Sunday, May 17, 2015

Excerpt from my novel--Genghis: The Sky God's Emissary--by K.M.Kaung

Yesugei and Temujin were riding to his mother’s tribe, the Olkhunut, to find him a bride, when between the two mountains Checkcher and Chikutu, they came across a man from the Ongirat tribe named Dei-sechen or Dei the Wise. 
Dei was a thin man, taller than Yesugei, with an earnest expression, untidy hair and a grizzly beard.
He called out, “Friend Yesugei, where are you off to?”
When Yesugei told him, Dei glanced at Temujin and said, “This son of yours has bright eyes and a light in his face.  Last night I dreamt that a falcon with the sun in one claw and the moon in the other alighted on my hand.  I told someone, ‘To dream of the sun or the moon is unusual enough, but both in the claws of a falcon who came to me!’”
Dei said to Yesugei, “Surely this means something.  I have a beautiful daughter at home.  Won’t you come look at her?”
He told Yesugei and Temujin the survival strategy of the Ongirat, their clan or tribe, on the steppe.
“Since the days of old, we Ongirat have been protected by the beauty of our daughters, by the loveliness of our granddaughters,  and that’s how we stayed out of battles and wars.  When you elect a new Khan, we take our loveliest daughters and place them on carts.  Harnessing a black camel to the cart, we trot off to the khan’s tent.  We offer our daughters to sit beside him as his khatun or queen.  We don’t challenge empires.  We don’t go to war with our neighbors.  We just bring up our daughters and place them in the front of the carts.  Since the days of old we Ongirat have had khatun as our shields.  We’ve survived by the loveliness of our granddaughters, the beauty of our daughters.”
Dei the Clever spoke so eloquently, pulling at his tapered beard which reached to mid-chest with his slender fingers, Yesugei was impressed. 
He and Temujin rode with Dei to his tent. 

Copyright Kyi May Kaung
5-17-2015

I based this mostly on Secret History of the Mongols.

Specialpost--Ellen Bernstein--expose of World Bank Rohingya project--

https://www.irrawaddy.com/culture/books/hellfire-and-damnation-in-myanmar-ex-world-bank-country-head-recounts-rohingya-catastrophe-response....