Forget Mulan: meet Khutulun, Mongolia’s undefeated wrestling princess, Genghis Khan’s great-great-granddaughter and Turandot inspiration
- Great-great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan wrestled any man who wanted to marry her and beat them all – amassing 10,000 horses
- Fierce warrior lives on in Netflix series, Marco Polo’s writings and Puccini opera Turandot, plus Mongolia’s Nadaam games
Rather than folk fable, Mongolian warrior princess Khutulun was quite real and had the body count and fearsome reputation to prove it.
She was the daughter of Kaidu Khan and great-great-granddaughter of Genghis, a cousin of Kublai Khan who would found China’s Yuan dynasty.
Khutulun was a feared fighter, who battled alongside her father against Kublai Khan, protecting the nomadic Mongol lifestyle of his Chagatai Khanate against the Chinese ways adopted by Kublai’s court.
Born around 1260 and raised with her 14 brothers, Khutulun excelled at horse riding, archery and wrestling, with the latter arguably the source of her reputation.
To this day, wrestling, horse riding and archery remain the national sports of Mongolia and they are celebrated in the Nadaam, which means “games”, with the largest being the national Nadaam every summer.
