Clothing and Textile Terms in the Mongol Empire

This is an ongoing glossary of clothing and textile terms used by the Mongol Empire and by post-Empire Mongols; most terms are Turco-Mongol in origin, but commonly used Chinese and Arabic terms (usually referring to specific textiles) are also noted. This list will be updated as I find new sources.

Textiles were considered one of the highest art forms by the Mongols, and under their rule the textile trade of Asia and the Muslim countries flourished. Due to the vast array of textile and clothing types, terminology can sometimes be confusing.

Clothing

abchu – the inside of the garment (Golden; 205, column B, 34)
alaqchin – multi-colored garment (cf. alaq ‘mottled’) (Golden; 205, column B, 24)
altatai de’el – gilded garment (cf. altan ‘gold’) (Golden; 205, column B, 20)
boqtaq, boghta (Chinese gu gu guan, ku ku kuan) – a headdress worn by Mongol noblewomen (Golden, 205, column B, 40; Cleaves 1954, p. 451)
chamcha – shirt (Golden; 205, column B, 30)
charuq – slipper, sandal (Golden; 205, column C, 7)
chekmen – a kind of upper garment (possibly of fur) (Golden; 205, column B, 45)
daqu – rain-garment (Golden; 205, column B, 42)
de’el – garment (typically translated as ‘coat’ or ‘kaftan’) (Golden; 205, column B, 18)
de’el qaftan – a vest worn under armor (Golden; 205, column B, 27)
emüdün? – drawers, trousers (Golden; 205, column B, 31)
godosun, qodasun – leather shoe, boot (Golden; 205, column C, 4)
jaqa – collar (Golden; 205, column B, 35)
jisün (Chinese zhisun) – a type of robe worn at certain celebrations, of one color, often with decorations of pearls and precious stones. The emperor had 11 types of winter jisün and 15 summer types; nobility and senior officials had 9 for winter and 14 for summer. The majority were made of nasij, but some were made of qiemanli (cut velvet) and sufu (fine Muslim wool) (Allsen, p. 19, 77-80; Watt and Wardwell, p. 138).
jubcha’aqai de’el – lined garment (Golden; 205, column B, 29)
kebeneg – felt raincoat or cloak (Golden; 205, column B, 44)
kemerlik – velour garment (Golden; 205, column B, 22)
oimasun – felt stocking (Golden; 205, column C, 5)
qanchun – sleeve (Golden; 205, column B, 36)
qorma – hem, border of a garment (Golden; 205, column B, 37)
qubchasun – dress, clothes, uniform, ‘clothing of a plain color’ (Golden, 205, column B, 28; Cleaves 1950)
quchigu – wrap, puttee (leg-wrap) (Golden; 205, column C, 6)
subutu jisün – (cf. subud, ‘pearl’) a robe of one color decorated with little pearls (Cleaves 1951, p. 258)
tomugha – some type of headdress, possibly unisex or a generic term, for example tanatu tomugha ‘headdress with large pearls’ (Cleaves 1954, p. 445)

Textiles

a’urasun – satin (Allsen, p. 27)
böz – cotton, linen (a Turkic loan-word) (Golden; 205, column B, 25)
huta’asun (quta’asun?) – thread, yarn (Golden; 205, column C, 2)
Ch. kesi, gesi – Chinese term for slit tapestry woven of silk or silk and metal threads (Watt and Wardwell, p. 213)
kib (pl. kibughud ~ kibu’ud) – a type of silk fabric (possibly originally a Korean loanword (Cleaves 1950, p. 445-446)
Ch. mao-tuan – ‘hair satin,’ camlet (Allsen, p. 71-72)
Ara. nasij (Chinese nashishi) – cloth of gold (short form of nasij al-dhahad al-harir ‘cloth of gold and silk’), where both ground and pattern are gold, with the design delineated by the silk foundation weave; not technically a brocade (Watt and Wardwell, p. 127)
*nunqa’asun, unasun – wool (Golden; 205, column C, 1)
Ch. qiemanli – identified with jianrong, probably a type of cut velvet (Watt and Wardwell, p. 138).
Ch. sufu (cf. Persian suf) – a type of fine Muslim wool cloth (Watt and Wardwell, p. 138).
törge – silk fabric, alternate form of torghan, torgha, torgho (Cleaves 1950, p. 443-444)
torghan, torgha, torgho – silk fabric, alternate form of törge (Cleaves 1950, p. 443-444)
Ch. zhushi – damask of silk or silk and ramie, considered inferior to kesi; could contain gold threads (Watt and Wardwell, p. 138-139).

Colors, Patterns, and Descriptions
bür-e, bürüi – obscure (Cleaves 1950, p. 445)
chechegtei – flowered, lit. ‘having flowers’ (Cleaves 1950, p. 439, 442)
egülen artu – having cloud streaks, from egülen ‘cloud’ and ar ‘trait’ + adjectival suffive –tu (Cleaves 1950, p. 445)
köke – blue (Cleaves 1950, p. 439, 442)
lam (Chinese lam) – blue, dated to 1453 as a loan-word, used in same text as Mo. köke ‘blue’ (Cleaves 1950, p. 445)
narin – fine, high quality (Cleaves 1950, p. 439, 442)
noghughan – green (Cleaves 1950, p. 445)
önggeten – colored (Cleaves 1950, p. 439, 442)
sidam, shi’idam (Chinese su) – plain, unpatterned (Cleaves 1950, p. 445)
ulaghan – red (Cleaves 1950, p. 445)

Other

hoyoqchi (qoyoqchi?) – tailor (Golden; 205, column C, 28)
keremün (Chinese ch’ing-shu, ‘blue rodent’) – squirrel (Cleaves 1956, p. 259)
neke – fur, pelt (Golden; 205, column B, 32)
[sa]rabcin – eye-protecting visor (Golden; 205, column B, 41)
subutu – having small pearls (Cleaves 1951, p. 258)
tanatu – having large pearls, from tana ‘large pearls’ (Cleaves 1951, p. 96-97)
tobchi – button (Golden; 205, column B, 38)
ünen (Chinese yin-shu, ’silver rodent’) – ermine (Cleaves 1956, p. 258)

Note on Spelling

Here gh has been substituted for γ, ch for č, j for ǰ, and sh for š. The â and ê of Golden’s spellings have been replaced with the more typically used a’a and e’e. Golden’s spelling system is a bit different from that typically used by De Rachewiltz and others; I have not yet completely figured out how to normalize it, so spelling between Golden and other sources in this glossary will not always be normalized.

Bibliography

Allsen, Thomas T. 1997. Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A cultural history of Islamic textiles. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Cleaves, Francis Woodman. 1956. “The Biography of Bayan of the Barin in The Yuan Shih,” in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, v. 19, no. 3/4, pp. 185-303.

Cleaves, Francis Woodman. 1954. “Tomugh-a/T’o-mu-hua,” in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, v. 17, no. 3/4, pp. 445-452.

Cleaves, Francis Woodman. 1951. “The Sino-Mongolian Inscription of 1338 in Memory of Jiguntei,” in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 14, no. 1/2, pp. 1-104.

Cleaves, Francis Woodman. 1950. “The Sino-Mongolian Edict of 1453 in The Topkapi Sarayi Muzesi,” in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, v. 13, no. 3/4, pp. 431-446.

Golden, Peter B. (ed.); Halasu-Kun, Tibor; Golden, Peter B.; Ligeti, Louis; Schütz, Edmund (trans.). 2000. The King’s Dictionary: The Rasûlid Hexaglot: Fourteenth Century Vocabularies in Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Greek, Armenian and Mongol. Leiden: Brill.

Watt, James, and Wardwell, Anne. 1997. When Silk Was Gold: Central Asian and Chinese Textiles. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.