Etügen Eke

Also Known As: Mongolian, “Mother Earth”; also Eke Etügen, Itügen, Ötügen, Etügen Ekhe. Carpini’s Itoga and Marco Polo’s Natigai are usually read as the same name heard by European ears
Region/Culture: Central Asia
Mythos: Mongolian Mythology, Turkish Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: Etügen Eke is the earth itself addressed as a mother, the ground that carries people, herds and rivers beneath the sky god Tengri.
Role in Mythos: She is the lower half of the Mongol pairing of Heaven and Earth, invoked beside Tengri when a khan gives thanks for a victory.
Relation to Humans: The Mongols thanked her for carrying them through danger and, if Marco Polo’s Natigai is the same power, trusted her with their children, cattle and grain. They fed her at the household meal and built her no temple.

At the midday meal in a Mongol tent, before anyone else was served, somebody took a piece of fat from the pot and rubbed it across the mouth of a small figure made of felt and cloth. The figure had a wife beside it and children, also felt, and they were greased in turn. Then a ladle of broth went out through the door for whatever else was listening. Only after that did the family eat.

Marco Polo watched this in the late thirteenth century and wrote down the name he was given for the figure, Natigai. He called it the god of the earth, the one who looked after children, cattle and grain. A generation earlier the Franciscan envoy John of Plano Carpini had heard something similar and spelled it Itoga. Neither man spoke Mongolian well. The word both were reaching for is generally taken to be Etügen, and what they had stumbled on was the Mongol earth, addressed as a mother.

Her own people named her with far less ceremony. In the Secret History of the Mongols, the chronicle the Mongols wrote about themselves in the thirteenth century, the young Temüjin, not yet Genghis Khan, has just ridden home from a raid on the Merkit. They had carried off his wife Börte. He has her back, the Merkit camps are burning behind him, and he stops to say who made it possible. He names his two allies. Then he names two greater ones. Mighty Heaven had called him, he says, and Mother Earth, Eke Etügen, had carried him through.

That is her myth, such as it is. Heaven appoints and Earth bears the weight. The same chronicle uses her again when the old conqueror is dividing the world among his sons and tells them there is no need to quarrel, because Mother Earth is wide and her rivers are many. She is the ground under the horse and the pasture in front of it. No story tells how she was born, whom she married, or whether Tengri is her husband or only her neighbour. The texts set them side by side, sky above and earth below, and leave the relationship there.

Nobody describes her either. The stock word for her in old Mongolian is dayir, brown, and it matches an older phrase carved in Turkic runes on the Orkhon stones in the eighth century, which speak of the blue sky above and the brown earth below, with humankind made between the two. Brown is the whole portrait. Polo’s felt figure, if it was hers, was a household object a hand’s length high, shiny with years of grease and smelling of mutton. Modern summaries give her a grey bull to ride, a perpetual virginity and a schedule of horse sacrifices in spring and autumn. None of the medieval witnesses mentions any of it.

The name has a longer past than the Mongols. The Türk qaghans of the sixth to eighth centuries ruled from a forested highland in what is now central Mongolia that they called Ötüken, and their inscriptions say that whoever holds Ötüken holds the realm. The French scholar Paul Pelliot argued in the twentieth century that Ötüken, Etügen, Itoga and Natigai are all one word, the name of a sacred mountain forest and of the earth power that lived in it, passed from Turkic into Mongolian. The link is widely accepted and not proven. It is the reason she is counted in both traditions.

She did not stay single. In the prayers of later Mongol folk religion, collected by Walther Heissig and others, the sky has multiplied into ninety-nine tngri, and the invocation that names them goes on to name what lies beneath: the Earth Mother of seventy-seven layers. The Buryat scholar Dorji Banzarov, writing in 1846, already knew the figure of seventy-seven and connected her name to the Buryat word for a female shaman. As Buddhism spread across the steppe, much of the practical business of the earth passed to local powers, the masters of each mountain, spring and pass, who are honoured at stone cairns to this day. Etügen remained what she had been in the chronicle, the large word used when the whole ground is meant.

Her power is carrying. She holds up herds, tents, armies and rivers, and by Polo’s account she keeps children and animals alive and makes the grain come. In the Secret History her favour is the difference between a raid that works and one that does not, and a khan who has it says so out loud. The texts never show her angry and never show her punishing anyone.

The limits are just as plain. She does not act alone: every time she is named in the chronicle, Heaven is named first and does the choosing. She has no voice, no messenger, no temple and no priesthood of her own, and the two foreigners who recorded her cult could not even agree on whether she was male or female. Polo gave Natigai a wife. A goddess with no story is easy to mishear and easy to redraw, and both have happened to her. What survives intact is a single line of thanks from a man who had just got his wife back.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Etügen Eke?

Etügen Eke is the Mongol earth goddess, and her name means Mother Earth. She is paired with the sky god Tengri as the lower half of Heaven and Earth. The Secret History of the Mongols, written in the thirteenth century, names her as the power that carried Temüjin through his war with the Merkit.

What does Etügen Eke look like?

No medieval source describes a body for Etügen Eke. The old Mongolian word used of her is dayir, meaning brown, the colour of the ground. The grey bull and other details found in modern summaries do not appear in the medieval accounts.

Is Marco Polo’s Natigai the same as Etügen?

Marco Polo’s Natigai and John of Plano Carpini’s Itoga are generally read as European attempts at the name Etügen, an argument made by Paul Pelliot. Polo describes Natigai as the god of the earth who protects children, cattle and grain, kept as a felt image in every household. The identification is widely accepted but not proven, and Polo treats Natigai as male.

What is the link between Etügen and Ötüken?

Ötüken was the sacred forested highland from which the Türk qaghans ruled between the sixth and eighth centuries. Paul Pelliot argued that Etügen and Ötüken are the same word, the name of a holy mountain forest and of the earth power living in it. This is why Etügen Eke is counted in both Mongolian and Turkic tradition.

How was Etügen Eke worshipped?

Etügen Eke had no temple and no priesthood of her own. Mongol leaders thanked her aloud alongside Heaven, and if Natigai is the same figure, families smeared fat on the mouth of a felt image at meals and poured broth outside the door. Later folk prayers address her as the Earth Mother of seventy-seven layers beneath the ninety-nine sky gods.