A ''tug'' ( , , or ) or sulde (, ) is a pole with circularly arranged horsetail hairs of varying colors arranged at the top. It was historically flown by

Turkic tribal confederations The Turkic term ''oğuz'' or ''oğur'' (in z- and r-Turkic, respectively) is a historical term for "military division, clan, or tribe" among the Turkic peoples. With the Mongol invasions of 1206–21, the Turkic khaganates were replaced by ...

such as the

Duolu Duolu (Wade–Giles: To-lu; c. 603-651 as a minimum) was a tribal confederation in the Western Turkic Khaganate (c. 581-659). The Turgesh Khaganate (699-766) may have been founded by Duolu remnants. There existed several Chinese transcriptions ...

(Tuğluğ Confederation) and also during the period of the

Mongol Empire The Mongol Empire was the List of largest empires, largest contiguous empire in human history, history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Euro ...

, and later used in derived

Turco-Mongol The Turco-Mongol or Turko-Mongol tradition was an ethnocultural synthesis that arose in Asia during the 14th century among the ruling elites of the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate. The ruling Mongol elites of these khanates eventually ass ...

khanates. It was also used by the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, a state which was founded by

Oghuz Turks The Oghuz Turks ( Middle Turkic: , ) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia ...

. In the 17th century, it was also adopted by East Slav paramilitaries, the

cossacks The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic languages, East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borde ...

and

haydamak The haydamaks, also haidamakas or haidamaky or haidamaks ( ''haidamaka''; ''haidamaky'', from and ) were soldiers of Ukrainian Cossack paramilitary outfits composed of commoners (peasants, craftsmen), and impoverished noblemen in the easter ...

a, under the name ''bunchuk'' (, ), which is the reflection of the original

Common Turkic Common Turkic, or Shaz Turkic, is a taxon in some classifications of the Turkic languages that includes all of them except the Oghuric languages which had diverged earlier. Classification Lars Johanson's proposal contains the following subgroup ...

word ''bōnčuk''. It is still used by some units of the Polish military.

History

Early history

According to

Gerard Clauson Sir Gerard Leslie Makins Clauson (28 April 1891 – 1 May 1974) was an English civil servant, businessman, and Orientalist best known for his studies of the Turkic languages. He was born in Malta. The eldest son of Major Sir John Eugene Clauso ...

, the Turkic word ''tu:ğ'', for traditional Turkic standards made from horse-tails or bunches of horse-hair, was borrowed from

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese language, Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expande ...

*''dok'' 纛 "banner, standard" (whose ancestor is

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...

*''du:g'' ( ZS) ~ ''dˤuk'' and one of whose many descendants is

standard Chinese Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...

''dú''). In contrast, according to linguist

Sevan Nişanyan Sevan Nişanyan (; born 21 December 1956) is a Turkish-Armenian writer, fugitive and lexicographer. Author of a number of books, Nişanyan was awarded the Ayşe Nur Zarakolu Liberty Award of the Turkish Human Rights Association in 2004 for his con ...

, the author of the first etymological dictionary of Turkish, it is more likely in terms of cultural history that the Chinese word ''tu'' or ''dú'' is borrowed from Turkic or Mongolic. Annemarie von Gabain (1955) (apud Maenchen-Helfen, 1973) was inclined to derive Chinese 纛 *''duok'' from Turkic *''tuɣ''; however, Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen thought that the loan direction had been apparently from Chinese into Turkic, as 纛 ( GS 1016) was the same as 翿 ''dào'' < ''d'âu'' < ''d'ôg'', "staff with feathers" (GS 1090z) 斿 ( variant of 旒) ''liú'' ~ ''yóu'' < ''iâu'' < ''diôg'' "pendants of a banner" (GS 1080a) 游 ''liú'' ~ ''yóu'' < "pennon" (GS 1080f), which had been attested in the ''

Classic of Poetry The ''Classic of Poetry'', also ''Shijing'' or ''Shih-ching'', translated variously as the ''Book of Songs'', ''Book of Odes'', or simply known as the ''Odes'' or ''Poetry'' (; ''Shī''), is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, co ...

'' and ''

Zuo Zhuan The ''Zuo Zhuan'' ( zh, t=左傳, w=Tso Chuan; ), often translated as ''The Zuo Tradition'' or as ''The Commentary of Zuo'', is an ancient Chinese narrative history traditionally regarded as a commentary on the ancient Chinese chronicle the '' ...

'', centuries before the first appearance of the allegedly Turkic-speaking

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...

.Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1973). ''The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture''. University of California Press
p. 411
/ref> Chinese observers stated that the medieval

Göktürks The Göktürks (; ), also known as Türks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks, were a Turkic people in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the main powe ...

displayed a tuğ decorated with a wolf's head at their camp's gate in order not to forget their origin from a she-wolf ancestress. A Western Turkic tribal confederation, the

, was possibly named after tuğ, if Old Turkic ''Tuğluğ'' (𐱃𐰆𐰍𐰞𐰍), which was "mentioned in the Chinese annals under various names: ''Duolu'' MChnL ''tuet-lǐuk'' .. ''Dulu'' 都陸 MChnL ''tuǝ-liwk'', ''Duolu'' 咄禄 MChnL ''tuet-luk''", means "have flags (banners), have standards". It was also used by Mongolic tribes too. The white-haired banner is used as a peacetime symbol, while the black banner was for wartime. Usage of the horse tail is symbolic because horses were central to the Mongols' livelihood. This is similar to the use of horse tail hairs for the

morin khuur The ''morin khuur'' (), also known as the horsehead fiddle, is a traditional Mongolian bowed stringed instrument. It is one of the most important musical instruments of the Mongol people, and is considered a symbol of the nation of Mongolia. ...

. The original white banner disappeared early in history, but the black one survived as the repository of Genghis Khan's soul. The Mongols continued to honor the banner, and

Zanabazar Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar (born Eshidorji) was the first '' Jebtsundamba Khutuktu'' and the first ''Bogd Gegeen'' or supreme spiritual authority, of the Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) lineage of Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism in Mongolia. The son of a Mongol ...

(1635–1723) built a monastery with the special mission of flying and protecting the black banner in the 17th century. Around 1937, the black banner disappeared amidst the

great purges The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the assassination of Sergei Kirov by Leonid Nikolaev ...

of the nationalists, monks and intellectuals, and the destruction of monasteries. Image:Temüjin proclaimed as Genghis Khan in 1206 Jami' al-tawarikh manuscript.jpg, Genghis Khan proclaimed Khagan of all Mongols. White banners can be seen on the right. 15th-century ms. of Rashid al-Din's "History of the World" (BNF Supplément persan 1113, fol. 44v) File:MongolsBesiegingACityInTheMiddleEast13thCentury.jpg, The Mongols besieging a city in the Middle East. The black banner can be seen behind the

trebuchet A trebuchet () is a type of catapult that uses a hinged arm with a sling attached to the tip to launch a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles ...

, early 14th-century miniature from a ms. of Rashid al-Din's "History of the World" (Edinburgh University Library)

Modern era

The Nine White banners

Nine White Banners at Mongolian Government House

The Nine White banners came into renewed significance in Mongolia after democracy was adopted in the early 1990s as a symbol of the traditional Mongolian state, replacing the previous

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

red flags. The state banner flown by the Mongols, the , is composed of nine flag poles decorated with white horse tail hairs hanging from a round surface with the Mongolian symbol of the 3 pronged flame, which appears on the Soyombo (Representing the past, present, and future), on the top. The Nine White Banners was a peacetime emblem used exclusively by the

Khans Khan may refer to: * Khan (surname), including a list of people with the name * Khan (title), a royal title for a ruler in Mongol and Turkic languages and used by various ethnicities Art and entertainment * Khan (band), an English progressiv ...

in front of their yurt. The central banner is larger in size than the rest and is placed in the center of the other eight. The modern Mongolian nine white banners are kept in the Government Palace in

Ulaanbaatar Ulaanbaatar is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities in Mongolia, most populous city of Mongolia. It has a population of 1.6 million, and it is the coldest capital city in the world by average yearly temperature. The municipa ...

. On National Pride Day, a traditional ceremony for the Nine White Banners is held.

Black banners

The () or the was used in wartime. It is made of black horse tail hairs and flown in the same fashion. According to the illustrated Japanese chronicle '' Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba'', the banner of the Mongolian Yuan fleet that invaded Japan was black. The modern Mongolian black banners are kept in the Ministry of Defense.

Tugs in the Mongolian military

Within the

Mongolian Armed Forces The Mongolian Armed Forces () is the collective name for the Mongolian military and the joint forces that comprise it. It is tasked with protecting the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Mongolia. Defined as the peacetime co ...

, the black tug is used as the

finial A finial () or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a dome, spire, tower, roo ...

in military colours' flagpoles, while the white tug is used by the Mongolian State Honor Guard and is the finial in the colours of the civil security services.

Notes

References

* Boeheim, Wendelin (1890). ''Handbuch der Waffenkunde: Das Waffenwesen in seiner historischen Entwickelung vom Beginn des Mittelalters bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts.'' E. A. Seemann, Leipzig

* William Erskine. ''A history of India under the two first sovereigns of the house of Taimur, Báber and Humáyun''. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1854. Pg 265

*Zdzislaw Zygulski, ''Ottoman Art in the Service of Empire'', Hagop Kevorkian Series on Near Eastern Art & Civilization, New York University Press (1992). *Angelo Paratico ''Una Feroce Compassione'', Gingko Edizioni, Verona (2022).

External links

*

*

*

* Jack Weatherford

*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120328125050/http://www.infomongolia.com/index.php?songolt=content&task=content_item&id=1810 Photo reportage, a tribute ceremony to the Great Black Banners, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia] {{Mongol Empire National symbols of Mongolia Culture of Mongolia Mongol Empire Crimean Khanate Military of Mongolia