Jack Weatherford: prediction

Transcript context

…After the man he killed. So he has a kidnapped mother, she’s a second wife now, not a legal wife, but just a second kidnapped wife. And he’s named for someone his father just killed. It was not an auspicious beginning. And in fact, just episode after episode in his childhood was inauspicious. The father and mother moved camp one time when he was quite young and somehow they overlooked him and forgot him. He was left behind. So here’s this young child, we don’t know what age, but it could have been around four or five, I think. He was left behind. And as it turned out, some other people, the Taichiud found him and then they kept him for a while, and eventually he was reunited with his father and mother. And it’s very odd to me that I never have any inkling of a spark of relationship much between the father and the son because then when Temüjin is eight years old, his father decides to take him off to find a wife, which finding a wife in the Mongolian terms means you give the child to that family or you give the boy to that family and he will live with them and they will raise him up and they will train him the way they want before he can marry their daughter. And so he’s taking him off at age eight, but he didn’t take the other son from the other wife, Behter. He was keeping him. There was something about Temüjin having been lost once and found by the Taichiud and reunited with the family. And now his father takes him off at age eight and he was going to take him to Hö’elün’s family, but he never made it. He stopped with another family. It’s like the first family he came across. And in the words of the Secret History, it sort of like instant love that there was fire in his eyes and fire in her eyes. And he saw this girl Börte, who was about nine years old, a little older, and he wanted to stay there with that family according to the story. And so the father left him there with that family. But on the way home, the father, he saw a drinking party and he decided to join them. They were Tatars. He hid his identity. On the steppe, everybody kind of figures out who everybody is. They figured out who he was. And supposedly they poisoned him. He got on his horse and was able to ride back home. But within a few days he died. teppe, everybody kind of figures out who everybody is. They figured out who he was. And supposedly they poisoned him. He got on his horse and was able to ride back home. But within a few days he died. So now Temüjin is off living with another family, and somebody comes from his family, a family, not a relative, but a close person named Münglig comes to get him, take him back, and they make it through the winter. They make it through the winter. Mother Hö’elün, by now she has four sons and one daughter. I think the daughter had already been born or the daughter was going to be born not too long after that, but they make it through the winter. The spring comes and of course the clan is going to move to a new camp. They go to spring camp from winter camp. And they have a ceremony for the ancestors. And they started the ceremony, but they did not tell Hö’elün. And so she came and she was angry that she had been left out. And the old women said, “You’re the one for whom we do not have to call. We will feed you if you come, but we do not have to take care of you.” Letting her know that as a captive woman, she was not a real wife in their view. And that was really the signal that when they moved camp, they were not taking her with them. And they packed up and they took her animals. They took the animals. But at that moment, she still had one horse for a moment, and she jumped on the horse and she took the banner of her husband and she raced around the people. And the banner after death contains the soul of the person, [foreign language 00:11:29] it’s called. And so she raced around and they were a little bit nervous. And so they camped for one night and they waited until it was dark, then they took off. And this time one of the friends of the family came running out to try to stop them and they killed him. And Temüjin cried. He was a little boy, eight years old. There was nothing he could do. He’s just a little boy. And now that family is left there on the steppe, four children, possibly five already. Sochigel, the other woman with two children. They’re all left there to die on the steppe. When the winter comes, they will surely all die. How do they make it through the winter?…

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