Login with Patreon
Khutulun
(1260-1306)
The Wrestler Princess
Staring at you from the opposite side of the page is none other than Khutulun, princess of 10,000 horses, the pride and glory of the Mongol Horde.
A bit of background on the Khans’ Mongol Empire – it was, for the time, as big a deal as deals got. At its height, it was the largest contiguous empire in human history, stretching from China to Europe and the Middle East. The whole thing was started by Genghis Khan (maybe you’ve heard of him), who unified a number of nomadic tribes under a single banner. While he did bring many advances to the regions he conquered (religious tolerance, increased trade, meritocracy — all good things), you probably know him more for his reputation for brutality. Certainly he was known for it back in the day, too.
And it was not undeserved. Here’s an example: buddy once conquered a nation called the Khwarezmid Empire. Right after taking control, he decided to erase it from existence, burning towns to the ground and killing everyone in its government. He went so far as to divert a river through the deposed emperor’s birthplace, wiping it off the map. This sort of thing was what he was known for, and it was those warlike traits that he passed down to his descendants.
Khutulun was his great-great-granddaughter.
She was Genghis Khan’s great-great-granddaughter.
So, Khutulun: as you could imagine, growing up with 14 brothers in an old-school nomadic Mongolian household, she had no shortage of testosterone around her at any given time. She grew up to be incredibly skilled with riding horses and shooting bows — Marco Polo, history’s greatest tourist, described her thusly:
“Sometimes she would quit her father’s side, and make a dash at the host of the enemy, and seize some man thereout, as deftly as a hawk pounces on a bird, and carry him to her father; and this she did many a time.”
I mean, picture that. You’re up against a horde of Mongolian warriors riding into battle. You’re tracking the movements of this huge chunk of stolid soldiers, trying to read which way they’re going. Suddenly, one of them — a woman, no less — darts out from the group, picks off a random person in your group, and runs back, before you even know what’s happened. That’s intimidating as fuck.
But all of this paled in comparison next to her skill with wrestling.
The Mongols of Kaidu Khan’s clan valued physical ability above all things. They bet on matches constantly, and if you won, people thought you were literally gifted by the gods. Now, these weren’t your modern day matches, separated out by things like weight class and gender — anyone could and did wrestle anyone else, and they’d keep going until one of them hit the floor. This was the environment in which Khutulun competed. Against men. Of all shapes and sizes.
She was undefeated.
Now, okay, back up. How can we be sure of that? Well, according to Marco Polo (and this is corroborated by other historians of the time, including Rashid al-Din), papa Kaidu desperately wanted to see his daughter Khutulun married, but she refused to do so unless her potential suitor was able to beat her in wrestling. So she set up a standing offer, available to all comers: beat her and she’d marry you. Lose, and you give her 100 horses.
She ended up with 10,000 horses and no husband.
Now, in these sorts of texts, 10,000 is like saying “a million.” It’s shorthand for “so many I can’t count them all” — you may also remember that Mai Bhago also fought 10,000 Mughals at Khidrana. While 10,000 may have been hyperbolic, suffice to say, it was a truly ludicrous amount of horses, supposedly rivaling the size of the emperor’s herds.
She remained this stubborn about marriage even as she got older and pressure mounted on her to marry. Marco Polo tells of a time where a cockier-than-average suitor challenged her. This dude was so confident that he bet 1,000 horses instead of the usual hundred. Apparently he was a decent fella, too, because Kaidu and his wife really dug him. Khutulun’s parents approached her privately and begged her to just throw the match. Just lose intentionally, they said, so you can marry this totally decent guy.
She walked away from that match 1,000 horses richer.
Unfortunately, due to her stubborn refusal to take a husband, people began to talk. Rumors began to spread around the empire that she was having an incestuous affair with her father (these sorts of slanderous rumors, you may begin to note, are a recurrent problem for historical Rejected Princesses). Realizing the problems her refusal to marry was causing for her family, she did finally apparently settle down with someone — although who, exactly, is subject to some debate. Whoever it was never beat her at wrestling, though.
Khutulun could be considered one of the last great nomadic warrior princesses.
After her death, she was forgotten for centuries. She only began her comeback to historical prominence starting in 1710 when a Frenchman named Francois Petis de La Croix, while putting together his biography of Genghis Khan, wrote a story based on Khutulun. This story was called Turandot (“Turkish Daughter”), but it was greatly changed from the facts of her life. In it, Turandot challenged her suitors with riddles instead of wrestling matches, and if they failed her challenge, they were killed.
Centuries later, in the early 1900s, the story of Turandot was turned into an Italian opera — except, getting even farther from Khutulun’s actual history, the opera became about a take-no-nonsense woman finally giving in to love. Ugh.
But while the West may have totally rewritten history with its recasting of Khutulun into Turandot, Mongolia continues to honor Khutulun’s actual story to this day. The traditional outfit worn by Mongolian wrestlers is conspicuously open-chest — the reason being to show that the wrestler is not a woman, in deference to the undefeated Khutulun.
(enjoy the art? you can get it as a poster, shirt or phone case!)Art Notes
- The scene is set at night as a reference to Khutulun’s Turkish name of Aijaruc (used by Marco Polo), meaning “moonlight”.
- She wears a silver medal around her neck — this is a gergee (also known as paiza), a medallion given by the Great Khan that signifies the power of the holder. It was usually reserved for men. Most women instead used seals to signifiy their status — Khutulun is the only woman ever mentioned as owning a gergee.
- Her outfit is not a wrestling outfit by any stretch, but Mongolian fashion is so bright, colorful, and interesting, that I wanted to show that off. The outfit I chose is mostly based off of a man’s outfit, but given that she had many masculine qualities, I thought that was okay. For alternate takes on how she might have looked, check out “additional information,” below.
- She was described by Marco Polo as being broad and powerfully-built. This obviously doesn’t square very well with the standard aesthetic of animated princesses, so I tried to meet in the middle on it. She’s noticeably broader than everyone else I’ve drawn, but she’s also angled in such a way that it’s a bit hard to tell.
- The idea for her pose was inspired by portraits of noblewomen sitting demurely with their hands in their laps.
- The background is filled with horses and yurts — the Mongols of Kaidu’s tribe almost certainly slept in yurts. Well, technically, the Mongolians called them gers (thanks theredfolio!), but I just love the word yurt (
which is Russian, a group whom the Mongolians hatedwhich is actually Turkish, so I’m cool to use it! Thanks Joanna Virginia!). I’m sorry, ancient Mongola. I can’t help saying it. Yurt. Yurt yurt yurt. - Kaidu (seen in the background laughing his head off) was actually a smaller, thinner man, supposedly with only 9 hairs on his entire head. That isn’t what I portrayed, but the point of him being in the image was to have him laugh, so I went for a more bowl-full-of-jelly kind of design instead.
- They are, of course, on the Mongolian steppe. The wrestling match described by Marco Polo actually happened in a palace, but I wanted to capture her nomadic nature. Also, moonlight.
If you were a Patreon backer,
you'd be seeing some cool stuff right here.
(if you've bought one of the books, you get a month free of behind-the-scenes access - get that started here!)
Next Time on Rejected Princesses
Fight for Pedro!
I won’t lie, I watched Netflix’s new Marco Polo series just out of the hope that Khutulun might show up. Was pretty disappointed, though not terribly surprised, when she finally appeared in the 3rd episode.
cool that she’s in there
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that I was disappointed at the fact that she is in the show, just at how they chose to depict her. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who plans on watching the show, so I’ll just say that while a lot of the other characters treat her like she is some kind of bad-ass, we don’t get actually get to see her do anything worthy of that reputation. From what I’ve seen of her in the show so far she definitely comes across as a faux action girl, which was a little disappointing since she is one of my favorites on here. :(
does it say anywhere that she and marco polo were ever lovers?
She and Marco Polo are rolling on the ground having sex in the first few minutes of meeting each other. Like the commenter above I too was watching the show in hopes of seeing her, and also like them, I was disappointed, yet not surprised when she appeared. For me it’s just the continuation of a trend in taking women who stand out in history and turning them into a sex-toy to lust after the main male protagonist, who in this case is incredibly mediocre. I mean, clearly, the woman who refused to marry anyone who couldn’t match her would be instantly lusting after the guy who gets his butt kicked at every turn and who she has to “rescue”. I’ve seen some people say that it probably implies that the whole “not marrying someone until they beat her” is a ruse to make her father (her father, not HER) more rich in horses. In which case just going at it like rabbits where anyone can walk over and see and freely call “Fraud!” on the whole set-up is ill-thought out. Aside from that, she does seem to be a bit of a faux action chick so far. Obviously, she’s not going to be Ms. Universe but a bit of actual muscle wouldn’t go amiss given her historically undefeated status. She gets some cool flips in. That’s about it.
Anyway, I just saw the episode last night so it’s still a bit raw. It’s a bit of a shame, because while there have been some really gratuitous (and laughable) sex scenes lacking true purpose or context, I do really like the characters. The Empress? She’s exactly what I would imagine the wife of a Mongolian Khan to be and there is no doubt that she is all sorts of awesome with an elegant ruthlessness and a lot of wisdom. I’ll continue to watch to see where they take the characters, probably, but I’m no longer holding my breath.
I, unfortunately, agree.
yeah,….eventually she’ll fight against other mongols, hope we see her lauded skills then.
Yurt isn’t a Russian word, it’s Turkish. Yurt means ‘home’ in pretty much all of the Turkic languages.
Why, you’re right! Well, it actually is Turkish, Greek, and Russian (in that order), but Turkish at its root. Shows me right, trusting other people who write in with corrections. Thanks!
a pretty good summary of khutulun’s life, though there are one small detail you didnt mention/got wrong/was somewhat poorly worded.
Khutulun’s position in the mongolian army was as leader of her father heavy cavalry(basicly she commanded every mounted warrior that did not use a bow), and her rather unorthodox method of taking out enemy commanders, had her riding, snatching enemy commander by grabbing them around the neck in a iron choke around their necks and then darting back to her forces with the unfortunate commander. here you write that she “ran”, when she actually did it on horseback.
Cool! Thanks for writing, happy to amend — do you have a source I can look at to verify real quick, though? I thought I’d found most all the core sources on Khutulun, but I don’t remember them mentioning anything about iron choking.
srry, that wasnt meant literally, i meant an “iron choke” as in an choke hold strong as iron. in reality it probably looked more like this http://photos.imageevent.com/vangar/wrestlingpicturesgallery/choke%20hold%20on%20dad%20garage%20rassling%20videos%20dvd.jpg just on horseback, both in armor, and with one arm to hold her unforunate victim.
khutulun was a rather strong woman to say the least.
on a more depressing note, i went back and checked where i read of khutulun, and turns out i was a bit off. she was indeed a leader of her fathers heavy cavalry, but only of one part of her fathers regiment’s. thats still rather impressive all things considered(it was a true professinal army, it was during the medieval period, and she still controlled thousands of the most disciplined warriors on the planet), but i incorrectly basicly wrote that she was the supreme leader of her father heavy cavalry, which was an overestimation based from my faulty memory. sorry about that.
I’ve been reading Rejected Princesses since it’s inception, but somehow I am just now finding your post on Khutulun!!! I also happen to be a huge opera buff, and had no idea that Turandot was based on her story…
Can’t comment of the source material, but here’s some trivia for you about the opera: Puccini died in the middle of composing it, and was explicit in his notes that it was *not* meant to be finished as a happy love story– the ending most often heard today was finished by Franco Alfano, and directly defies Puccini’s final wishes. Then again, it’s also worth noting that it was never written as a historical opera: Puccini had an affair with one of his servants, and when his wife found out she tormented the servant so much that she later committed suicide in his home. Puccini later twisted La Croix’s story into an allegory for this personal tragedy.
Gawwwwwsh. My heartbeat picked up when I saw the word ‘Turandot’ – god, I love that opera. I’d forgotten that Puccini died before he finished it, but I never knew that it was based on a historical figure! Since I have an odd obsession with the Mongols this totally makes me geek out DOUBLY.
I also did not know about Puccini’s affair – but to be perfectly frank I tend to focus on adoring his compositions rather than anything else. I’m sure some day I’ll have a library of opera books, but for now I’m just a twenty-something saving her money for opera tickets. :D
….. Aaaaand now I’m going to have “Una casa dell Honan” stuck in my head all day.
I was so happy to find a story on here about Khutulun!! She’s so amazing and ever since reading about her in Jack Weatherford’s books Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World and the Secret History of the Mongol Queens I’ve admired her so much.
The Greeks had a story about an amazonian woman in a folklore who was very similar to Khutulun but unlike that fictional story, Khutulun never caved to any of the men she fought with and for some reason that makes me love her all the more since she knew she was the best and never let that get taken from her.
And on top of that her father respected her the most out of her brothers when it came to military expertise! With good reason, too, after all, she was never beaten in wrestling, so naturally she must’ve had tremendous skills when it came to waging war as well.
I’ve finished season 2. She has a few battle scenes. There was even a time she quickly snapped a soldier’s spine in half. Other times she does cool flips and maneuvers in fights. Do NOT get your hopes up though. The cast is huge and Khutulun can’t get much air time. Also remember that it’s historical *fiction*, many details are twisted in service of the story.
Season 2 has less out of context gratuitous sex and more character development (for the rest of the cast, finally!) and politics (hard decisions). I think the shaky camera and out of context sex in the first episiodes contribute to people rightfully underestimating the entire series. (If they didn’t like the intro, very few would stay to watch it improve). The latter part of season 1, especially the finale was good. Season 2 has better cinematics and higher stakes.
who is the author?
Me! :)
r u truely the author of this?
Yep. Also drew it. My name is in the bottom corner of the art.
oh cool???? how can i trust u?
when was this last updated?
when was this last updated?
It was written in 2014, and was one of the earliest entries on the site – literally came from the second week I was doing this. I did an update in late 2016 to reword and add a bit more info here and there. It’s not as thoroughly researched as some of the other entries, but there’s no inaccuracies – there’s just more to her story than is listed here, as is common for many RP entries.
oh ok….thanks… needed info…doing report1
Just got back from Mongolia in fact, and felt like I should add that they actually call them Gers there which is the same thing but in Mongolian (which is now a bit of a mix of Russian – due to the Soviet rule and introduction of the Cyrillic alphabet – Mandarin, Cantonese and Mongolian) :)