Hunting Skills

Falconry Today

The Mongol fondness for falcons continues today, especially among the Kazakhs of Mongolia. These Turkicspeaking people live in the western part of the country. They continue to hunt with golden eagles, most likely the same type of bird Marco Polo saw snatching wolves off the ground. As hunters ride their horses, the birds sit on their arms. The eagles are so large and heavy, the riders use wooden poles to help their arms support the birds.

For Mongol men, hunting was an important part of survival. But among the elite, it also served as a form of recreation and a social event. Even as they settled in sedentary communities, the Mongols valued hunting as a recreational activity. In his summer capital of Shangdu, Khu-bilai Khan built an enormous hunting park. Surrounded by earthen walls, the park had streams and woods, and deer roamed the grounds. Khubilai also hunted in the wild, using trained lions and leopards to help him catch his game, which included boars, bears, and deer.

The Mongols also enjoyed falconry-using trained falcons to capture small game and other birds. Their trained birds included large eagles, as well. In his Travels, Marco Polo wrote, “. . . those especially that are trained to wolf-catching are very large and powerful birds, and no wolf is able to get away from them.”