It's high time to break with the damaging stereotype that the Mongol invaders who conquered half of Eurasia avoided swimming. Of course he's wrong ... all three times in his life.
At least that is what Leszek Podhorodecki describes in the chapter of the classic work "Tatars" devoted to the culture of the Mongolian steppe peoples. We read:
Seven days after the birth of the baby, the family tea pot was rinsed and then filled with water to wash the baby. After a week, there was the first proper bath in salt water. On the twenty-first day of life, the baby was washed with diluted milk, and a week later, it was bathed again, this time in mother's milk, to prevent skin diseases.
According to this vision, it was the end of all washing in the Mongol's life. Later, a steppe warrior could at best accidentally take a bath by crossing a river or taking a horse. Of course, one should wonder how much is true and how much is a legend lined with stereotypes.
In contemporary literature, the image of the untamed Mongolian barbarians often gives way to the vision of a people quickly adapting customs, war techniques and various inventions, and then using them in combat and diplomacy. Perhaps, then, the Mongols are only three times wrong in the minds of the opposing Europeans. Or simply the traditional custom has disappeared along with the influences of Chinese, Central Asian and European cultures.
Source:
- Leszek Podhorodecki, Tatars. From Genghis Khan to the 20th century , Bellona 2010.