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Issue Date: 1 / 2013 |
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Following Genghis Khan
James Dorsey
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A shrine to Ghengis Khan. Copyright
(c) James Dorsey.
In the northwestern corner of China, where a pointed finger of land pokes into Russia, and separates Kazakhstan from Mongolia, the last physical remains of the army of Genghis Khan stand watch.
The area is called Kanas, and it holds a gorgeous national park full of flowing emerald rivers, and snow capped peaks, and while it is part of China, its inhabitants are Mongolian nomads (Tuvans to be exact), unfortunately assigned a nationality by an arbitrary line on a map. For centuries they have roamed free over this land with no concession to borders. They claim descent from Khan's Mongol army that massed in this area before heading west to invade the so called civilized world, and consider themselves the keepers of the ancient stone monoliths that still remind the world of a nomadic cavalry that almost conquered the world's most modern and sophisticated armies of their day.
Like their ancestors, they learn to ride as soon as they can walk, and they live in felt yurts unchanged since the time of the great Khan that dot these rolling valleys like blooming mushrooms. They are primarily animists with a smattering of Buddhism thrown in, while shamanism dominates their spiritual and cultural life. Every home has a shrine to Genghis Khan, who while not considered a deity is nevertheless venerated through the age old practice of tiingrism.
Enter any yurt and you will find a framed portrait of the Khan, wrapped in a white silk scarf, because his spirit still fills the valley as much as his physical presence once did. But to truly know Kanas, one must leave the developed roads, and climb the grassy steppes that once felt the hooves of the Khans cavalry, for it is on these slopes that the ghosts of that army still stand watch. There are dozens of stone monoliths, large carved rock sentinels whose meanings are now lost in the fog of time, but whose true purpose is really no longer relevant as they need only to serve as reminders of the power and wrath unleashed upon the world of their day.
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A stone monolith. Copyright (c)
James Dorsey.
Click image to enlarge.
Genghis Khan, whose true name was Borjigin Temujin, was himself a shaman, known not only for his tolerance of other beliefs but an active pursuit in learning from them. He is known for consulting Christian missionaries, Buddhist monks, Muslim merchants, and even for seeking out a Chinese Taoist monk named Qiu Chuji to learn his teachings. In such a culture, symbolism and ceremony are not only integral parts of a complex belief system, but necessary physical reminders to a vast uneducated army of followers of what they are trying to accomplish. The Mongol army was mostly uneducated peasants and herders, bred to the saddle from birth, but ignorant of the loftier ideas of their day.
To place one's self in their time and environment is to understand the towering significance of ceremony in their lives and the importance they would have attached to the creation and erection of these monuments. The raising of each of these monoliths was probably the final act following an evening of prayer, drinking, and sacrifice, leaving a silent witness to the event and a permanent link to the spiritual world, much like a Christian votive light, though on a much more permanent basis.
The stones vary in size and shape, some approximate men with faces, though much of the detail has been lost to the ravages of nature. Any carved text that would reveal information has long been weathered away, leaving an interpretation of their meaning as varied as the nomads who consider these monoliths to be sacred sites. The very fact that they are made of stone and not wood verifies that the Khan needed a permanent monument and or record of his passing besides the immediate religious implications of such carvings.
Local people will tell you they are most likely physical cries to ancient deities, offerings for success in battle, but there must be much more to them that just that. Carving stone takes time, and to do so with the finesse shown in these monoliths implies not just skilled craftsmen, but artisans of the highest order. There is almost assuredly religious significance invested in them also which implies priests of some order or at least shamans who had a high degree of importance within the army. This seems to fly in the face of the modern world's interpretation of the Khans army being an unwashed mass of barbarians whose sole purpose was riding, raping, and pillaging.
It is not widely known that Genghis Khan was credited with creating the first long distance mail service, instituting a written language based on Uyghur script, a language still in use today, and for spreading religious tolerance among the various faiths of his followers, and even inventing the hamburger patty, attributed to his men placing raw meat under their saddles to tenderize it as they rode. These are not the actions of a knuckle dragging barbarian. The man wise enough to unite all the fractious warring bands of the Asian steppes into one of the most successful invading armies of all times was also wise enough to realize the importance of symbolism embodied in such monoliths.
Most of the western world does not know these links to the past exist. A handful have been gathered up and placed in local Chinese museums and variously attributed, while over a dozen have been collected and placed in one small valley where tourists are charged a fee to follow a wooden path that wanders for a couple miles past several small monoliths. These are accompanied by tourist stalls selling tacky plastic reproductions next to fake silk scarves.
But if one is willing to venture slightly off the beaten path and journey up into the local mountains, there you can find the last remaining vestiges of the great army of Genghis Khan, untouched by human hands in almost 1000 years.
James Michael Dorsey is a freelance photojournalist and a
frequent contributor to The World & I Online. His work can be
seen on the web at jamesdorsey.com.
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