Jack Weatherford: belief

Transcript context

…So Temüjin’s early years were marked by loneliness, abandonment and struggle? Yes. Even after this, he was kidnapped at one point by Taichiud people. He was kidnapped and we would say, I think the correct word, enslaved. They put him into a cangue, a yoke like a ox would wear. And so his two arms are in it and his head is in it, and he’s trapped in this thing. And every night he would be taken to a different ger to be guarded by that family. And one night there was a little celebration. So most of the people are drinking and he’s left with a boy who’s not very smart. Temüjin managed to take the cangue, the wooden yoke that he’s trapped in and use it as a weapon by turning it around very quickly and hitting the boy in the head, knocking him out. That was one of the first lessons for the Mongols, that anything that moves is a weapon. This is going to go on for generations. Very important for the Mongols. If it moves, it’s a weapon. He did that. He raced off in the night and he jumped into the river to hide. He still got a cangue on him. He’s still trapped under there. The people are looking for him. They come out and they’re up and down the river and he’s hiding underneath the water for the most part, trying to breathe as best he can, but it’s dark and it protects him a little bit. They give up and they say, “Okay, we’ll come back tomorrow. He can’t possibly escape.” But the next day, he knew one family that he thought he could go to, and he was right. He went to that family and a great risk to themselves. They in fact were a captive family of the Taichiud and at great risk to themselves, they managed to saw off the cangue and then burn it in their fire, and they gave him food to escape, and then he had to go find his family again. So this is the kind of life that this boy Temüjin had. So he, just to be clear, the neck is trapped and the hands are trapped?…

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