Temir

Temir was born on December 1, 1031, in the high cold forests and open valleys north of Khövsgöl, where Turkic-speaking families moved between hunting grounds and pasture edges. The Khitan to the south pressed on alliances and tribute, and men watched for raids and for chances to trade iron and salt.

His father, Köktemir, kept a mixed life—watching the animals, cutting poles, setting snares, and going out with Kendir to hunt. Temir stayed near camp with his mother, Ögül, who assisted births, treated sickness, and kept the small rites in order. His paternal grandmother Ene-apa lived with them, watching the children and telling stories about the lake spirits who pulled careless boys under the ice. Ögül fed the hearth fire with pinches of fat and drops of milk, and tied narrow strips of cloth to a branch near a stony rise where the camp greeted the local master-spirit. Temir watched these rites closely and learned the sequence without being taught twice. Once, when the milk bowl sat on the wrong side of the fire, he pointed until Ögül moved it.

Two children had already died: Aylun at three, and the boy Kuchuk in the days of his birth. Temir’s older sister Selen, born in 1029, carried him on her hip and pulled him back from the dogs’ food and the knife work. When other children crowded a game, Temir stepped away, crouched by the wood pile, and sorted sinew scraps for his mother. If Selen quarreled with another child, he brought back the lost mitten or handed over his own dried meat to stop the shouting.

In the winter of his fourth year, a hard sickness took him. He lay quiet, sweating under felt while Ögül steamed him with hot stones and herbs and asked Bögüchi, the camp shaman, to beat a drum and call back his strength. After weeks he walked again, thin and steady, following instructions without fuss.

In the year that followed, the family kept him closer. Ene-apa repeated her warnings about the water spirits, and Selen walked with him when he went near the stream to fill the skin bags. He learned to recognize deer tracks and remember which path the hunters had taken. His father began showing him how to tie snares, and Kendir let him hold the cord ends while the men worked. When Sübedei visited from a neighboring camp with news of Khitan tribute demands to the south, Temir sat by the fire and listened without speaking.

On July 3, 1038, during summer camp work near a river, Temir climbed onto wet rocks at the water’s edge to fetch a wooden bowl that had drifted close. Selen was gathering firewood uphill and did not see him go. He slipped, fell into the current, and was hauled out cold and still. Ögül washed him, combed his hair, and the family wrapped him in felt and set him on a hillside away from the water, with a small strip of cloth tied to a nearby branch and a morsel of fat placed by the bundle.