(Michel's Joinville, p.
324; D'Ohsson, II. 475; Erdmann, 252.)
NOTE 2. - According to Hammer's authority (Rashid?) Kublai had seven
wives; Gaubil's Chinese sources assign him five, with the title of
empress (Hwang-heu). Of these the best beloved was the beautiful Jamui
Khatun (Lady or Empress Jamui, illustrating what the text says of the
manner of styling these ladies), who bore him four sons and five
daughters. Rashiduddin adds that she was called Kun Ku, or the great
consort, evidently the term Hwang-heu. (Gen. Tables in Hammer's
Ilkhans; Gatibil, 223; Erdmann, 200.)
["Kublai's four wives, i.e. the empresses of the first, second, third, and
fourth ordos. Ordo is, properly speaking, a separate palace of the
Khan, under the management of one of his wives. Chinese authors translate
therefore the word ordo by 'harem.' The four Ordo established by
Chingis Khan were destined for the empresses, who were chosen out of four
different nomad tribes. During the reign of the first four Khans, who
lived in Mongolia, the four ordo were considerably distant one from
another, and the Khans visited them in different seasons of the year; they
existed nominally as long as China remained under Mongol domination. The
custom of choosing the empress out of certain tribes, was in the course of
time set aside by the Khans. The empress, wife of the last Mongol Khan in
China, was a Corean princess by birth; and she contributed in a great
measure to the downfall of the Mongol Dynasty." (Palladius, 40.)
I do not believe that Rashiduddin's Kun Ku is the term Hwang-keu; it
is the term Kiun Chu, King or Queen, a sovereign. - H. C.]
NOTE 3. - Ungrat, the reading of the Crusca, seems to be that to which
the others point, and I doubt not that it represents the great Mongol
tribe of KUNGURAT, which gave more wives than any other to the princes of
the house of Chinghiz; a conclusion in which I find I have been
anticipated by De Mailla or his editor (IX. 426). To this tribe (which,
according to Vambery, took its name from (Turki) Kongur-At, "Chestnut
Horse") belonged Burteh Fujin, the favourite wife of Chinghiz himself, and
mother of his four heirs; to the same tribe belonged the two wives of
Chagatai, two of Hulaku's seven wives, one of Mangku Kaan's, two at least
of Kublai's including the beloved Jamui Khatun, one at least of Abaka's,
two of Ahmed Tigudar's, two of Arghun's, and two of Ghazan's.
The seat of the Kungurats was near the Great Wall. Their name is still
applied to one of the tribes of the Uzbeks of Western Turkestan, whose
body appears to have been made up of fractions of many of the Turk and
Mongol tribes.
