Jack Weatherford: uncertainty

Transcript context

…And that too was a deeply formative experience. So what was that about? Can you explain in Mongol society, the role of the older brother and the power struggle there, and not to moralize, but there’s also the ethical foundation behind the murder? The killing of Behter, that’s one of the things that’s totally unknown outside of the Secret History of the Mongols, none of the Persian Chronicles, none of the Chinese Chronicles, none of them knew about this until the Secret History was deciphered and translated. But Behter was the older child of Sochigel. The older brother has complete authority over the younger siblings in Mongolian society, they have to refer to him with a special pronoun all the time, ta. And he refers to them as chi. It’s like a formality. And his word goes. He’s the father in the absence of the father. But also it’s quite common that if a man dies and he has no brothers, or his brothers do not marry his widow, then if he has a son by another wife, she will become his wife. So it would’ve been common that Behter eventually, when he passed through puberty, would then perhaps marry mother Hö’elün. Now, I don’t know that that happened, but I think either it did or Temüjin was trying to prevent it, because it was bad enough that he was the older brother, but he comes the older brother and the stepfather. I think Temüjin just couldn’t handle that. And he was already, Behter was ordering around. So he would take things like a fish or bird that Temüjin had caught, and that’s perfectly acceptable in the Mongol hierarchy. So Temüjin would catch a fish and Behter would take the fish?…

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