Tümed

The Tümed were a Mongol people of the southern steppe. Their forebears, the Khori-Tumed, lived west of Lake Baikal until Genghis Khan conquered them in 1207 and resettled part south of the Gobi. They re-emerged in the mid-fifteenth century, and under Dayan Khan and his successors formed the right wing of the eastern Mongols, grouped as the twelve Tümed.

Altan Khan (1507–1582) raided the Ming frontier. In 1578 Altan met the monk Sonam Gyatso and the Tümed embraced Tibetan Buddhism, the first Mongol tribe to do so; the title Dalai Lama was born from that alliance. In the early seventeenth century they submitted to the rising Qing and were later organized into the Josutu League.