Talk:Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan is not white!

It's not surprising to see white historians try to claim an Asian figure that changed the world as white. If anything this just illustrates the need for Asians to take control of telling the history of their heritage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.255.158.114 (talk) 12:49, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Genghis Khan is 100% Asian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.91.134.194 (talk) 09:35, 27 May 2010 (UTC) ( I really do not know why people really do consider the race or the color of the skin.... He was a HUMAN and he had just believed in himself and that's it... I was very very lucky to be born as a MONGOLIAN) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nerguich (talk • contribs) 02:02, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, he was Asian. But that doesn't necessarily mean East Asian. Historian Harold Lamb asserts most of the Mongols were originally Caucasian. It wasn't until they conquered the Chinese states of Xia and Jin as well as the southwestern Turkic states that the Mongols gained their current physical features. Kublai Khan was Mongol-Chinese. Ghenghis Khan was white, red-haired, and had grey eyes. Evidence of this pre-historical proximity of Caucasians can be found in several recently discovered archeology sites in western Chinese. Lamb observed that some Afghan tribes trace their ancestry back to the days of Genghis Khan, when he rewarded some of his loyal men with women from the conquered state of Kwarezm. There is evidence of Caucasians -- blondes and redheads found in archeology digs in the western and northwestern area of China. Articles on the digs -

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200410/s1226735.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjqK_IOhz_8&feature=player_embedded (YouTube excerpt of National Geographic show, first of multi-part video series)

Mair also asserts that current inhabitants of the region to be an East Asian-Caucasiod mix (see YouTube excerpt above)

I wonder how reliable your 1927 source is. I also wonder about the source for his grey eyes - so far we had two sources for green (Rashid ad-Din, and Juvaini's 'cat's eyes'), but none for grey. Green eyes are not that unheard of in Mongolia, in fact one of the best-selling novels of recent years is about a green-eyed guy.

That there were blonde people around the Tarim basin 2500 years ago is 1. not new and 2. has no obvious relation to what Mongols 800 years ago looked like. Similarly, Lamb's observations in Afghanistan do not seem to have much to do with Mongols at all (maybe I am missing something). Last not least Khubilai was the son of Tolui and Sorghaghtani Beki, i.e. probably did not look significantly more 'Chinese' than his famous grandfather. Yaan (talk) 13:46, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

There are several primary sources that strongly suggest Genghis's close ancestors are white with blue eyes and perhaps blond hair, although he might be a mix himself.

1) His family/tribe name is Borjigin. In modern Turkish, this word means "Blue eyes", and in Mongol, it means gray eyes. However, according to "Compendium of history" that include an autography of biography of Borjigin family written by senior Persian officers of Mongol Empire, the author clearly indicated the word Borjigin come from Turkish that means "blue eyes". 2) According to "Secret history of Mongols", also written as official book of Mongol Empire, Borjigin is the name of an direct ancestor of Genghis Khan, who has blue eyes, "he has another name which means "silly guy". This person is the fourth son of his mother, who was born after her husband was dead. According to the book, when her other sons questioned the father of Borjigin, as an attempt to oust of his right of inheriting family's property, their mother answered, the son come from a "man-like-god" with "golden hairs" that came to her tent and mate her. IMO, it is likely an attempt to describe her love affair with an person with blond hair and blue eyes as an holy thing in order to protect his fourth son with similar characters. Therefore, the direct ancestor of Genghis Khan, Borjigin's father should be a Caucasian. 3) In the book “notandum for Mongol-Tartar”, written by a Chinese ambassador who met Genghis Khan, the author described face feature of the Tartars, which is extremely similar to modern Mongolians. However, he noted, The face feature of Genghis Khan is completely different from the others Mongol-Tartars, that seem to support the idea Genghis Khan himself might have a root of Caucasians, but his slaves/followers in his original tribe are much more similar to modern Mongols. Mongol is an tribe that contains slaves and masters. According to "Secrete history of Mongols", the slaves and their masters have different roots and even among the nobles, there might be different roots, e.x. Borjigin clearly have different roots from others. 4) I lost my memory about where this source come from, but I remember, Genghis Khan allegedly said the feature of his grandson, Kublai, did not show resemblance of his family, but of the mother of Kublai. He said the skin of Kublai was much darker among other dissimilarities. According to his portrait that available today, Kublai's had a typical face that we can see among modern Mongolians. Hisfun (talk) 13:56, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

1.) In modern Mongolian, 'grey-eyed' means 'saaral nuden'. 'Bor' means 'brown', but still 'brown-eyed' means 'bor nuden', not quite similar to 'Borjigin'. As pointed out elsewhere, there are a few sources for Genghis being green-eyed ('nogoon nuden'), but I have seen none for him being blue-eyed.

Both green and brown eyes occur among ordinary present-day Mongolians.

"However, according to "Compendium of history" that include an autography of biography of Borjigin family written by senior Persian officers of Mongol Empire, the author clearly indicated the word Borjigin come from Turkish that means "blue eyes"" - source? Weiers translates 'Borjigid' as 'wild duck people' - is he wrong?

2.) It seems you are conflating Bodonchar 'the stupid' and Borjigidai 'the clever'. Or at least my translation of the Secret History (Haenisch) does not give Bodonchar any alternative name, it only makes him the ascendant of the Borjigin clan (section 42). My translation also mentions nothing about either Bodonchar's or Borjigidai's blue eyes.

According to the Secret History, Bodonchar is the fifth child of his mother, not the fourth (sections 17 and 19).

My translation of the Secret History mentions nothing about Bodonchar's father's eyes or hair. It also does not compare him to 'god'. The mother only calls he visitor 'golden' and his children 'children of heaven', and compares him to a yellow dog (section 21).

3.) I guess it would be rather helpful if you could dig up this work that you call “notandum for Mongol-Tartar”, or at least he name of its author.

That different noble families trace their origin to different ancestors seems a rather trivial observation. Even then, the origin of e.g. the Taiji'ud seems not very different of that of the Borjigid at all, and one might even ask why the ancestors of the Borjigid are better than those of the Oirad?

4.) The usual portrait of Genghis Khan can be found here. It does not look that much whiter than Khubilai's portrait here.

Yaan (talk) 15:26, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

In modern Turkish "blue" is "mavi" (Persian ابی), "eye" is "göz".

In modern Kazakh, the language of the closest Turkic neighbours of Mongolians, "blue" is "kök", "eye(s)" is "köz(der)".

In modern Mongolian, "blue" is "höh", "eye" is "nüd".

"bor" is "brown" in both modern Turkish and modern Mongolian. "boz" is "brown" in modern Kazakh.

However, we should not speculate that the first syllable is any separate word with independent meaning. ༄༅།།གང་ཐུ་ཡཱ།། (talk) 14:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't have access to those books anymore (and I don't want to go to a library), but I can find the source by google for those who are interested enough.

1) The Russian translation of the book "Compendium of history" is

Рашид ад-Дин. Сборник летописей / Пер. с персидского О. И. Смирновой,редакция проф. А. А. Семенова. — М., Л.: Издательство Академии Наук СССР, 1952

here is the link http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B6%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B8_%D0%B0%D1%82-%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%85

I am 100% sure it mentioned clearly that the name Borjigin means "Blue eyes" in that version in its records about the ancestors of Genghis Khan (I think in its vol.1) and that gives me strongest impression that Genghis Khan's ancestor might have eyes. If any English translation gives other meaning, one would have to check the original Person text to make sure.

2) I was wrong, due to lack of the book at hand, but not conflating about Bodonchar, the 5th son of her mother, not the 4th. I also misremembered some other things, but that did not mislead my idea. The exact words of the Bodonchar's mother (probably called something like Alan-Hoa, red-beauty in my memory) said a "a gold man" visit her tent and mate her without mentioning his hair. However, it is same when we call someone a blond girl without mention the blond color is her hair not her skin or eyes. In another language, blond girl could be called yellow girl or golden girl because the are just similar color. I also read the slaves of Genghis call themselves "black head" in the "secret history" (I don't remember where bcus no book at hand), and got a strong impression that it might be translated as black hair, namely, could be a suggestion that the slaves are Asians with black hair in contrast the the "golden family" that might have different color.

Dog was used repeatedly in "SHoM" as a imageries of "brutal warriors". When the priests from Europe talked to the Mongols, the "Eternal Heaven" was translated as god. When Bodonchar's mother talked about son of heaven, it was quite possible either she or the "later mongol historian" made a story that this warrior with yellow hair is a son of god. This is of course a speculation, and other possibilities exist. However, there are quite a number of other similar things that support this idea and it would be quite a increditable accident that all these material exist together while the speculation does not fit the fact.

I remember in a seminar, A Mongol Scholar said the word "golden family" exclusively means direct descendants of Bodonchar, that includes the uncles or cousins Genghis that he killed. That also remind me it might be a character Bodonchar's hair. My memory is not a RS of course, but I believe one soon or later could find the source, if interested enough.

Now "Blue eyes" and "The stupid" In the society of Mongols, as well as all the other nomad tribes, the so-called family names were just from the name of the chief or previous chief. When a chief was dead, if his sons divide his slaves, they became several clans and the tribes names changed into the one of the new chief. But if the sons still were kept in the same tribe, like brothers of Genghis, they kept the old family name. The slaves share the same "family name" that was actually the tribe name. As a typical example,Genghis has two "family names", 1) Borjigin from "the stupid" 2) something like Kijan(), the second one is his father's name.

According to the "SHoM",the stupid" was very despised and bullied by his brothers. IMO, this name reflected the despising, however, he became a powerful noble after he captured plenty of slaves and other properties and he owns his won tribe. It is hard to imagine he would like to keep his obedience and in the same time he remind his followers he was the bullied stupid guy by keeping his despised name as his clan name. I would say, a name of "blue eyes" and "golden families" would work much better if he had the color in his eye and hair, over the other "black head" Asians in his society.

3)In one English translation on internet, the correct English name of the Chinese book is: Zhao Gong, “A Complete Record of the Mong Tatars”. This book

4) I do not see the picture of Genghis supports he was a white too, but that picture also does not support he had "eyes of cat"

5) There are many cats that have blue eyes. especially kittens. Persian breed of cats are known for their much higher distributions of blue eyes comparing to ordinary cats, http://designerpersiankittens.net/images/Persian_Kitens_for_Sale_5lg.jpg. Juvaini was a Persian.

Also, there are quite many other ordinary cats of mixed breeds have blue eyes although much less popular than Persians cat. My own cat had blue eyes when she was kitty but green eyes after grown up. In fact I have never seen a East Asian have green eye. Any picture?

6) I never say the above are the solid evidence, but again, if only one or a few of them appears, it might be nothing, but all together, they would be a quite rare coincidence if the ancestors of Genghis did not have any features of Caucasians.Hisfun (talk) 19:42, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Alan Qoa's "glittering man" was not Kyrgyz nor was he blond haired and blue eyed. I highly suggest revising this there is no evidence its just speculation. Glittering man was a metaphor and is more symbolic/mythic than anything. As written in the Secret History of the Mongols, the most likely speculation with most evidence is the Bayad family servant Alan Qoa's husband adopted. Alan Qoa's sons even speculated that this Bayad(Mongol) man was the most likely father. Who here has proof that there was a random Kyrgyz or non-Mongol man walking around her pastures with her sons in the middle of Mongolia. Rash's claims are very biased but even if he happened to have a red tinge to his beard his Bayad ancestor is just as likely to have contributed than a Kyrgyz or divine messenger. I hope that people with actual editing rights have actually read the Secret History of the Mongols. I can't understand how anyone could take Rash's work seriously. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.75.63.254 (talk) 20:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

TO SAY THAT GENGHIS KHAN OR THE MONGOLS WERE ORIGINALLY CAUCASIAN IS AS FAR FETCHED AS IT GETS

As mentioned before numerous amounts of times (one of the editors here seems to have erased my contributions completely) , references to Rashid Aldin Hamadani's statements don't count as a literal source. In other words there was no such " glittering " man and Genghis Khan was certainly not " shocked " to find that his son didn't have red hair - red haired people don't get shocked when their children don't inherit their red hair because they don't even expect them to inherit it (recessive mutation - very unlikely that red hair is passed on) , Genghis should he have been a man with red hair would have known about the heritability of red hair since he fathered a lot of children. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html

As I said before, the book "Secret History of Mongols" confirmed that this "glittering " man exist, or in its original man, "golden man" that very likely means "golden hairs". Furthermore, Bodonchar's tribe Borjigin means "blue eyes" as Rashid pointed out. I recommend to add this translation of "blue eye" into the article. It does not necessarily means Genghis Khan is a white for sure, but the suggestion was written by the more than two primary sources for sure.Hisfun (talk) 14:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Also note that the people in power within Mongolia are all of plain Mongoloid features , there's no telling them apart from the Chinese or other asiatics. Mongolians are Mongoloids or asiatics so to speak , if you want to change the notion of the Genghis Khan's ethnicity you'll need to alter the ethnic makeup of Mongols. I've noticed that this has already taken place in Wikipedia , Mongols , according to Wikipedia , are no longer the majority of East Asian people who reside and have lived in Mongolia , but mostly a race of mixed individuals outside of Mongolia itself who actually have expressed no desire to be labeled as Mongols. To say that Mongols were originally caucasian is as far fetched as it gets , especially when descriptions of Mongol appearance by ALL accounts (be it that they were caucasian or persian) were that they were grotesque , slant , larged headed , small stature.

Germans , Russians , people from Finland , Norwegians , Central Europeans , Slavics have East Asian DNA

All of the countries that were affected by Mongol invasions have been contaminated with East Asian DNA.

http://www.kerchner.com/pa-gerdna.htm . Heck even Rashid Aldin's text has all of people in the paintings with Mongoloid features.

East asians don't even have traces of caucasian DNA

China was raided more than any other country by the Mongols and yet none of them possess even traces of caucasian DNA. So how is it that Mongols were originally caucasoid , should they have been caucasoid then people of Chinese descent would reportedly have caucasian DNA ... just as we would expect Europeans to have East Asian DNA should the original Mongols be of East Asian ancestry and this is exactly what we find with modern day DNA tests.

It is different thing that Genghis khan is Caucasian and modern Mongolians are Caucasians. It was clearly written that Genghis khan have very different face feature from others in his tribe, as in the source from Chinese ambassador mentioned above. It was well documented that the Mongols in its nomad history always captured women and small children as slaves from China and Korea for hundred years, each time the numbers of captured people reached as many as hundreds of thousands, which means it is more than millions during the hundred years until Qing dynasty, hundred or even thousands times more than original Mongol ethnics. The slaves might had lower surviving rate from their masters but it certainly has given impact, or in your word DNA contamination , on genetic composition of Modern Mongolians. It might a good wish and worthy proud to be descendants of Genghis Khan, but we are talking about facts in history. The modern feature of Mongols is not necessarily a proof for the root of a man in early history.

Hisfun (talk) 14:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

http://www.kerchner.com/pa-gerdna.htm

Even if your source is really based on a serious scientific research (I strongly doubt), that does not means it supports your idea, because the the DNAs result just suggest they have common roots, but there is no proof they come from Genghis Khan. If one find all the all the Georgians have a common DNA root with Stalin, that does not means all Georgians are grand grand children of him. People live nearby could have common roots in thousands ways, to assign the common DNA to a Genghis Khan is just one unreliable (in fact quite unreasonable) interpretation. Hisfun (talk) 14:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Do I need to say more? To say that caucasians orginated the Mongol territory is far fetched. It can be dispelled with common sense. Even the so called " tocharian mummy " was a mix of genes from Europe, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Mongolia, India, and Siberia. The composition of Europoid content was very little compared to East Asian genetic content and the presence of all of these other ethnic dna content is due to the fact that Xinjiang was a crossroad trade location.

Beside whether Genghis Khan is a Caucasians or not, your argument does not support your idea, because there are different and more likely interpretation. If you read how many slaves that Genghis Khan and his descendants have captured, you might find many other more reasonable options of speculations and interpretations for same phenomenonsHisfun (talk) 14:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

WHO ARE THE ADVOCATES FOR THE ETHNIC ALTERATION OF GENGHIS KHAN AND WHAT ARE THEIR MOTIVATIONS?

It's pretty obvious where all of these distortions of Genghis Khan's ethnicity is coming from. It's from people who call themselves the " white people " , the slow alteration of Genghis Khan's ethnicity is part of a campaign to add significance and to make sense to the made up notion of a " white history " .

It's all a small but successive accumulation of mongrel creations. One white lie after another. Once established , this " white history " becomes an equalizing factor within the caucasian community , where picts are no longer " white slaves " but equal with the Nordics. The schemes goes something like this

Genghis Khan is part Nordic --> Genghis Khan was " white " --> His greatness is attributed to the fact that he was " white " or part " white " --> Picts are " white " (nevermind everything else) --> " white people " privilges have now substantially increased due to Genghis Khan

Please , please open up your own ancestry book instead of mongreling around in the affairs of countries that are at the other side of the world.

Wernergerman (talk) 17:37, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It does not matter at all who suggest Genghis Khan was a Caucasian or not (In fact, I don't think he is a pure Caucasian, but I only think his ancestor, namely the golden/glittering man, the farther of Bodonchar, is a Caucasian. Based on blue eyes and "golden hair" he is more likely Nordic or Russian related than Kyrgyz). The only thing matter is whether there are primary documents to support the idea, and as a matter of face, there are more than one. Beside, there is no one here who advocates the "greatness of Genghis Khan" attributes to his Caucasians root, at least, I did not see any.Hisfun (talk) 14:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Well "golden family" means "important family" or something like that, it does not refer to hair color. Also, even if there was a blond ancestor of Genghis Khan, this hair color would have completely disappeared after a couple of generations. Temur (talk) 00:59, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

temudjin's father was not a chief!!!

he was not a chief, that is why he had to kidnap hoelun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.97.0 (talk) 18:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

"Record of daughters nonexistent" inaccurate.

See The Secret History of the Monghol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire by Jack Weatherford Gwytherinn (talk) 00:44, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Khan appeared in the film Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure. This should be listed under film.

Stevenellingson (talk) 19:16, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Khan is not a surname, and this isn't really an important addition. siafu (talk) 19:19, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Did you not know who I was talking about? It would have taken about as long to make the edit as it did to make your condescending response! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevenellingson (talk • contribs) 16:26, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

We do have a "Depictions in modern culture", but any material in it really should to be a bit notable. Not just him showing up, but he has to at least be the focus of the work. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. With a historical figure like Genghis Khan, one could take up pages listing all his various appearances. And he is not referred to as "khan", anymore than one would refer to Henry VIII as simply "King". Boneyard90 (talk) 17:34, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I get it. But if I went to Henry VIII's page, and said that "King" played a prominent role in an American classic film, it would have gotten listed on his page. Stevenellingson (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

To be fair, Genghis is also part of his title ("Universal Khan"), and most Westerners associate the title Khan with him (or Khan Noonian Singh, who was named for Genghis Khan). The Henry VII comparison really should be addressed to anyone not refering to Genghis Khan as Temujin. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:04, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Good point. So we all agree that one should use both terms, Genghis Khan (or "Chinggis Khan" which I understand is more phonetically correct), when referring to the man, especially after his ascent to power, or Temujin. (In this context, since we're only talking about one person, could one refer to him as "the Khan"?) Now, what about Mr. Stevenellingson's issue? Should any or all of the various portrayals of Genghis Khan in popular culture be listed? If we mention Bill & Ted, then it may be fair to add the depiction of Genghis Khan in the Star Trek episode, "The Savage Curtain". Boneyard90 (talk) 23:47, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Bhwinkgirl, 11 April 2011

STU SMITH ISNT REAL. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhwinkgirl (talk • contribs) 05:13, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

 Not done: Nothing to change: there's no mention of Stu Smith anywhere in the article, including reference tags. —C.Fred (talk) 15:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from BurderBurd, 13 April 2011

In addition to pop culture, Genghis Khan is portrayed as a Pokemon, Kangaskhan. http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Kangaskhan_(Pokémon)

BurderBurd (talk) 00:58, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

 Not done: Not a significant pop culture reference, and the source is not reliable. —C.Fred (talk) 01:31, 13 April 2011 (UTC)