¹ ‘Five documents regarding salt production in Ordos’, BSOAS, XL, 2, 1977, 338–53Google Scholar.

² J. van Hecken, who from the late 1930's to the early 1950's resided most of the time at Boro-Balyasun, answering a series of queries of mine (13 December 1977; 5 and 25 January 1978), told me that there was a whole bundle of papers concerning the lease of the salt lakes in the archives of the church, unfortunately all burned by Communist troops in 1941.

³ For example in the ordinance of Otoy of 1923; see my paper ‘A socio-political document from Ordos: the dürim of Otoy from 1923’, Monumenta Serica, XXX, 1972–1973, pp. 562 (lb.3), 564 (3b.7), 577, 585Google Scholar.

⁴ BSOAS, XL, 2, 1977, 340. However, contrary to my identification there, he is not the same person as the Uuba of the dürim (Mon. Ser., xxx, 1972–3, 544, 577, 578). Many Mongols went by more than one name, which made for confusion.

⁵ Mostaert, A., Dict, ordos, p. 655aGoogle Scholar. Badarqu, too, is a fairly common name, and the dürim of 1923, apart from the Badarqu holding the title of iakiruyči ianggin, speaks of yet another Badarqu who also bore the honorary title of iakiruyči, and whose wife had been murdered by a soldier named Uuba. This Badarqu (not the vice-minister) himself was found guilty of another murder. In Mon. Ser., xxx, 1972–3, I have failed to make a clear distinction between these two Badarqus. Several letters from 1904–5 mention Badarqu as holding the post of bayitanda. Undoubtedly this is the same Badarqu of the present letter. For the office of bayitanda (< Manchu faidan-i da ‘majordomo’), see Dict. ordos, p. 60b; Mostaert, A., ‘Matériaux ethnographiques relatifs aux Mongols Ordos’, CAJ, II, 4, 1957, 252Google Scholar; and ‘Annonce de la mort de l'Empereur Te-tsoung et de 1'Impératrice douairière Ts'eu-hi aux Mongols de la bannière d'Otoy (Ordos)’, in Franke, H. (ed.), Studia Sino-Altaica: Festschrift für Erich IIaenisch, Wiesbaden, 1961, 152Google Scholar.

⁶ See my forthcoming ‘Mongol letters from Otoy, 1920–1923, regarding a number of murder cases’.

⁷ In letter III of the 1977 series, Kao Yün-hsiu is said to be from Sui-te. J. van Hecken's notes say that he was from Yü-lin. But this is a minor point. The ‘original letter’ is not likely to refer to the loan contract of $6,000. As long as the Banner was unable to repay, nobody, I imagine, would expect Kao to part with that document. At one point the Banner was ready to raise the necessary sum by selling more land, but loss of more pasture-land would only further aggravate the economic conditions of the people, and the church advised the Banner prince against such a solution. Instead the church advanced the $6,000 to repay the debt owed to Kao. Thereupon Kao's loan contract was returned, but, as I have explained, this new loan was never fully repaid to the church.

⁸ Kemese-, essentially the same as keme-, implies a self-deprecatory connotation (J. van Heoken, letter of 5 January 1978).

⁹ Amban: a Manchu word meaning ‘great’, but in Ordos Mongol ‘functionary’ in general. Dict, ordos, p. 20a.

¹⁰ Jakiruyči ianggin: the same as qosiyun iakiruyči. Dict, ordos, p. 181a; 200a.

¹¹ Dabsiyul-: ‘to communicate’. Lit. ‘to make advance’. This word dabsiyvl- appears several times in a series of letters from 1904. In his notebook (II, Otoy, No. 16), A. Mostaert explains it as ‘to communicate confidentially’, which may have been a comment made by a Mongol when he copied this text.

¹² Qas iisiyan-i ayvlia-, lit. ‘meeting (your) turquoise visit’, evidently meaning here ‘receiving your esteemed letter’.

¹³ Bariyun ( = barayun) qotas: Ting-pien and An-pien , two towns south of the Great Wall. Barayun ‘right’ is ‘south’ when one is facing the east, the usual orientation in Ordos. This may well refer to the fact that Chinese troops, including those sent by Kao Yün-hsiu, were in occupation of the lakes.

¹⁴ Ečid-de-, probably to be read with -i-, must be the same as eiile- ‘to make oneself master’.

¹⁵ Ulus yayili, lit. ‘the Nation's tax (office)’. This refers to the Salt Bureau of Hua-ma-ch'ih, which would administer salt production, collect the taxes, and pay a certain rent to the Banner.

¹⁶ Tomila-: ‘to have a certain authority’.

¹⁷ Perhaps derived from the Manchu name Fulingga. Even at that time quite a few Mongols bore Manchu names, and Fu may well have been a Mongol, or of Mongol ancestry, in the government. Sometimes the Chinese made use of the services of such officials as intermediaries with the Mongols.

¹⁸ Iryai, Eriyaya of the ‘Secret history’, evidently a Tangyud word, indicates Ning-hsia. Diet, ordos, p. 387b.

¹⁹ In letter III of ‘Five documents’, the name is spelt guu-yün-süü. J. van Hecken spells Kao Ying-hsiu. Probably Yün-hsiu : yün in local dialect is ung.

²⁰ Yuwan-bičig, evidently a Sino-Mongol hybrid combination meaning ‘original letter, writing, contract’. For reasons indicated above, I believe that it refers to the lease contract of October 1921.

²¹ What I read as gedergü with some reservation, is in fact hard to decipher. Evidently the copyist made a correction here, retracing the lettering, and in the process made the word practically illegible. Gedergü seems to be the only reading possibility with an acceptable meaning.

²² I assume that ‘delegate’ is the subject of kelekül-e: in fact in my understanding, the delegate is threatening Čoyjiryal with dire consequences if Hua-ma-ch'ih is not granted exploitation of the lakes.

²³ The spelling iü-yuwan here and in II. 16 and 20 is unusual. It must stand for wei-yüan.

²⁴ Sikir ‘sugar’ is the name of two (Great S. and Little S.) of the three salt-producing lakes of Otoy. The name comes from the liquorice roots dug in that area. Dict, ordos, p. 615ab.

²⁵ Man-dur ‘to us’ evidently refers to the Salt Bureau of Hua-ma-ch'ih.

²⁶ He-tung bičig is another Sino-Mongol hybrid expression. He-tung is from the Chinese ho-t'ung , originally ‘contract in two parts to be put together to make the date, written in the middle, legible’. Here simply ‘contract’. As I have indicated above, this must refer to the lease contract given to Kao under pressure of Chinese officials of Yü-lin.

²⁷ One must keep in mind that Čoyjiryal is writing this letter from Ning-hsia, and the ‘higher authorities’ mentioned here must be some Ning-hsia officials. I assume that Čoyjiryal is seeking their backing for his ‘private’ negotiations with the delegate from Hua-ma-ch'ih, just as Kao had the backing of the officials of Yü-lin.

²⁸ Tuqayilaqu tüsimed: I understand this as ‘an official acting in your name’. Dict. ordos 160, under tuqayila- lists the following expression (transposed for reasons of convenience into standard written language): noyan tuqayilaiu tüsimed yabuynlqu ‘the prince will send a functionary to represent him’, and in a text from 1903 (in Bishop A. Bermijn's notebooks): minu beye-dür tuqayilan yaryaiiaki- ‘to command’, here ‘to use his own power’.

³⁰ Lit. ‘abundant rent’.

³¹ Lit. ‘at the place of the church’.

³² This is by far the most difficult sentence of this letter, not only on account of its rather convoluted syntax, but even more so on account of our ignorance of the facts behind it. The translation is very tentative and proposed with great reservation. The reader will remember that while Čoyjiryal was at Ning-hsia trying to make his deal with the Salt Gabelle—unbeknown to all others—negotiations were still going on at the church in Boro-Balyasun with the Salt Gabelle. Whether Mr. Geerst was personally present or not, I do not know. Čoyjiryal wanted Badarqu to let him know what the rent negotiated at the church was going to be. But I think that Coyjiryal wanted more than an exact quotation of the rent being negotiated (kedün mayad toya ‘how much—the exact number’): something had to be delivered to him by special courier. I do believe that tusiya- is more than ‘to let him know: medegül-’. But such an interpretation raises a number of difficult questions: what money, and what for? If Čoyjiryal's negotiations in Ning-hsia were successful, those going on at the church automatically became useless, and no rent could be expected there. What money could Čoyjiryal then expect? In the following line, Čoyjiryal says that the matter is urgent because there are so many people with that Hua-ma-ch'ih official, and perhaps he hoped to bribe them outright, or else he was somehow responsible for their expenses during their stay at Ning-hsia. However all this is pure speculation, impossible to clarify due to lack of more precise information.

³³ If my supposition that the letter comes immediately after the lease to Kao (October 1921) is correct, the first ‘median (lunar) month’ is the fifth month of the following year, i.e. 16 June 1922. In 1922 there was an intercalary (second) fifth month, but if the letter had been from that second fifth month, it would probably have been indicated as ilegüü.

³⁴ This additional last line is not part of the letter: evidently it is a note from Badarqu himself, but addressed to whom? In the introduction I have intimated that Badarqu perhaps forwarded the text of the letter to the church. But such a move would reveal Čoyjiryal's secret negotiations going on at Ning-hsia. Or was it Badarqu's intention to reveal those negotiations deliberately in order to wreck everything? Did Badarqu have plans of his own?