WEBVTT - The Princess Who Wrestled for Her Future 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:05.080 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:17.040 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. In twelve 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:22.279 seventy one, the Italian explorer Marco Polo set off for 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.440 China from his home in Venice at the age of seventeen. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:31.880 You've probably heard of Marco Polo. On his adventures, he 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:37.200 encountered all manner of marvels, islands replete with rare spices, 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:43.640 sumptuous courts, even testimony about strange, huge and exotic serpents 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:50.199 with long, jagged mouths, or, as we might know them, crocodiles. 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.480 After Marco Polo had spent nearly twenty years in the 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:59.240 court of the Chinese Emperor, he finally decided to return home. 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.200 But there was no chance he could go back the 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:06.840 way he came. An unexpected war had flared up in 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:11.960 the very center of Asia, where trade caravans passed between 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:16.680 the eastern and western parts of the continent. Marco Polo 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:20.840 had no choice but to sail around Asia to reach 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:25.160 Persia in order to ultimately get back to Venice. He 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:29.880 commanded fourteen ships that allowed him to avoid the perils 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.160 of trekking through the mountains, and after a few years, 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:39.679 Marco Polo finally docked at the Persian port city of Hormus. 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:44.240 As with every location he found himself in, he began 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.560 listening for news that might prove helpful for the rest 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:52.400 of his journey. It turned out that the wars still 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:57.320 raged in Central Asia, but there was more. Marco Polo 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.600 was a collector of legends and stories, and there was 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:06.480 one story from the war that captivated him. One of 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:11.040 the armies was being led by a woman. No not 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:16.919 just a woman, a giantess whose face was allegedly as 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:21.520 alluring as the moon, and whose arms were apparently strong 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:26.240 enough to move mountains. Of course, Marco Polo had heard 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:30.280 of rare cases of women leading armies in Europe, but 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:37.240 none as seemingly strong as this mysterious cutuloon. Marco Polo 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:42.519 recorded these scattered rumors he heard and moved along toward home. 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:46.960 How much of what Marco Polo heard about this so 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:51.640 called giantess is true? Even if Marco Polo's book that 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.480 he wrote about his journey was based on a real 0:02:55.560 --> 0:03:01.320 journey to China, which is actually debatable, Historians today recognized 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:06.000 that Marco Polo's account is at the least highly embellished. 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:11.720 It was made to entertain readers, not simply quote transmit 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:16.000 information about the East. If we can't be certain that 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:20.240 Marco Polo didn't at best embellish the hearsay he jotted down, 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:25.560 how can we be certain that Kutulun, this mythical giantess, 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.760 even existed. As a matter of fact, we have good 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:34.080 reason to believe that she did exist, though between you 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:39.840 and me, she probably wasn't a giantess. Writing in thirteen 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:46.680 oh seven, the Persian historian Russidaldin compiled an expansive history 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:51.440 of Mongolian royalty around the same time that Marco Polo's 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:56.440 travels were being published. In his account, Russiad Aaldin also 0:03:56.600 --> 0:04:02.840 mentions Kutuloun and also refers to her unusual capabilities on 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:08.000 the battlefield. We don't have any exceptional sources on Kutuloon 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:12.200 besides Marco Polo and Russiad al Din, and even they 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:17.200 wrap this obscure figure in layers of mythmaking The task 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:22.360 of excavating the historical Cutaloon is made extra difficult by 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:26.200 the fact that so much of her persona became the 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.800 basis for Italian plays in the eighteenth century, and in 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:35.320 German theater in the nineteenth and in Romantic opera in 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:40.400 the twentieth. Much of our modern interpretation of Kutulun is 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.440 colored by these works of high art. Can we cut 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:50.200 through the mist of hearsay, dramatization, and mythology to parse 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:55.600 apart any certain truths about the royal giantess. The name 0:04:55.720 --> 0:05:01.000 Kutlun is often translated from Mongolian as moonlight or face 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:05.320 of the moon. That's an apt descriptor for our heroine, 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.960 because the face she presents changes depending on who is 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.560 telling her story and when her story is being told, 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:18.040 whether by a Venetian merchant in the thirteenth century, a 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:22.359 Persian historian in the fourteenth, or an Italian composer in 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:28.039 the twentieth. For now, let's assume Marco Polo's perspective. When 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.400 he docked in the port of Hormus off the Persian Gulf. 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.480 He didn't just hear rumblings of yet another conflict between 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.440 the Mongolian successor states. At the very center of that 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:46.680 geopolitical drama was another smaller drama, a wrestling competition of 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.440 all things, and a princess who offered her hand in 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:54.479 marriage to any man who could best her. As the 0:05:54.600 --> 0:06:01.120 legend goes, none could. It's a great story. Marco Polo 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:05.719 wanted to write it down. I'm Danish schwartz and this 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:13.839 is noble blood. When Kutalun was born in twelve sixty 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:17.799 nothing marked her as particularly special compared to the rest 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.040 of the royal family. She was the daughter of Kaidu, 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:25.080 the Khan or ruler of much of Central Asia, and 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:29.240 great grandson of Genghis Khan, but we don't even know 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:33.760 the name of Kutalun's mother. Kutulun was probably born in 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:38.440 what is now Kazakhstan, in or around the busy trading 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:43.200 town of Kahili, Situated on a step in between a 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.960 massive freshwater lake to the north and snow capped mountains 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.720 to the south. This city, like so many others in 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:57.160 the emerging Chagatai Khanate, bustled with trade. Think of a 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:01.520 knit like a smaller, less formal kingdom, but with its 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:06.839 own system of government and leader. Mongol soldiers and settlers 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:11.280 technically dominated the land, but local farmers carried on with 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:17.560 their crops. Turkish nomads proselytized Islam Persian statesmen offered their 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:22.800 political expertise, and even the occasional European took lodging as 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:27.800 they hunted for lucrative spices. The world that Kutaloon was 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:32.480 born into, one that connected goods, gold, and good ideas 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.680 from all four corners of the globe, was only possible 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.760 because of the rapid and ruthless expansion of the Mongols 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:45.120 over much of the Asian continent starting in twelve o six. 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:50.320 In his lifetime, Genghis Khan and his legions forged an 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.680 empire that spanned all the way from Russia to the 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:57.880 Korean Peninsula. But just as soon as Genghis Khan and 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:03.160 his descendants subjugated them these lands, their unified empire began 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:07.160 to fall apart at the seams. It was already an 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:12.360 enormous challenge to govern new lands, let alone half a continent. 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.680 In the decades leading up to Kutalun's birth in twelve sixty, 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:23.280 the unified Mongol Empire effectively dissolved into four smaller empires. 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.920 But of course, the next generations of royalty dreamed of 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:33.760 stitching the once great empire back together. Kutualun's great uncle, 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:38.240 Kubla Khan, the emperor of China that Marco Polo ventured 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:43.360 off to meet, tried to force Kaidu, Kutalan's father, into 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:47.880 accepting his right to rule all of Central Asia. It 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.520 was naturally quite difficult for Kubla Kan to do that 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.720 from China, thousands of miles away, so he began with 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.960 an invitation. Kaidu would set off for Kubla Khan's course, 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:05.200 recognize his cousin as overlord in a customary oath swearing, 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.679 and then march back to his home in the Chogatai Kanate. 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:15.680 That sounds okay, but Kaidu wasn't buying it. For every 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.720 invitation that Kubla Khan sent, Kaidu came up with a 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:24.280 very convenient excuse of why he couldn't go. In one case, 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.640 Kaidu's herds were apparently too lean to travel the vast 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:33.240 distance between their cities, so Kaidu suggested they try again 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:38.839 next year. Next year didn't happen either. Kaidu understood that 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.880 any show of fealty to Kubla Khan would undermine his 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:47.720 own freedom in Central Asia, including his freedom to tax 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:51.960 the rivers of spice, gold, and silk parading in and 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:56.559 out of his cities. There were other cultural tensions that 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:01.200 underwrote Kaidu's strategic refusal to s submit to his cousin. 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:06.040 Kubla Khan and his clan members had adapted their empire 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:10.400 to the Chinese systems that had preceded them, building a 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:15.559 state that was agricultural, centralized, and more or less sedentary. 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.800 That was a far cry from what Kaidu considered a 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:27.840 more traditional Mongolian ethic pastoral, decentralized, nomadic. Kaidu believed it 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:32.080 was important that he provide his children a more traditional 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:38.120 Mongolian upbringing. Where most princesses of the medieval world lived 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:44.360 restricted lives destined for political marriages, Kutaloon was exposed to 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:49.320 a rougher life right from the beginning. In her pastoral community, 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.160 children learned to use the bow and arrow from a 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:57.840 young age. Boys were expected to guard larger animals like 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.800 camels and the cows that row across the plains, while 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.960 girls were tasked with protecting the sheep and goats that 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:11.280 grazed closer to home. Young Kutalun thrived in this environment. 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:16.040 She quickly developed expertise in the traditional mongol arts of 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:21.559 horse riding, archery and wrestling, to the awe and discontent 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.880 of her fourteen brothers. Rashid al Din writes somewhat derisively 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:33.600 that Kutulun quote went around like a boy. Kutulun's prodigious 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:38.200 fighting skills were also likely inspired by the chaos that 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:42.080 ensued from her father's earlier conflicts with Kubla Khan, her 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:47.160 great uncle. According to a tradition solidified during the reign 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:52.040 of Genghis Khan, all major representatives of the royal families 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.840 needed to recognize an overlord for his rule to stand 0:11:55.920 --> 0:12:01.679 as legitimate. Kaidu's refusal of an overlord therefore gave Kubla 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:06.920 Khan no choice but to demand obedient by force. He 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.640 dispatched a general named Barak to capture the lands under 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:17.640 Kaidu's control. Barak first ambushed Kaidu in a crushing defeat, 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:22.040 but Kutalun's father was not one to back down so easily. 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.840 What information we have about him suggests that he was 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:31.600 forgiving and generous at court, and cold and rational on 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:36.960 the battlefield. Russiad al Din writes that he never took wine, salt, 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:43.160 or kumis traditional fermented milk alcohol, a characterization that, whether 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:47.880 true or not, corresponds with the attitude Kaidu had when 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:54.360 he pursued his military and political ambitions. Suffering from temporary losses, 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.960 Kaidu called upon the support of his cousins to the 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:03.000 north and surprised Barak with a force of over sixty thousand, 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:09.920 overwhelming him and effectively securing control over the Chagatai lands. 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.000 As Kaidu pressed his advantage over Kubla Khan in the 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:20.319 following decades and repressed descent from lesser lords, he increasingly 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:25.640 called upon the support of his daughter. Marco Polo, dedicating 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:30.320 a whole chapter to the warrior princess had this choice 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:35.720 description of her military prowess quote. Kutaloon's father never went 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:39.400 on a campaign without her, and gladly he took her 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:43.480 for not a knight in all his train played such 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:47.200 feats of arms as she did. Sometimes she would quit 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:49.920 her father's side and make a dash at the host 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.720 of the enemy and seize some man thereout as deftly 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.840 as a hawk pounces on a bird, and carry him 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:03.000 to her father. End quote. Politically prominent Mongolian women were 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:07.200 not something new. Queens took over as regents in between 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.319 the death of a khan and the election of a successor. 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:15.480 Sometimes they ruled for several years. Some royal women became 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:20.600 heroines of the Khanate's founding mythology, like Altani, the wife 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.240 of one of Genghis Khan's generals who saved his heir 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:30.360 from kidnappers. Even before Genghis Khan, Mongolian folklore passed down 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:35.080 stories of warrior queens who took up arms and led 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:40.200 hosts in dire times. But Kutulun wasn't fighting out of 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:44.480 dire need. This wasn't a desperate rescue mission, and her 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.160 renown didn't come from a connection to any man, let 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:53.280 alone a husband. That's exactly what troubled her father's court. 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:58.880 If Rashid al Din's dismissive comments on Kutulun's military ambitions 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:04.440 are any indication, and many onlookers saw her dismissal of 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:10.280 typical feminine duties as condemnable, certainly a line of rhetoric 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.000 that her brothers utilized as they tried in vain to 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:19.040 bring their father's attention back to them. The supposedly true 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:25.720 heirs to the royal estates. The traditional spirituality espoused during 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:31.360 ginghis Khan's reign supported harmony between the masculine sky and 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:37.040 the feminine earth. Did Kutalun's peers see her military leadership 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:42.240 as a benefit or a disruption to that harmony, whether 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:47.520 for optics or from personal conviction. Kaidu decreed that his 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:52.560 daughter Kutaloun would marry, but there was no chance he 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:57.880 could ever compel her to marry any particular suitor. Kutaloon 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.000 would be allowed to choose her own own bridegroom. In 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:06.680 this case, the courting would take place within the confines 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:14.760 of a wrestling pit. For a khan like Kai Dou, 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:21.360 the marriages of his children represented opportunities for useful political alliances. 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:28.400 To his daughters, those marriages would prove troublesome. Kutulun's younger sister, Kotuchin, 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:34.320 married young, but during her first pregnancy, her husband unexpectedly 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:39.200 fell in love with an enslaved girl. Affairs weren't uncommon, 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:43.280 but affairs laid out in public by the very parties 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:48.640 involved were well not quite strategic. In one account of 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:53.080 the story, Kutuchin's husband approached his father in law, Kaidu 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:58.000 with the enslaved girl he loved in hand, naively pleading 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.600 with him to recognize their own relationship as a marriage 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:05.440 and scrap the former one, you know, his marriage to 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:10.760 Kaidu's daughter. Kaidu had the man executed on the spot. 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:16.400 A different account tells us that actually Kutuchin confronted her 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.760 husband after discovering the affair, at which point her husband 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:26.520 supposedly bit and killed her, not the most conventional way 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:32.080 of murdering your royal wife. Katuchin's brothers protested that Kaidu 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:36.000 should execute their murderous brother in law, but the Khan 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:40.200 in this story resists by arguing that this wouldn't save 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:44.879 their already bitten to death sister. In this story, Kaidu 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:49.399 instead issues one hundred lashes, sets his son in law free, 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:53.080 and even goes so far in his magnanimity as to 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.760 give a different one of his daughters to the man 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.159 as a bride, since his son's quote could not allow 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:03.760 a stranger to take their sister's place. If this probably 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:08.159 apocryphal set of stories tells us anything it's that whatever 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:13.639 safety or autonomy royal women achieved in familial politics could 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:20.160 easily be violated through an unfit marriage. Women became expendable 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:25.080 when it was politically convenient for the surrounding ruling men 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:30.199 of the Kanate. In one case, Kutulun's great aunt elicited 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:35.000 public humiliation for simply disagreeing with a minister of her 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:39.720 husband's court. That minister went on to execute the great 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:45.240 aunt's daughter in law for adultery without illegal proceeding, violating 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.960 Angis Khan's prior mandate that no member of the royal 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:54.320 family could be killed without some collective agreement. As historian 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:59.000 Jack Weatherford argues, the era in which Kutualun lived and 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:03.680 fought in marked the beginning of Mongol women's erasure from 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:09.320 political life. Regardless of the rich tradition of powerful historical 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:14.679 Mongol women in her lifetime, Kutulun was the exception, not 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:19.280 the rule. If Kutulun had to marry, she would only 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.560 marry a man who could beat her in a wrestling match. 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.119 The chances of her finding such a man quickly was 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:31.200 probably pretty slim. After all, she had dominated the very 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:35.000 best of her father's enemies on the battlefield for years. 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:41.080 Marco Polo writes that Kutulun sent challenges to worthy opponents 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:46.000 across several kingdoms on the following terms. The first winner 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:49.840 receives her hand in marriage, but every man must wager 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:54.119 one hundred horses to enter the competition. According to the 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:59.359 traditional rules of Mongolian wrestling or bach, the first competitor 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.840 to touch the ground with something other than their feet 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:08.240 loses the match. Many a Kaki nobleman entered the gauntlet, 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:14.520 only to be thrown down and utterly humiliated. Kutlun allegedly 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:21.720 won ten thousand horses, vanquishing suitors until an exceptionally renowned 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:26.959 nobleman entered the picture with a new wager one thousand 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:32.520 horses for a chance to win her hand. Naturally, her father, 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:37.720 and depending on the source, also possibly Kutulun's mother begged 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.800 Kutlun to throw the match. In his account, Marco Polo 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:45.160 does not identify the prince for us, but he claims 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.560 he was the son of a great king, which really 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:52.440 isn't that helpful. But the point is that Kutulun's parents 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.639 saw this nobleman as the chance for their wild daughter 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:01.680 to secure a prosperous future for herself and their lineage. 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:07.680 In one account, Kutaloun staunchly resists her parents please. In another, 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:12.040 she agrees, but then something snaps upon entering the ring, 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:15.920 hearing the roar of the crowd, seeing across from her 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:21.080 an opponent worthy of equal status. The two wrestlers locked 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.800 arms for minutes on end, neither able to get the 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:30.359 better of the other, until finally Kutalun threw the prince down, 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:38.760 collected his multiplied wager, and mortified both him and her family. 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:44.920 Marco Polo's version of the story ends on this high note, 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:49.040 almost like a fairy tale, Kutaloun defeating the man that 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:52.639 people wanted her to throw the match to, but the 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:57.320 pot stirring. Rashid al Din carries the tale a little further. 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:03.720 After several years without a planned marriage, insidious rumors spread, 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:10.320 claiming that Kutaloun and her father Kaidu had an incestuous relationship. 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:15.960 Out of shame, Kutaloun finally relented and chose a man 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:19.520 to marry. But even in this story, I think it's 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:24.160 important to remember she chooses the man. She was never 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:27.720 bested by a suitor in the wrestling pit one on one. 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:31.920 In this version of the story, the man she chose, Abtakool, 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:35.840 is said to have been quote vigorous, tall and handsome, 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:40.240 like so many of the other figures in Kutalun's life. 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:43.159 We know little about him except he was of noble 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:48.080 ancestry and that the couple raised two sons. But there 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.000 was no chance Kutalun would settle down for an unexciting, 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:57.439 sedentary domestic life. She campaigned with her father until the 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:03.159 very end. Leadership in her father's army was indispensable in 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:07.600 the face of a massive geopolitical shift brewing to the east. 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:12.199 Kubul Khan died in twelve ninety four. After decades of 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:17.320 directing most of his political and military attention to invasions 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:23.440 of Korea and Japan. Kubul Khan's successor, Timour, quickly relinquished 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:27.640 those commitments and turned his attention to the west, where 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:31.680 he made attempts to force the unruly Central Asian war 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:36.880 lords to recognize Chinese rule once and for all. The 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:42.040 ensuing campaign was disruptive enough to deter Marco Polo from 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:46.959 traveling on the overland route back to Venice. The seventy 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:51.800 year old Kaidu did his best to deflect the impending invasion, 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:55.760 and with the help of his daughter, they kept Temor 0:23:55.880 --> 0:24:00.359 in Czech after one hard fought battle on September three, third, 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:05.000 thirteen oh one, Kaidu ultimately took an arrow wound that 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:09.720 would prove fatal A month later. Rashid al Din mentions 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:14.359 that Kutualun's father was buried in the mountains, where in 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:18.280 one version of the story, Kutalun and her husband lived 0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:23.119 modestly and guarded her father's burial place until her death 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:28.040 four years later. In another version of the story, more 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:32.600 reflective of the relationship between Kaidu and Kutalun, it said 0:24:32.600 --> 0:24:35.359 that the Khan agitated for his daughter to be the 0:24:35.359 --> 0:24:38.640 one to succeed him before he died. Each of her 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:44.600 fourteen brothers nearly revolted in response, and yet another compromise, 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:49.800 Kutalun remained the general of her father's elite military, while 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:54.399 her brother Oris took the mantle of government. Their rule 0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:59.880 collapsed within four years, and the wrestler princess died under 0:24:59.880 --> 0:25:04.680 he unclear circumstances, But the world that she and her 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:08.360 father had made out of the dramatic collapse of the 0:25:08.400 --> 0:25:14.400 Mongol Empire had lasting consequences. Never again would a unified 0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:21.360 Mongol power tame the autonomous step of Central Asia. Parsing 0:25:21.440 --> 0:25:26.120 through the different versions of Kutalun's narrative yields an image 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:30.159 of an amicable relationship between a father who struggled to 0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:34.800 keep his fledgling empire intact and a daughter whose skills 0:25:34.920 --> 0:25:38.840 lent themselves to that task. For all we know, Kaidu 0:25:38.920 --> 0:25:43.320 and Kutualun were on great terms, but reading between the 0:25:43.480 --> 0:25:49.119 lines yields a slightly different, more complex picture. The Khan 0:25:49.200 --> 0:25:53.040 may have offered Kutualun the chance to choose her own husband, 0:25:53.520 --> 0:25:57.280 but both Marco Polo and Rashid al Din indicate that 0:25:57.359 --> 0:25:59.960 this was a privilege that she had to fight for, 0:26:00.880 --> 0:26:05.840 and fight she did. The warrior princess, as luminous as 0:26:05.880 --> 0:26:10.159 the moon and stable as the Altai mountains, carved a 0:26:10.200 --> 0:26:13.960 space for herself within the confines of a world that 0:26:14.119 --> 0:26:18.320 didn't want her to take that space. Every compromise was 0:26:18.520 --> 0:26:21.479 just as much a sign of her subjugation as it 0:26:21.640 --> 0:26:27.359 was of her power. Nearly four centuries after Coutaloon's death, 0:26:27.720 --> 0:26:31.560 the French diplomat Francois Petit de Lacroix was sent by 0:26:31.560 --> 0:26:35.480 the court of Louis the fourteenth to Persia in sixteen 0:26:35.720 --> 0:26:40.520 seventy four, where he stumbled upon the strange and strangely 0:26:40.680 --> 0:26:46.200 familiar story of a Mongol princess turned wrestler. For one 0:26:46.240 --> 0:26:50.879 hundred years, the English and French sponsored diplomatic missions to 0:26:51.000 --> 0:26:56.400 the Ottoman and Cephavid empires to advance their mercantile interests abroad. 0:26:56.960 --> 0:26:59.639 It was always useful to have someone who could speak 0:26:59.680 --> 0:27:03.119 the land language of your competitor. Laquax was part of 0:27:03.160 --> 0:27:07.320 that political tradition, but like so many of his contemporaries, 0:27:07.680 --> 0:27:13.520 the so called orient also stoked his intellectual curiosity. His 0:27:13.640 --> 0:27:17.720 father wrote the definitive biography of Genghis Khan, so the 0:27:17.800 --> 0:27:22.080 young man had rather big shoes to fill. His interests 0:27:22.240 --> 0:27:27.520 ranged from mystical poetry to biblical artifacts, but upon returning 0:27:27.560 --> 0:27:32.240 to France, Laqua turned his attention on translating a compendium 0:27:32.240 --> 0:27:36.960 of stories he had acquired on his travels. You've probably 0:27:37.040 --> 0:27:41.200 heard of One thousand and one Nights, a frame narrative 0:27:41.359 --> 0:27:46.879 featuring nested stories stories including Aladdin's Lamp and Ali Baba 0:27:46.880 --> 0:27:50.800 and the Forty Thieves. Laquax was the first European to 0:27:51.000 --> 0:27:55.800 translate the companion set of stories known as One thousand 0:27:55.840 --> 0:28:01.240 and one Days for centuries, the last context European readers 0:28:01.320 --> 0:28:06.719 had with Kutalun was Marco Polo's vague descriptions. At last, 0:28:07.160 --> 0:28:11.840 Laqua breathed new life into her character, though not without 0:28:12.000 --> 0:28:20.080 major changes to the story. Orientalists like Lacua often misconstrued dates, names, 0:28:20.240 --> 0:28:24.960 even whole narratives as they translated from one language to another. 0:28:25.760 --> 0:28:31.000 The so called orient became one big mesh of homogeneous 0:28:31.040 --> 0:28:36.480 ideas and pictures. Think Agroba in Disney's Aladdin. Where in 0:28:36.520 --> 0:28:41.040 the world exactly is Agroba supposed to be? Laqua didn't 0:28:41.080 --> 0:28:46.120 exactly translate a new version of Kutalun's stories. Rather, he 0:28:46.240 --> 0:28:51.080 conflated elements of her story with another narrative taken from 0:28:51.160 --> 0:28:57.320 the twelfth century Persian poet Nizami, specifically the narrative of Turnidot, 0:28:57.880 --> 0:29:03.600 literally the daughter of Turan. Turnidott had also tested suitors 0:29:03.680 --> 0:29:09.200 for her hand in marriage, Except unlike Kutaloon's test, Turnidott's 0:29:09.360 --> 0:29:12.840 test was a series of riddles, and the price of 0:29:12.920 --> 0:29:17.880 failure was the suitor's head, not one hundred horses. And 0:29:18.000 --> 0:29:21.200 if you're more familiar with the opera and you're wondering 0:29:21.280 --> 0:29:24.760 why I'm pronouncing Turnidott with a T, it's because the 0:29:24.800 --> 0:29:29.720 word is Persian, and Puccini, like me, wasn't great at pronunciation, 0:29:30.120 --> 0:29:34.160 but in this case the Persian word is turnidot. To 0:29:34.320 --> 0:29:39.360 eighteenth century European audiences, Turnidat and Kutaloon were more or 0:29:39.440 --> 0:29:43.080 less the same person, despite the fact that one was 0:29:43.120 --> 0:29:47.720 a fictional poetic character and the other was a historical princess. 0:29:48.400 --> 0:29:53.480 In seventeen sixty two, the Italian playwright Carlo Gazzi picked 0:29:53.520 --> 0:29:56.440 up the story of Turnidatt as the basis for a 0:29:56.600 --> 0:30:01.720 new comedy full of playful, irreverent character. Turnidat was a 0:30:01.920 --> 0:30:06.360 hit in eighteenth century Venice, but it wasn't until eighteen 0:30:06.440 --> 0:30:12.120 o two when Kutaloun's European legacy would reach astronomical heights. 0:30:12.760 --> 0:30:18.840 The German poet Friedrich Schiller translated Gozi's playful screenplay into 0:30:18.880 --> 0:30:23.920 a sincere and heavily symbolic love story, and he produced 0:30:24.000 --> 0:30:27.120 the play with a man who was none other than 0:30:27.240 --> 0:30:33.440 Johann Wolfgang von Gerte. They treated their aristocratic audiences to 0:30:33.600 --> 0:30:38.640 an abstracted, fairy tale version of Kutaloon. In this version 0:30:38.800 --> 0:30:43.720 of the play, the audacious nobleman Kaliff agrees to compete 0:30:43.840 --> 0:30:48.000 in Turnidat's test of riddles for her hand in marriage. 0:30:48.440 --> 0:30:53.120 Turnidat meanwhile, is motivated to put up as many barriers 0:30:53.160 --> 0:30:57.240 between her and her suitors as possible because, for some 0:30:57.440 --> 0:31:02.880 unexplained reason, she just hates the male sex. Khaluff guesses 0:31:02.960 --> 0:31:05.760 the answers to her riddles in a matter of minutes. 0:31:06.320 --> 0:31:11.760 The spoiler alert The answers are all Christian virtues like faith, hope, 0:31:11.800 --> 0:31:17.040 and finally love. But seeing that Turnidatt is unhappy with 0:31:17.120 --> 0:31:21.800 the outcome, Kaliff agrees to his own execution if she 0:31:21.960 --> 0:31:24.840 can guess his name in the course of a day. 0:31:25.640 --> 0:31:28.600 So there's a little bit of Rumpelstiltskin in here. Too 0:31:29.720 --> 0:31:34.680 Unable to do so, Turnidat is won over by Kaliff's selflessness. 0:31:35.160 --> 0:31:39.200 He melts her ice cold heart through the power of love. 0:31:39.840 --> 0:31:43.680 Turnidat cries out in the final lines, could I then, 0:31:43.880 --> 0:31:47.520 after all this, look down in scorn on men? No? 0:31:48.240 --> 0:31:51.400 And may Heaven forgive me all I did that made 0:31:51.480 --> 0:31:57.480 me seem a monster in men's sight. Kutaloon embodied strength 0:31:57.560 --> 0:32:02.880 that exceeded even her fiercest male competitors. Turnidat in fiction 0:32:03.600 --> 0:32:07.880 was given a frail frame and an intelligent mind, though 0:32:07.920 --> 0:32:13.280 not so intelligent as to outwit the hero Culloff. In history, 0:32:13.440 --> 0:32:20.040 Kutaloun crushed every suitor in acts of glorious defiance. Turnidot's 0:32:20.200 --> 0:32:25.320