Trapped in a Wooden Yoke, a Boy Knocked Out His Guard and Hid in a River
A captive family sawed the yoke off him and burned it, at great risk to themselves.
Lex Fridman Podcast · #476 – Jack Weatherford: Genghis Khan and the Mongol EmpireThe Taychiud men were drinking during a small celebration in the camp, so the prisoner was left with a boy guard who was not very bright.
The prisoner was Temujin, the boy who would become Genghis Khan. He had been seized by the Taychiud, a rival Mongol clan, and locked in a kank, a heavy wooden yoke of the kind worn by an ox. Jack Weatherford, a historian who has studied Temujin, says the yoke probably pinned his head and hands. Each night a different family was put in charge of watching him.
That night he turned his prison into a weapon. He swung the wooden yoke around with sudden force and slammed it into the guard, leaving the boy unconscious.
Weatherford calls the escape "one of the first lessons for the Mongols," one that would last for generations. As he puts it, "anything that moves is a weapon."
With the yoke still locking his head and hands, Temujin ran into the dark and threw himself into a nearby river. Searchers came out and walked up and down the banks while he stayed mostly underwater, surfacing just enough to breathe. The darkness hid him, and finally the searchers gave up. They told themselves he could not get far, and they would catch him in the morning.
He knew of one family that might help him, and he went to them the next day. They were themselves captives of the Taychiud, and hiding him put them in terrible danger. They sawed the yoke off him and burned the pieces in their fire. Then they fed him.
Free of the yoke, he set out alone to find his family again on the open steppe.
Questions people ask
What exactly was a kank?
It was a heavy wooden collar and hand restraint, like a yoke used for oxen, that locked around the neck and wrists. It prevented a prisoner from feeding himself easily, lying flat, or running fast, and it marked him as a slave. Families assigned to guard Temujin kept him in it overnight.
Who were the Taychiud?
They were a powerful Mongol clan related to Temujin's own family through older kin ties. After his father died, they abandoned Temujin's family and later recaptured the boy as a servant and hostage. Rivalry among such clans was constant on the 12th-century steppe.
How did Temujin become Genghis Khan?
Temujin slowly built alliances, won followers among common herders, defeated rival clans, and united the Mongol tribes. In 1206, at about age 44, the Mongols proclaimed him Chinggis Khan, a new title meaning strong and universal ruler. He then led conquests that created the largest contiguous land empire in history.