Blue spots, idiots, barbarians, and tiffin in the deep dark heart of Asia: Mongols in Western consciousness

Abstract

This study of images of Mongols in Western, principally American, consciousness embraces the influence of medieval conceptions of the Mongols as monsters that grew in their reproduction over the centuries, how these impressions affected the creation of a "Mongol" racial category for mankind, the manufacture of a "Mongol body" (Mongol eyes, the Mongolian blue spot), the "discovery" of a form of mental retardation known today as trisomy 21 ("Mongoloids," "Mongolian idiots"), what travelers observed and reported while in Mongol domains, Mongols in fiction and film, and the field of Mongolian Studies. Although the negative tone of the discourse about these various images has become somewhat muted over the years, Western images of the Mongol retain much negativity and lack appreciation of modern Mongols as primarily sedentary agriculturalists and urban residents. Periodic comparisons between Mongols and Tibetans indicate that the images they generate differ and have powerful social and political consequences.