The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

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Ruerl Khan
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The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#1 Post by Ruerl Khan »

Interesting subject, no?

According to this article here there is a strong argument to be made that the mongols respected women far more than many of their contemporary societies, even to the point of letting them fight.

Its an interesting article and i'm interested in hearing your thoughts.
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#2 Post by Teledor »

I think it is worth noting that mobile societies, I think "hunter-gatherer" isn't the best term but the only one I can come up with at the moment, like the Mongols and Native Americans actually tended to much more egalitarian than their contemporaries.

It makes sense, these social groups tend to be smaller and are dependent on members contributing in substantial and generally important ways. There aren't deep divisions of labor as seen in early agricultural societies.

Overall, I'm not shocked.
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#3 Post by Loflar »

Note that the article does not say much about the situation before Genghis Khan. According to what I have read here, it is possible that he was a social reformer who simply brought Mongols (kicking and screaming, of course) into 12th century ;-) .
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#4 Post by Shannar, Sealord »

Interesting. I've read similar before but can't remember where. As has been said, I think the fairly nomadic life style plays a role. No one gets left at home where there is no home be be left in. Even from a protection standpoint it makes sense just to have everyone armed.

But the real question is- How many boards would the mongols horde if the mongol hordes got bored?
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#5 Post by Francis »

Very interesting, I remember reading similar stuff about women in pre-christian Scandinavian societies during my undergraduate years. This leads me to believe that it has more to do with how difficult it is to survive, rather than whether the people is nomads or not. In short, the more indispensable the women are to the men, the more rights they will gain.
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#6 Post by Aicanor »

Author of both of the articles (Mongolian women and Climate and Khans) have its own agenda in other fields the historical research. So I would be very reluctant to take it on face value. But it is quite clear Gengis Khan had an influence and it makes sense that he and his followers would use all the "person"power they could to achieve their goals. It happens in societies at war quite regularly throughout known history. This would be a nice model to apply on the role of women in High Elf society in this thread. I would also agree that in Mongol social structure women had more influence due to the conditions they had to deal with.
In the enviromental article historical facts are used just as a background for the main point of the article, which would be very interesting even from historical point, but the author actually gave no real evidence of the correlations between known historical facts and enviromental changes. I do not have access to articles that were linked so maybe there is something in them, but not in hte article itself. The numbers of the dead given there are also hardly believable and it would be very hard to find facts to verify them.
Look at other articles on http://www.coldsiberia.org to make an opinion on what the author's aims are.

So I would say take these articles cum grano salis.
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#7 Post by Ruerl Khan »

Teledor wrote:I think it is worth noting that mobile societies, I think "hunter-gatherer" isn't the best term but the only one I can come up with at the moment, like the Mongols and Native Americans actually tended to much more egalitarian than their contemporaries.
Nomadic, thats the word your looking for. ;)

Taking it with the last statement Aicanor ;)
Aicanor wrote:So I would say take these articles cum grano salis.
Yes, obviously it is to be taken with a grain of salt, this is no academic work and it does not have any references towards any other authors who work in the field nor their interpretations, it deals with the primary sources in a rather self assured way that is typical for those who lack some historiographical education.

That being said, it does point out some things that are well reasoned, and that is what it should be judged by, not what other articles the author wrote, does he have an agenda? Yes, absolutely. But does this change the fact that the mongols in essence where a nomadic people who lived in a post-nomadic era (region that is - plenty of normadic people in other parts of the world), and these societies depend greatly on both genders to work and as a result both genders get to be more equeal, this was also touched upon in the youtube video series, Crashcourse in history (wich is rather well made, I recommend historically interested people to check it out, its still very broad but its good for what it is).

Now, should I have given the disclaimer? Possibly, but i'm more interested in the reactions to the article when posting the link here than in the article itself ;)
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#8 Post by Ramesesis »

Okay, looks like old Rammie Will have to plow Into this subject. There is no real need for the salt, but rather a need to accept that some old myths actually have some solid cores.

I Will be back...

Since the 1990:ies several examples of female burials with weapons have been excavated in different areas of the realm of the steppe peoples, not least from the lands of the different scythian tribes, like the Sakas, sarumati and so on. What makes the evidence stronger is that the skeletons show traces of both combat caused trauma from arrows and close combat weapons and traces of extra muscle development associated with intense riding, using bow and arrow and wielding a weapon in the preferred hand.

So while there was no single Amazon people there may very well have been bands of Only women, for example Young women in their teens. This could have given rise to the legend.
One of persias greatest warrior kings met his end when when his Army was defeated by a steppe Army commanded by a Queen. She rounded it of when she sought out his fallen body and decapitated it in a fit of grief and rage as she found her son among the slain.

When it comes to the Scandinavian lands I will urge caution because wishful thinking and entusiastic interpretations of the sources have made some people eager to portray the vikings as virtual feminists. Which is total rubbish. There are a few, very few instances of women partaking in warfare. As priestesses they might come along to deliver magical support but the idea of multitudous shieldmaidens simply have no foundation in reality. Not for the viking age at least. They did exist in the vikings own myths but viking age society was very patriarchal.

But if we fail too find much evidence for female warriors during the 9th to 11th centuries, it gets a bit different when you turn towards the age that was the mythical Golden age of the vikings, the Migratiom period. From the 4th to 6th centuries we have both roman textual mentioning of how they were suprised to find women among the slain gothic warriors after a battle. There finds of anglo-Saxon burials with women getting weapons and shields, one of which was excavated by Time Team!

And when I studied osteology and shortly after I was part of a study of old grave finds from Gotland that had not been analysed by osteologists before. I look at the Bear claws found but a collegaue that studied the human remains determined that a warrior tomb had a single female as the buried. We did these studied blind, that is we did not know about which artefacts had been found in the graves. So lo and behold when it turned out the woman hbeen buried with a fully panoply of War. Spear; shield, seax fighting knife and also a sword I Think.

I Will check the publication. And it was not cheap stuff but rather ornated stuff indicating the status of the dead woman. Maybe she was even a commander of a warrior host?

I
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#9 Post by Aicanor »

More societies /social classes/ Were depending on both genders working to survive, yet they came up with elaborate reasons why the genders are (should not be) equal. It is more the nature of the work needed to survive. Yes, nomadic is indeed the word we are looking for here I think.

As for the article you linked, I like it and it is one of the more reasoned on the site. And of course, I like the outcome a lot, not least because it quite agrees with what I said elsewhere - being equal doesn't mean to be the same...
I like the enviromental article in the answering post much less, to be honest. And not because I wouldn't like to see more forests in the world, but because it handles the data just as a way to prove a point without caring for their consistency.


Ramesesis, thanks for the archeological evidence. I have heard of some, but never really looked for them specifically. As for myths, we in fact have one in the founding of our first ruling dynasty from a twelth century chronicle http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronica_Boemorum.
Libussa (who was a seeress) was a ruling Princess, but in time men didn't like being ruled by a woman, so asked her to marry. She did so, giving them propositions for finding their future ruler, but warned them they will never have such freedoms and prosperity as they had under her rule.
The interesting thing is that Libussa apparently had an armed 'maiden guard' that after her death got into strife with the court of Libussa's husband. A nasty conflict ensued and in the end most of these maidens were killed. It was used throughout history as an evidence that women should not be given too much freedom (interpreted as a conflict between these women and all men), but the original morale of the story was quite likely elsewhere.
As far as I know, we do not have archeological evidence of female warriors, save for the "castles" attributed to these rebelling women.
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#10 Post by Ramesesis »

That Libussa was a seeress do infact speak for the possibility of a real historical background here, Aicanor!

Whe the germanic tribes faced Rome, they had Close contacts with the gallic/celtic peoples. While the older germanic peoples, according to Tactius and also partially supported by archaeology gave lot of respect to the Words of women. While women were not part of those who voted in the tribal councils, they had the right to adress the Council. And since women in general were seen as carrying a prophetic gift and standing closer to the gods, their words were considered most seriously.

But in the Celtic world the prophecies of the women were more organized and they were structured like a priesthood. These seeresses, among other things, gave prophecies about death and the result of battles. They seemed to have been connected the the Crone goddess, WHO in irish myth is named Morrigan and whose animals were the ravens. It seems as if the germanic People started to pick up on this and on romano-greek traditions like those with the Pythia and the sacred vestal virgins. The first known germanic seeress of Battle was Veleda, who served Claudius Civilis, the leader of the Batavian uprising. The name, Veleda, is probably of Celtic origin and became the Base for the later know title for a germanic/Scandinavian Seeress, Vala or Völva.
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#11 Post by Ramesesis »

Now, if we pick up one of the Most famous litterary work describing events during the 6th Century germanic warrior societies, Beowulf, we have an excellent description of a warrior Kings Court and the two persons who is closest to him. We are talking of course about King Hrotgar who is supported by his Queen, Wealtheow, and his Thul. The Thul was the chronicler and bard of the Court. He was also charged with keeping alive the history and mythology of the People.

The Queen serves a bit like the moral officers of the military following. She makes sure the warriors remember their allegiance and duty toward their King that so richly have awarded them and also encourage and support the younger warriors who may feel inferior to their elders and even feel they Will never get anything substantial since the veterans Always get the best slice. As a mother and adviser the Queen and will then support them, advice them patience and maybe add a hint of prophecy about the greatness possible if they just remember to conduct themselves well and bravely.
It is extra interesting to note the Queens name Wealtheow. It is very close to Veleda.
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#12 Post by Aicanor »

By accident I just stumbled across something that would indicate that Libussa's sisters' names (Teta, Kazi) may be of Celtic origin, meaning 'priestess' and 'beauty'. One was indeed a pagan priestess in the story and the other a seeress and healer in her own right. So indeed this story may have its origins in Celtic sources, although it concerns a Slavic tribe and dynasty.
There is another curious story in there, where a battle between Czech and Luczan tribes were about to take place. Czech were victorious and only one Luczan warrior survived. He was warned by his stepmother the day before the battle that it was already lost as Czech sorceressess overpowered theirs, therefore the victory will go to the Czech warriors. She told him what measures to take to save his life the next day.
Another thing to point out is that it is now accepted it that the Slavs came to western Europe as allies of Avars who were nomads (and probably akin to Mongols).

You are right about Beowulf story. Volsung cycles also seem to contain similar cultural background with very interesting changes to it in later Nibelungenlied.
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Re: The mongol horde and equeal rights for women

#13 Post by Ramesesis »

Most of the greater migration period peoples were in fact not peoples in the way we Think of it. No nation States for examples. Usually you had a core of nobility that shared a common ancestry but the mass could very well come from many very diverse groups, who joined in with what looked like a winning team that could provide security in an uncertain time. Celts, germanic groups, slavs and steppe peoples intermingled, broke apart and formed New constellations. Traditions who shared common traits would easily merge, and the shamanic traditions from the steppes merged elements with germanic traditions and remaining Celtic undercurrents. It was probably easier for women and others to break out of traditional moulds. When Times get rough ability speaks louder than norms. And among the People who clinged to norms this was a sure Sign of the world falling apart. And Most of the People who clung to traditional ways ended up weakened, losing or outright getting soaked up in more succesful Groups.
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