Jack Weatherford

But also it's

quite common that if a man dies and he has no brothers or his brothers do not marry his widow, then if he has a son by another wife, she will become his wife.

So it would have been common that Bächter eventually, when he passed through puberty, would then perhaps marry Mother Erlün.

Now,

I don't know that that happened, but I think either it did or...

Temujin was trying to prevent it, because it was bad enough that he was the older brother, but he becomes the older brother and a stepfather.

I think Temujin just couldn't handle that.

And he was already, Bektu was ordering him around, so he would take things like a fish or a bird that Temujin had caught, and that's perfectly acceptable in the Mongol hierarchy.

Yes, it's only recorded once, but perhaps it happened several times.

Yes, he can do anything he wants just about with his younger siblings.

That's, yeah.

But Temujin is not going to stand for it.

So mostly in the record, they kind of put the blame on this fish.

which I'm not so sure that's really the blame.

And the boys had actually taken the sewing needles from their mother.

They were using them for fishing.

And I think it was more complicated than that.

But for whatever reason, he and his next brother, Hasser, decided to kill him.

And they did.

I think it is the symbol of that, and it could be the thing that pushes him over the edge.