.
Whether there was any element of truth to it, we
do not know. There are writings that say that she
said things like I don't want to marry anyone. I
want to be with my father forever. Hintink it a
(13:55):
romantic thing. But again those are written from the point
of view of people that probably we weren't fans of
hers to begin with, so they could be completely fabricated.
It was eventually those damaging rumors that led Kutian to
put aside her rule about suitors having to wrestle her
to claim her as a bride. Her father was a
man of strict habits who deeply valued honor, so to
(14:18):
have such dishonorable gossip associated his name was truly upsetting
to him and in turn to his daughter. So to
help restore her father's name and put an end to
the rumors that plagued the family, could you chose a
husband for herself from the men who were loyal to
her father, And she chose a man named Abdicol, and
the two were married. And since she hadn't made her
(14:40):
new husband best her in athletic ability, she did remain
undefeated as a wrestler, but her marriage just added another
character to the bazaar and lurid rumors. There's a fanciful
story that started a circulating that Abdicol was actually an
assassin sent to murder Kidie got captured and behaved in
(15:01):
such an honorable way that Kaidi made him an officer
in the military, and that was allegedly how he met Kodyune,
which when he was injured on the battlefield during an engagement. Yeah,
we don't know if there's any veracity to that at all, uh,
but we do know that Kodyune, even after her marriage,
did continue to serve in her military role along with
(15:24):
her father, and that he trusted her basically above all
his other children. In early one kaid with his daughter
at his side as usual, launched a military campaign that
struck deeper into Mongolia to engage Kubla Khan's forces, and
this battle lasted for days, but on the fourth day,
Kaidu was injured and he didn't manage to win the
(15:45):
battle through a wacky bit of deception and sort of
sleight of hand and confusing the enemy, but he became
gravely ill. While he received treatment for what had started
as bad stomach pain, Kaidu's condition only got worse. He
developed dysentery and died in February of one Kaidu is
(16:06):
alleged to have attempted to name Kuda Yun as his
successor as the next khan of their people, but whether
because of her own desire or because her brothers were
chagrined by the idea of Kuda Yun as khan, it
appears that she made the case that she would rather
be the leader of the Mongol military than the khan,
and she instead supported one of her brothers as the
(16:26):
next leader of their people. There is an account of
all this written by Rashid Alden that indicates that while
Kudyun may have been accepted as a military official while
her father was alive, the concept of a woman khan
was just a bit too far, and with kaid Do gone,
sentiments against her that might have been more hidden while
her father was alive started to surface. An adversary who
(16:49):
wanted the title of khan for himself, allegedly insulted her
by saying, you should mind your scissors and needles. What
have you to do with kingship and chieftainship? Coulda you
only lived for five years after her father died, and
her death is something of a mystery. The age of
forty five or forty six, so that would have been
thirteen o six. She was suddenly deceased. The cause is unknown,
(17:12):
although the two most popular speculations are either that she
died in battle or that she was the victim of
an assassination. Next up, we'll talk about some of the
critical thinking that you have to do when you're talking
about this particular piece of history, but before that, we'll
have one more quick word from a sponsor. At this point,
(17:35):
we should point out that while kuda Une is lauded
for her military service when discussed as a historical figure,
she was certainly not the only Mongol woman to have
fought in battles and to have had excellent horsemanship skills
as well as archery skills. So keep in mind that
while the style of warfare that was favored at the
time and many cultures involved a lot of hand to
(17:55):
hand combat among the men, that a woman would have
clearly been disadvantaged at Mongolian warfare on the steps relied
heavily on bow and arrow combat, and a woman with
a bow and arrow on horseback could be a formidable
opponent just as a man could. Girls and boys alike
were trained in archery from a young age, and they
had to protect their familiar livestock against predatory animals like wolves.
(18:18):
There are accounts of Mongolian women warriors and Muslim and
Christian writings dating back at twelve thirty four, which were
once again recorded instances of secondhand accounts that were penned,
in this case by a Dominican friar and archbishop after
interviewing refugees that had run from the Mongols into Russia. Yeah,
(18:38):
and that's colored uh by sort of the fear that
the Mongols are going to attack Christendom. So there's there's
a whole patina over that account that may not be
entirely accurate either, But as those in other accounts were
several decades earlier than Kodon's birth, there was some pretty
solid precedent her status in the military as a woman.
(19:03):
She may have been unusually high ranking, but she was
not an outlier being a woman in combat. But it
does appear that Kodun was unique and that she held
a position of leadership and was considered by many to
be superior to her male counterparts. She does appear to
have been truly singular as a woman who bested all
challengers and wrestling, though there are enough overlapping accounts of
(19:24):
her and her wrestling from varying sources that we can
be reasonably certain that that particular aspect of her life
story is at least rooted in truth. The other thing
to think about when looking at this piece of Mongolian
history is how much of it really does rely on
the account of Marco Polo. Historian Jack Weatherford, who we
referenced earlier, mentioned in his book The Secret History of
(19:46):
the Mongol Queens that Marco Polo was not really privy
to the long history of indecisive battling that had been
going on among the warring factions of the Mongols for
a while, so he was in many cases relying on
accounts of battles it were told to him by those factions,
likely with embellishment, so to some degree he was getting
and relaying propaganda rather than accurate history. Additionally, as we
(20:11):
mentioned at the top of the episode, what we get
from Polo's narrative is probably more indicative of how Europeans
perceived Mongolian culture than how the so social structure of
the culture actually functioned. Yeah, and then uh, Kodian's life
story has been dramatized in multiple places throughout the years.
(20:32):
In seventeen ten, Francois Petito la Qua included her in
a book of Asian stories and fables, and in that telling,
she is referred to as Tourando title which translates roughly
to Turkish daughter, and she challenges her would be suitors
to battles of wit rather than wrestling. They have to
answer several riddles, but the losers in that dramatized telling
give up their lives rather than horses if they lose. Toronto,
(20:56):
Princess of China was a play first penned by Italian
Carlos Yotzi in the mid eighteenth century and then adapted
by German writer Friedrich von Schiller. And of course there's
a Puccini opera of the same name, which the composer
was working on when he died in If you've ever
heard of any of the many performances of Neiss and Dorma,
(21:17):
one of the most famous pieces of opera of all time,
you've heard part of Toronto. Yeah, that's one of those
pieces that you hear all the time. It's absolutely beautiful. Uh.
And of course in current media. The Netflix series Marco
Polo also features Kuda Unit as a character. Oh, this
is a very fictionalized and very sexualized version of the
(21:37):
historical Mongolian woman. Uh So, if you're interested and you
turn to that police know that it's very sexualized. And
if you like it, that's cool, and it may be
really funny candy, but it is definitely not an adherent
to a historical fact. It basically starts her. Her appearance
in that series, which I think ran for two seasons,
basically starts with the cliche of the man wrestles with
(22:01):
the lady and then it escalates immediately from there. Yeah,
and they you will note there that wrestling is not
the kind of wrestling we described here. It's very much
the role on the ground kind more like Greco Roman wrestling. Yeah,
it's kind of a trope. Also, Coudaun is featured on
(22:23):
Rejected Princesses, which you know we love Rejected Princesses. Yeah,
you may recall Jason was a guest on our show,
so it all ties together. We all love Kudyuan. She's
a really fascinating figure and people love her. But it
is one of those things where there's a lot of
like head scratchy, how much of this is the truth
and how much of this is crabby people that didn't
(22:44):
like her writing about her, like even at the time,
that's very propaganda oriented. And then of course it's been
romanticized so much that it's hard to pick out what
exactly is is truly based in reality. And when you're
one source is Marco Polo flo one? Yet you're one source,
(23:05):
it's Marco Polo. Hey, Holly, what podcasts are you listening to? Um?
So this one has absolutely nothing to do with history.
But one of my very favorite podcasts is What's the
Tea with Rupaula Michelle Visage. I highly recommend it to
lots of people. It's very uplifting, super fun. I have
never laughed so hard in my life. I'm saying that
(23:25):
with absolute conviction. As the episode where niece Nash is
against that show, um, super duper fun. Definitely some adult language,
so take that into consideration if you go looking for it.
But it is really delightful. And we're mentioning this because
throughout the month of March, podcasters are sharing some of
the things they love. But we're also encouraging you listeners
(23:46):
of podcasts to share the things you love about podcasting
and the titles that you love with people that you
think might like podcasts and maybe haven't gotten into them yet. So, uh,
if you think what's the tea with pol and michell
visage might be good for a friend of yours, let
them know about it. They would probably delighted and who
doesn't want to laugh? Uh? So you can do that,
go ahead and recommend things to people, but also share
(24:08):
them on social media, use the hashtag try t r
y pod tripod and uh you can also just look
at that hashtag and see what other people are recommending
and talking about. It's it's kind of an effort to
just make sure people know about the vast wealth of
podcasts available to them. There's literally something for everybody. Uh.
So with that, we will then hop into listener mail,
(24:30):
which is from our listener, a Lease. I think that
is how she pronounces her name. She sent us a
little parcel of cards as a Marti Gras present, says
happy Marti Gras. Hello, ladies. I'm writing to thank you
for the many hours of informational entertainment. I had written
you before, but neglected to put your address on it. Oops.
Please ignore that message. I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
(24:50):
and would love to have an episode about Hue p Long.
I love the episodes on Morti Gras and really think
you'd love Hughie's story. And closed are some postcards from
l You Hill Memorial Library. Please enjoy sincerely. At least
there are some really fun historical postcards. I will take
a picture of those and share them. Thank you so
much at least for writing us and sharing these beautiful
(25:11):
images with us. One in particular is absolutely stunning. It
is uh the launch of a fashion line from an
unidentified designer, but it's just a beautiful photograph composition wise,
So thank you, thank you, thank you. Uh. If you
would like to write to us, you can do so
at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com. We
are also very easily reachable across the span of social
(25:33):
media as at missed in history, so that means on
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do a little personal research and just get some more
learning under your belt. You can go to our parents site,
how stuff Works. Type in almost anything you're interested in
(25:55):
in the search bar and you will get a wealth
of information and articles to choose from. You would like
to visit us, you can do so at missed in
history dot com, where we have an archive of every
single episode that has ever happened of the show, and
for the episodes that Tracy and I have worked on,
there are show notes. However, going forward, we have just
(26:15):
changed our format and how we handle show notes. They
will be included on the podcast episode page now, so
while the older ones will still be separate, newer ones
from this point going forward will all be together, so
it's less clicking around for you. All of your information
is consolidated, So please come and visit us at missed
in history dot com and how stuff works dot com
(26:39):
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