Empire of dirt, or Why the warriors of Genghis Khan, was executed for bathing
The Mongols seized in the 13th and 14th centuries, a large part of the Eurasian continent, was a force which could not to resist any state of the era. A significant role in its invincibility played a discipline based very severe laws. Most of them looked like a strict and strange prohibitions, which will cause the modern man's disgust, and has appeared thanks to Genghis Khan. This is what the Governor-grub was able for many years to combine the wild hordes of nomads and enslaved peoples in the great Empire.
Lawmaking Genghis Khan began immediately after he took the throne in 1206. Prior to this, the Mongols were a numerous fragmented groups living by the rules and obey each to their princes and elders. The people prospered looting and senseless violence, which was done as a simple herdsmen and local aristocrats.
Historian and writer Gribov in his book "the Great YASA of Genghis Khan" described some of the laws adopted by the ruler of the Mongols. Many of them affect the modern human stupidity and brutality, but their essence is easily explained by social and religious norms among the Mongols.
A significant part of the YASA was devoted to the everyday life of people. The Mongols of any class was forbidden to step over the fire, which was preparing the food, urinate into the fire and the water and washed in open water. Prohibition was in effect for washing dishes and bathing.... The dishes cleaned the cows or grass, and the clothes were worn until then, until it decays on the body and does not crumble.
Children from birth to adulthood were allowed to bathe no more than 4 times, and the Mongols adult of any gender and age, seen swimming in any body of water, was accused of blasphemy with all the attendant circumstances. In the best case, the offender could be beaten or flogged with a whip, but most often he was deprived of life.
Cleanliness in the Empire of the Mongols was considered a grave sin, which was connected with the Mongolian religion. The people worshipped the natural elements of fire, water, wind, earth and desecration is not goodbye. The Mongols were convinced that the main is inner purity, and not the external. The main element that redeems man from the contamination were considered nomads fire.
In the fire it was impossible to throw the trash and besides, there was a ban on the burning of the bodies of animals and of dead bodies taken by many of the peoples of Asia. Their dead Mongols brought into the steppe, far from the shelter, and there had been left to the mercy of wild animals and birds.
Ambassadors of other States before meeting with Khan passed between two sacred fires, ochimusha from evil thoughts. Lightning, often causing wildfires, the Mongols was considered a punishment sent by higher powers for sin, and so the storm from the intrepid nomads called superstitious terror.
Introduced by Genghis Khan's laws operate over a century, but then they had to be revised. The great Horde was a gigantic Empire of dirt that sooner or later had to lead to tragic consequences. Punishment for immorality has become the plague that swept in the 14th century the vast territory of the Mongolian steppes, China, Siberia and Central Asia. Later, the black death spread to Europe, killing a third of its population.
The cause of the plague in the tents of the nomads was the incredible lack of sanitation and hordes of parasites living clothes every nomad. When the Mongols began to die the entire camp, the descendants of Genghis Khan were removed from the jars laws, violating the rules of hygiene, but it was too late.
Keywords: Asia | Dirt | History | Fire | Mongolia | Plagues | Parasites | Genghis Khan | The laws