Early Mongolia
In the first millennium BC Mongolia and the adjoining regions of Central Asia, unlike China and
other countries with a settled way of life, constituted a distinctively original nomadic world
inhabited by aboriginal tribes and clans, who kept sheep, goats and cattle. One of their principal
occupations was the breeding of horses, in particular the Przevalski horse - which had been
domesticated earlier - a small, stocky animal with unusual endurance, widely used by the Huns, Turks
and Mongols. The two-humped Bactrian camel was of great importance in the climatic conditions of the
Gobi Desert. South of the Gobi Desert, a small number of donkeys and mules were bred. It is
interesting to note that the wild ancestors of these horses, camels and asses were still found at
that time in the south-western part of the Mongolian Gobi east of the Altai, in Dzungaria and
Kazakhstan. In the period under review - 700-300 BC ~ the territory of Mongolia and other parts of
Inner Asia knew a fully developed nomadic way of life, often referred to as Central Asian nomadism.
The people who then lived in the territory of what is now Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, Dzungaria and
southern Siberia have left behind them an enormous number of 'stone-slab' graves, 'reindeer stones'
and other material vestiges of their existence. The stone-slab graves are so described because at
ground level they are bordered by a rectangular wall of stone slabs sunk edgewise into the ground.
At one corner of a stone-slab grave there is often a stone column, sometimes decorated with the
images of animals. The skeletons found in these graves lie on their backs, usually with their heads
turned towards the east, and are accompanied by the bones of domestic animals, clay vessels and
other articles. Some of the vessels are made of reddish clay with handles; others are of
brownish-grey clay and are covered with hatchings like the clay vessels of the following Hunnic
(Hsiung-nu) period.
151
The peoples buried in these graves had fully mastered casting techniques. Their graves contain
beautiful bronze objects and iron articles (or vestiges of them). The Scythian-type bronze pots,
axes, daggers, arrowheads, bronze and iron horse's bits from the stone-slab graves of Mongolia bear
a striking resemblance to similar articles found in the graves of the region beyond the Baikal and
in Ordos. Mongolia also boasts many specimens of reindeer stones - stone columns decorated with
images of galloping reindeer, sun discs and weapons, which in technique and design have much in
common with the 'animal style' of the ancient monuments of representational art found in other parts
of the steppe belt of Europe and Asia.
In addition, large numbers of cowries from the Indian Ocean, white cylindrical beads made of
prophyllite, fragments of Chinese three-legged vessels, and ornaments of nephrite (rings, discs and
half-discs) and mother-of-pearl have been found in the stone-slab graves of Mongolia.1
For the most part, these objects reached Mongolia through trade with China, Central Asia, Khotan and
Afghanistan, The country's cultural links extended through Sogdiana to India and across Kazakhstan
as far as the Black Sea and eastern Europe.
The various tribes of the zone, who undoubtedly spoke, different languages and were ethnically
and culturally different, possessed many articles that were similar in shape. This is especially
true of the weapons, horse harness and ornaments. Initially the predominant type of weapon was the
bronze-socketed arrowhead with a flat tip (striking area), oval or rhomboid in shape. This was
subsequently replaced by the socketed trihedral or pyramidal arrowhead. Horse's bits showed striking
similarities. At first, bits with stirrup-shaped end rings were exclusively used, but were later
supplanted by bits with rounded rings. With the introduction of bridles and metal bits it became
possible to ride on horseback over long distances, and this led to much closer relations between
tribes and significantly strengthened economic and cultural contacts between far-flung provinces of
the steppe.
In terms of the general level of development, the culture of stone-slab graves and reindeer
stones of Mongolia and other parts of the Eurasian steppe belt of the seventh to third centuries BC
coincided with the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages. Already by 400-300 BC iron articles were
widespread in Mongolia and throughout Inner Asia and heralded the beginning of the next stage in
development.
According to the ancient Chinese bone inscriptions, the famous Shih-chi (Historical
Records) of the scholar Szii-ma Ch'ien, and other sources, the territory of present-day Mongolia,
Inner Mongolia and Dzungaria was in times long past inhabited by the Hsien-yiin, the Hun (Hsiung-nu)
and other nomadic cattle-breeding tribes.
1. Okladnikov, 1955, p. 261.
152
In the first millennium BC, these territories were successively inhabited by the Hu, the Tungus
(Tung Hu), the Huns (Hsi Hu) and the Hun (Hsiung-nu).2
Amongst the above-mentioned peoples, the Hu and the Hun (Hsiung-nu) occupied the territory of
Mongolia. The Tungus (Tung Hu) (which means 'the Eastern Hu' in Chinese) lived in eastern Mongolia
and western Manchuria, whereas the Huns (Hsi Hu) ('the Western Hu') lived in the area to the
south-west and west of Mongolia.
The Hun (Hsiung-nu) Empire
Archaeological evidence from the seventh to the third century BC provides a picture of nomadic
societies with a patriarchal-clan organization, using slaves obtained through capture or purchase.
With the further spread of horse-breeding and the development of bronze culture, the tribal-clan
elite grew in strength, while the rank-and-file members of the tribal community were more
constricted. The development of property and social differentiations in society led to the
disintegration of the clan structure, and with the onset of the Iron Age, quite large nomadic tribal
unions came into being.
In the period from the seventh to the third century BC, more powerful tribal unions arose in
Inner Asia - the Hun (Hsiung-nu) in Ordos and central Mongolia, the Tungus (Tung Hu) in eastern
Mongolia and western Manchuria and the Uigurs/Tokhars (Yiieh-chih) in Gansu and the lands between
Dzungaria and Ordos. To the south, Tan-gut - Tibetan tribes led a nomadic way of life in the
vicinity of Koko Nor (Qing-hai). The Central Asian nomadic world was increasingly becoming a
military and political power.
Relations between China and the nomads were at times anything but peaceful, China of the Qin
(Ch'in) dynasty (246-207 BC) built the famous Great Wall,3 a
military fortification running along the length of its frontier. In 214 BC the Ch'in court sent an
army of 100,000 men against the Huns (Hsiung-nu), captured Ordos from them and then the foothills of
the Yin-shan. Towards the close of the third century BC, as a result of their rising prosperity from
cattle-breeding, the development of their iron industry and military skill, the twenty-four Hunnic
(Hsiung-nu) tribes increased considerably in strength; and from their tribal union the powerful
Hunnic (Hsiung-nu) Empire emerged.
The dramatic events that attended the emergence of the nomadic Hun (Hsiung-nu) state find
literary, albeit somewhat legendary, expressions in the sources. At the close of the third century
BC, a certain tribal chief, T'ou-man by name, with the title of shan-yii - which meant 'the
greatest' or 'the best'- headed the Hun (Hsiung-nu) tribal union. According to legend, he had two
sons from different wives. To secure the throne for his favorite younger son, he handed over his
elder son, Mao-tun, as a hostage to the Uigurs/Tokhars (Yueh-chih).
2. Sima Qian, 1931.
3. Bai Shouyi, 1980, p. 116.
153
T'ou-man then attacked the Uigurs/Tokhars (Yueh-chih), hoping that they would kill their
hostage, but Mao-tun managed to steal a horse and return home. His father put 10,000 families under
his control. Mao-tun forthwith set about training his cavalry in the arts of war and ordered all his
horsemen to shoot their arrows only in the wake of his whistling arrow. Failure to comply with the
order was punishable by death. When he saw that his warriors were adequately trained, Mao-tun, while
hunting, shot his father with an arrow and killed him on the spot.
After 209 BC, when Mao-tun proclaimed himself shan-yii, the Hun (Hsiung-nu) state rapidly
became a powerful nomadic empire. Lung-cheng, 'The Dragon Site', the nomadic tribal encampment and
headquarters of the Hun (Hsiung-nu) shan-yii, was located in the south-east spurs of the
Khangay mountains, in a region where Karakorum and other political centres of the Turkic and Mongol
peoples were later to come into being. The leader of the Hun (Hsiung-nu) became the keeper of the
nephritic seal which was inscribed with the (Chinese) words:
'The state seal of the Hun (Hsiung-nu) shan-yii'. The rise of a Hun (Hsiung-nu) state system,
with a capital for the shan-yii, a seal, flag, border guards and the other attributes of
sovereignty, marked the beginnings of a distinctive nomadic power.4
The Tungus (Tung Hu), who heard that Mao-tun had killed his father, decided to take advantage of
the resulting confusion and demanded that Mao-tun should surrender to them his treasured argamak
(a fleet-footed horse) and his beloved wife. Mao-tun agreed to both demands. They then demanded an
uninhabited strip of the desert, unsuitable for cattle-breeding, but Mao-tun answered: 'Land is the
foundation of a state. How can it be surrendered?' He then launched a military campaign against the
Tungus (Tung Hu), who were taken completely unawares and routed. On his return, he attacked the
Uigurs/Tokhars (Yueh-chih), driving them westward, subjugated the Usun (Wu-sun) of Jeti-su
(Semirechye) and recaptured Ordos.
| Argamak is a Türkic word, Sima Qian (ca.145 or 135-86 BC) in Shi ji could cite the term
argamak only because Chinese learned it from the Huns. The Türkic root arg (ark)
denotes mixing, hybridization, mestization, Cf. arɣunlashtir “hybridize”,
argun “hybrid of yak and domesticated cow”, argal
“gazelle”, the deverbal noun affix -mak
forms animal names, Cf. arrumak “small horse”, bashmak “calf born in the spring”, etc.
(Shcherbak 1961 p. 88). This attests that Eastern Huns used Türkic word. |
In 198 BC, a treaty of 'peace and alliance' was concluded between the Hun (Hsiung-nu) and China.
| First historical document connected with Huns is Chinese-Hun treaty signed in 318 BC |
The Han emperor officially recognized that the Hunnic (Hsiung-nu) Empire enjoyed power
comparable to that of his own empire, and that its sovereignty extended over all the northern lands
beyond the Chinese borders. The ruler of the Huns (Hsiung-nu), in turn, recognized the sovereignty
of the Chinese emperor over all territory behind the Great Wall.5
The treaty further provided that the Han court should give the emperor's daughter in marriage to the
shan-yii and should send him every year a lavish quantity of gifts
(tribute in Chinese nomenclature) - silks, fabrics, handicrafts, rice, gold and money,
which was regarded
(and demanded, and received) by the Hun (Hsiung-nu) as a form of
tribute. The Hun (Hsiung-nu) also received tribute from the Wu-huan and subjugated other peoples;
they sent their royal daughters to the Usun (Wu-sun) and held hostages.
| As father-in-law, which In Türkic custom father-in-law is a head of the family, thus Chinese
Emperor, being a father-in-law of the Hunnic Emperor, statutorily becomes an elder, and the
son-in-law becomes subservient member of the family, obliged to let the maternal grandfather to
bring up his male children. |
4. Konovalov, 1976, p. 3.
5. Taskin, 1968, pp. 25, 42, 47, 48.
154
Controlling a key section of the Silk Route, the caravan trade link between China and the West,
the Hun (Hsiung-nu) reaped great profits from its international trade. They zealously fought to
maintain control of these routes and successfully vied with China for the hegemony of Central Asia.
From the time of Mao-tun, there was regular trade between the Huns (Hsiung-nu) and the Chinese,
the Hun (Hsiung-nu) exchanging cattle, wool and furs for Chinese goods. Between 129 and 90 BC,
however, the Han emperor Wu-ti changed (attempted to change, i.e. revolted)
the policy of his predecessors and launched a number of major military campaigns against the Hun
(Hsiung-nu), but he was unsuccessful. When the Han court proposed that the Hun (Hsiung-nu) should
become a vassal state, they detained the Chinese ambassador and refused to discuss the matter,
decapitating their own master of ceremonies who had allowed the ambassador to enter his yurt.
| Probably reference to yurt is a rendition of the Chinese “tent”, but the Hunnic rulers lived in
palaces in the winter and in tents in the summer. Ambassador's visit was in the summer. |
Between 70 and 60 BC there was (i.e. Chinese provoked)
internecine war between various factions of the Hun (Hsiung-nu) leadership seeking the throne. When
Hu-han-yeh became shan-yii, one of his brothers proclaimed himself shan-yii and
attacked him.
| Huhanye belonged to the maternal dynastic line ineligible for the post, thus Huhanye was in
revolt. “One of his brothers” was a legitimate successor, raised to the throne according to the
Lateral Order of Succession. The internecine war was between the brothers on the paternal dynastic
line, eligible for the post according to the Lateral Order of Succession. |
Hu-han-yeh was obliged to acknowledge his subordination to China in 53 BC
(Huhanye fled to China with his maternal tribe, splitting the Hunnic Empire), but managed
to preserve Hun (Hsiung-nu) statehood with all its symbols of sovereignty
(and was illegally appointed a shanyu by the Chinese ruler).
When he finally crushed his rival, Hu-han-yeh was able to act more and more independently and
transferred his headquarters to the Ulan Bator region, where it remained after his death. But in AD
48, as a result of worsening internal dissension, the Hun (Hsiung-nu) split into two factions. The
elders of the eight southern tribes proclaimed the aristocrat Pi as shan-yii, migrated to
China, fell under the sway of the Han court and moved to Ordos, north and west Shaanxi.
The Northern Hun (Hsiung-nu) stubbornly defended their independence, but eventually, in AD 93,
they were attacked by an alliance of the Chinese and Southern Hun (Hsiung-nu) from the south, by the
Ting-ling, red-bearded, blue-eyed giants from the north, and by the Syanbi (Hsien-pi) from the east.
The last Northern shan-yii, descended from Mao-tun, was killed, and Mongolia was taken over
by the Syanbi (Hsien-pi). Some of the Hun (Hsiung-nu), notably those of the western branch, did not
surrender.
| 100,000 Hun families numbering 500,000+ people, a demographical majority, submitted to the
ruling Syanbi (Xianbei 鮮卑), a demographical minority. Essentially, Syanbi was a Hunnic state. |
The Huns (Hu-yen), an ancient Hun tribe, assumed leadership and marched westward. In contrast to
the Southern and Northern Huns, they may be described as Western Huns, whose descendants would later
reach Afghanistan, India and the Roman Empire.
The Syanbi (Hsien-pi) state
The Syanbi (Hsien-pi), who took over control of Mongolia after the fall of the Hun (Hsiung-nu)
state, had emerged as a powerful tribal union as early as the first century BC. The main clan of the
Syanbi (Hsien-pi) had set up their nomadic camp in south-east Mongolia and lived along the middle
course of the Liao-ho river. A large number of Syanbi (Hsien-pi) now settled in central Mongolia and
over 100,000 Hun (Hsiung-nu) families, who had settled there earlier, adopted their tribal name.
155
T'an-shih-huai, leader of the Syanbi (Hsien-pi) tribal union, in AD 155 established the Syanbi
(Hsien-pi) state, which rapidly became one of the most powerful empires of its day, as powerful as
the previous Hun (Hsiung-nu) Empire. The Han court considered that the Syanbi's (Hsien-pi's) horses
were swifter and their weapons sharper than those of the Hun (Hsiung-nu), and the Syanbi (Hsien-pi),
too, managed to acquire good-quality iron from the border regions of China. Their political centre,
the headquarters of T'an-shih-huai, was in the south-east near the Darkhan mountains but was later
moved to the former shan-yii's headquarters in the Khangay mountains.6
Between AD 155 and 166, T'an-shih-huai conducted a series of major military campaigns that led to
the extension of Syanbi (Hsien-pi) power over the Great Steppe as far as southern Siberia and from
Ussuri to the Caspian Sea. Until the third decade of the third century AD the Syanbi (Hsien-pi)
state was the leading power in Central Asia.
| Since the Huns in the west have established a new center by the Aral Sea, Syanbi power could not
reach the Caspian. Practically nothing is known about Western Huns - Syanbi relations from 160 AD to
the Syanbi's demise in 400s AD from the hands of the Jujans. |
Under their rule Mongolia saw a complex ethno-cultural development. From the mixing of the Huns
and Syanbi (Hsien-pi) a new culture emerged with its own linguistic particularities, which was later
to serve as the point of departure for the formation of the early Mongolian ethnic group with its
distinctive language and culture.7
Subsequently the Syanbi (Hsien-pi) state split into several parts. Until the close of the third
century, it only effectively controlled central and south-east Mongolia. The Mu-yung, T'o-pa
(The Türkic Tabgach of the Orkhon inscriptions, ancestors of the Tubalars,
Tuvinians, and Tobases) and T'u-yii-hun (Tibetian tribes allied
and ruled by the “old” Hunnic maternal dynastic tribe Kian/Qian/Qiang, aka a ranch of the Kayi tribe
that headed the Ottoman Empire), kindred tribes of the Syanbi (Hsien-pi)
(hardly “kindred”), seceded to set up separate states in
the south. At about the same time (410 AD) another
Mongolian-speaking people appeared on the scene in central Mongolia - the Jujan (Ju-jan), who were
destined to play a key role in the history of the period following that of the Syanbi (Hsien-pi).
8
The economy, social structure and state organization of the Hun (Hsiung-nu)
The major achievement of the ancestors of the Hun (Hsiung-nu) was the opening up of the steppes
and the Mongolian Gobi. Until then, the Great Steppe and the desert, like the sea, had divided the
inhabited wooded steppe into two distinct and separate belts. The inhabitants of each belt -
agriculturists, sedentary cattle-breeders and forest hunters - had no way of crossing the Gobi, and
the steppe grasslands went to waste unused. The Hun (Hsiung-nu) bred a large number of horses and
draught oxen and introduced as a mobile home the covered wagon on high wheels. They were the first
to engage in nomadic cattle-breeding (Fig. 1) and in organized hunts - infinitely more
productive than individual hunting - and by the third century BC were practicing falconry.9
| Wooded steppe is like dry ocean, only for expert esthesis, for the mortals steppe by definition
is a plain without trees. Because of the absence of rain. Which makes agriculture, sedentary life,
and forest hunters impossible. Period. The dry belt, however, kept oscillating up and down, forcing
everybody to oscillate up and down, thus connecting the wet forest belt with the wet subtropical
belt when subtropical agriculturists and hunter-gatherers had to move from desiccating area in
search for more favorable conditions. |
Fig. 1 Nomadic cattle-breeding of the Huns (Hsiung-nu). Drawings from cemeteries of Inner
Mongolia (China)
The funny construction on the left appears to be a catacomb grave with a deceased and supplies in
one chamber and a horse on an earthen ledge in another chamber.
6. Perlee, 1961, p. 21.
7. Bira, 1977, pp. 379-80.
8. Ishjamts, 1974, pp. 24-6.
9. Gumilev, 1960, p. 96.
156
Apart from cattle-breeding and hunting, they engaged in agriculture, as can be seen from the
grain hullers found in Mongolia and in the regions of the Great Wall. War prisoners and deserters
from China and other settled countries were widely used as agricultural laborers.
| The old propaganda myth laid out in the Chinese dynastic chronicles is thoughtlessly repeated by
modern historians unwilling to read their other colleagues who point out contrary records in the
same sources. In respect to the Great Wall, it was built to keep the Chinese prisoners and
conscripts, relocated to Ordos after its conquest, from escaping to the freedom of the Huns. As a
defense against the Huns it had negligible value, Huns were routinely crossing the wall at every
raid. Chinese settlements in the Hunnic territory were free, were not taxed, and were not obligated
to do anything. They, for their own benefit, supplied nomads with their products in a normal
commercial exchange. For the Chinese enslaved peasantry, the Hunnic freedoms were a legendary
attraction. |
Their covered wagons on high wheels, in which they lived, were comfortable, providing good
protection from wind and frost, and more security, because in the event of danger, the
wagon-dwellers could flee with all their possessions to other encampments.
Although the Hun (Hsiung-nu) Empire was made up of a large number of different peoples, the Hun
(Hsiung-nu) themselves were divided (i.e. united into confederation)
into twenty-four major tribes, each consisting of kinship groups, clans and patriarchal families.
The Huns (Hu-yen), Suibu (Hsu-pu) and Lan were regarded as the oldest and most prominent, but from
the time of Mao-tun, the Hun (Hsiung-nu) shan-yu came from another noble family, the Luanti
(Liian-ti), that became the most distinguished of them all.
| Suibu/Hsu-pu, where bu is Chinese for “tribe”, stands for Uigurs, who replaced Kians as a
maternal dynastic tribe. |
The tribal nobility formed the aristocratic elite, while the rank-and-file members of the tribe
were relatively poor. There were quite a number of slaves engaged in agriculture, handicrafts and
cattle-breeding,10 but they were more like domestic
servants. It will be seen that Hun (Hsiung-nu) society was in a state of transition from a tribal to
a class system, and the Hun (Hsiung-nu) Empire represented a particular form of class-based state
organization.11
| Transferring the familiar sedentary social model to a nomadic society works no better than
keeping foxes and rabbits in one pen. A slave with a horse is not a slave, he is a free man. Ditto
with weaponry. A nomadic armed cavalry force is not the same as the mass of unarmed peasantry
slaves. Peasantry can be driven and kept in bondage, a nomad must be invited into association, and
can disappear at any moment if the conditions are unsuitable. That is the reason for the nomadic
parliamentary system and elected leaders. |
The ruler of the empire was the shan-yu. He called himself 'ch'eng-li ku-t'u' (Son of
Heaven) (He did not call himself in Chinese, that is nonsense).12
His power was considerable and hereditary (hereditary but elective)
but by no means absolute. In their administration it is even possible to identify several
(really, 24) classes of officials or, to be more precise, nobles
divided into eastern and western groups (wings), terms which
also signify 'senior' or 'junior' (Rather, paternal and maternal).
The first class consisted of the Jükü (Chu-eh'i) princes (jükü/'chu-ch'i' meaning 'wisdom').
| Türkic “ükü“/“Jükü“ = wise; in pinyin “Jükü“ = wise is distorted beyond recognition:
Eastern (left) Zuo/Tso Xian-wang 左屠耆王 and Western (right) Yu Xian-wang 右贤王; without N.Bichurin
phonetization we would never learn the straight-forward Türkic word in the second-highest title of
the Eastern Huns; the “Tszuikui“ seems to be an alternate phonetization; position equivalent of
Djabgu/Yabgu; the presence of “dj“ instead of “y“ indicates a “dj“-dialect, characteristic of Ogur
group: “r”, “d”, “dj”, (Ogur, djulan, Djaik) vs. Oguz group: “z”, “y”, “i”, (Oguz, yilan, Yaik); the
word-initial alveolar “dj” (“zh”) where other mainstream languages have “y” (“j”) is classified as
South Kipchak: Altay, Chagatay, Karakalpak, Karluk-Uyghur (Karakhanid), Kazakh, Khalaj, Kyrgyz,
Uygur, Uzbek. Also, the Hun language demonstrates its belonging to the “m” side of the “m/b” divide,
typical among some southern Türks: Saklan belt, Balkars (“m” magadir, Malkar) vs. (“b” bagadir,
Balkar); these alternations are completely transparent for the native speakers. |
The Eastern Jükü (Chu-ch'i) prince was supposed to be (in accordance
with Lateral Succession Order) the heir apparent, but at times his right to succeed to
the throne was disregarded.
| In today's nomenclature, the Eastern (Left) Wing was a legislative wing, the Western (Right)
Wing was an executive wing, and it also was a Supreme Court arbitration. What is called in the
text a “shan-yu's clan” is in reality two separate, and frequently linguistically unrelated,
paternal and maternal clans. |
The second class consisted of the Lu-li princes; the third class, the Great Leaders; the fourth
class, the Great Tu-yii; the fifth class, the Great Duyui (Tang Hu). In addition, the Eastern and
Western Jükü (Chu-ch'i) princes and the Lu-li princes were called 'four horns' and the 'great
leaders', Tu-yii and Tang Hu were called 'six horns'. These high-ranking figures were always members
of the shan-yu's clan.
| Eastern and Western Luli-Prince: Türkic “ulu/ulug/uluγ“ = great seems to be undoubtedly
recognizable, Luli-Prince = Ulu(g) Bek; in the administrative structure are two Ulu(g) Beks, one
from the paternal dynastic line, next in line to the throne after the Eastern (left) Jükü Bek, and
one from the maternal dynastic line, not eligible to the throne, Western (right) Ulu(g)
Bek. Eastern and Western Great Leader: Also is mentioned as “Southern head of” = the Southern
commander; for Chinese titles, N.Bichurin is using Chinese “gyan-gyun” and “da-gyan-gyun”, for the
equivalent Hun's titles he substitutes it with a “head of” = the leader; some of the additional
titles below may be the Hun's equivalent of the “head of”, sometimes also translated as “General”. |
Alongside this aristocracy of blood there grew up an aristocracy of talent - the service nobility
(not related to the shan-yu's family). They were known by the name of Gudu-heu (Ku-tu-hou),
and were aides of the highest-ranking nobility, performing all the administrative tasks. Apart from
this top-level aristocracy, there was the clan nobility - princes affiliated exclusively with the
clans, sui generis clan chiefs or elected elders.
| Eastern and Western Gudu-heu: 骨都候; “heu” is “emperor” in Chinese, “Gudu” 骨都 means “son”, Turkish
“oğul” expressed with 骨, it was a relatively frequent component in the titles of the Türkic Kagans;
the title is assembled along the lines of “emperor's lieutenant”. |
10. De Guignes, 1756-58, Vol. I, Part 2, p. 15.
11. Harmatta, 1952, p. 287.
12. Ban Gu, Vol. 13, Chapter 97a: 7a.
158
Hun (Hsiung-nu) society possessed its own customary legal system and Chinese authors have noted
that 'their laws were simple and easily executed*. Major crimes, such as the drawing of a sword,
were punishable by death and theft was punished by confiscation not only of the thief's property but
also that of his family. Minor crimes were punished by cuts on the face. Trials lasted no more than
ten days, and at no one time were there ever more than a few dozen people under arrest. Apart from
the customary law a system of public law began to emerge under Mao-tun. Violation of military
discipline and evasion of military service both carried the death penalty. These extraordinary laws
contributed greatly to strengthening the cohesion of the Hun (Hsiung-nu), turning them into the most
powerful state in Central Asia.
| Here you go again. Use of violence to create a cohesion is possible in the society of sitting
ducks, not in the society of free agents. The nomadic might and cohesion were based on equitable
distribution of power and benefits, on free association for a common objective, on paternalistic
benevolence where everybody had a certain role to perform and an obligation to perform. Dereliction
of duties, trespass of the laws of the Törü: were the most intolerable asocial acts, equally
intolerable for the leaders and the laymen. The colonial England is a perfect example of such
society. Death was a stopover for reincarnation, sending a villain to Tengri for reincarnation was
done for common good, both for the stray villain and for the society. Reincarnation kept everybody
brave, military aptitude was shaped from the infancy, it was less important in wars and raids than
in the daily life with shepherds driving their herds of chattel over long distances and exposed to
all kinds of enmity and plunder. The primitive perception of the basic and well-known facts tends to
contort the picture into a caricature. |
Hun (Hsiung-nu) burials and the finds from Noin-Ula
The main sources for the study of the Hun (Hsiung-nu) are their graves and settlements, the
latter to a lesser degree in view of their nomadic way of life. Many of them are to be found in
Mongolia, southern Siberia and Ordos.
| Apparently, the author's definition of the Huns is limited to the perception of the Chinese
dynastic chroniclers, which never extended beyond Mongolia, southern Siberia and Ordos. The Huns,
however, lived in the area far beyond the Chinese horizons, and left their traces in the western
Asia, in the Aral-Caspian area, in the Caucasus, Eastern and Central Europe, and beyond toward the
Atlantic. None of those areas are minor fields of study. |
There are four major Hun (Hsiung-nu) burial sites: two in central Mongolia and two in the south
beyond Lake Baikal. The largest, the Khunui-gol
(Hunnic Lake), is located in a remote area of the Khangay mountains, in the basin of
the River Khunui. It was here, in 1956, that T. Dorzhsuren and other Mongolian archaeologists
counted over 300 burials.13 In the mountains of Noin-Ula,
122 km north of Ulan Bator, 212 burial grounds
(cemeteries) have been recorded. At the end of the last century,
the Russian archaeologist Y. D. Talko-Grintsevich located 214 graves at Sudjinsk (Sudzhinsk) beyond
the Baikal, 10 km east of Kyakhta. He also excavated the Derestui burial ground
(cemetery) in the former Selenga District beyond Lake Baikal,
with some 260 burials. It seems likely that these four large burial grounds
(cemeteries) belonged to the four noble clans of the Hun (Hsiung-nu), and that Mao-tun
and other early shan-yii were interred in the Khunui-gol burial ground
(cemetery), which contains some of the most magnificent Hun (Hsiung-nu) tombs, while
Hu-han-yeh and his descendants were buried in Noin-Ula.
Of particular interest are the contents of the burial chamber of a tomb in the Noin-Ula mountains
accidentally discovered in 1912 by a Mongol Gold engineer and scientifically excavated in 1924. Like
other tombs nearby, Noin-Ula Tomb No. 6 was square, with sides measuring 24.5 m and an embankment
1.62-1.95 m high. On the south side it was also protected by a long bank. The sides of the square
and the bank were faced with stone and aligned to the points of the compass. In the inner chamber
stood coffins, pointing south, on a floor of planks which showed faint traces of lacquer and paint.
13. Dorzhsuren, 1958, p. 6.
159
Among the objects found was a woolen canopy covering the ceiling of the outer chamber and a heavy
felt carpet, with scenes of animals locked in combat, lying under the coffin. A woolen cloth with
embroidered plant motifs and figures of different animal was affixed to the ceiling of the outer
chamber, covering practically its whole surface. The fortunate discovery of a Chinese lacquer cup
with two inscriptions made it possible to date Tomb No. 6 quite closely to the beginning of the
first century AD. It is, in fact, the tomb of Wu-chu-lii, the shan-yu of the Hun (Hsiung-nu)
Empire.
| Uchjulu-Jodi Shanuy 烏珠留若提 , 8-13 BC; Uchjulu-Jodi Shanyu was a descendent of Mode Shanyu in 9th
generation, and a last Shanyu of the uninterrupted Mode's Lan/Lianti dynastic line. Next Shanyu
comes from the Uigur maternal clan. The Uigur tribe (Sui, Chinese Suibu), becomes a male dynastic
tribe, and that necessitates a replacement of the female dynastic partner. |
To judge from the finds in the Noin-Ula tombs, permanent dwellings of the Hun (Hsiung-nu) were
equipped with plank beds, and their mobile dwellings were furnished with low tables on short legs.
The height of these tables indicates that people sat round them on the floor, which was covered with
heavy felt. It is interesting to note that such small, low tables were extensively used by Central
Asian cattle-breeding peoples.
The Noin-Ula tombs contained a large variety of Hun (Hsiung-nu) vessels of wood, metal and clay.
The most remarkable metal vessel was a bronze oil-lamp mounted on three legs with a conical stem for
a wick in the centre. There were fragments of a big bronze kettle for cooking meat, and a smaller
kettle, notable for its handles in the shape of animal heads. Among other finds were minute pyrite
crystals, pierced with holes and used as dress ornaments, beads of malachite
(Urals mines) and glass of different colors and amber beads of various shapes and
sizes. Of particular interest was an amber bead in the shape of a lion's head
(Amber supplies by the Baltic Sea). Apart from the beads contained in Hun (Hsiung-nu)
graves of ordinary type, mainly of women, bronze mirrors and various dress ornaments that belonged
to the various shan-yii have come to light.
Their main form of transport was the saddle-horse. Horse bridles, bits and saddles resembled
those of the Altai in Scythian times. Saddles generally consisted of two leather cushions padded
with wool, but a few had a wooden frame with pommels at the front and back, and stirrups. The
stirruped saddle represented a major step forward.
In spite of the fact that iron and smelting techniques were known to the Hun (Hsiung-nu) and that
they could produce various kinds of iron objects, they did not strike fire from a flint, but
obtained it by rubbing two sticks together or, more exactly, by boring one into the other. The
Noin-Ula graves, thanks to the fine state of preservation of the wood found there, provide a full
range of articles used for fire-making.
The most remarkable piece of bone jewelry work was a carved cylinder representing a winged and
horned mythical wolf. Especially notable were the embroidered felt carpets of local manufacture
found in the Noin-Ula tombs. The seams of the middle section of the carpets were embroidered in a
distinctive spiral pattern, and their borders were covered with a design in which scenes of fighting
animals alternated with tree patterns.
The Hun (Hsiung-nu) were in direct and close contact not only with China but with neighboring
peoples to the east and west, who were culturally very much like them.
160
Fig. 2. Hun (Hsiung-nu) felt carpet from Noin-Ula (Mongolia).
Fig. 3. Hun (Hsiung-nu) felt carpet from Noin-Ula (Mongolia)
Fig. 4. Hun (Hsiung-nu) felt carpet from Noin-Ula (Mongolia)
A remarkable bronze crown in the shape of a wolf's head from Noin-Ula may be compared to the
figures of wolf heads in the art of the Altaic Scythians. Other Hun (Hsiung-nu) articles in Mongolia
and Ordos display striking similarities with southern Siberian works of art. Animals are portrayed
with protruding haunches - a style very characteristic of the art found here.
Of particular interest are the scenes of combat between a yak and a horned 'lion' and a griffin
attacking a deer, on the felt carpets of Noin-Ula (Figs. 2-4). The yak is highly stylized with an
abnormally large head hanging low and a protruding tongue. Scenes of beasts of prey attacking
artiodactyla have been characteristic of the art of the peoples of Western Asia since early times -
a motif that entered Asia Minor from Mesopotamia and spread through the Sakas to southern Siberia
and then to the Hun (Hsiung-nu).
| This line of thinking illustrates the airy premises pursued by timid observers. The horsed Huns
did not control the Silk Road, did not provide armed security for caravans, did not ensure safe
trade across the nation that spread from Manchuria to the Caucasus, bordering on their Parthian and
Tokharian kins from Afganistan to the Caucasus. The Saka Scythians were not one of the member tribes
of the Eastern Huns. The Huns were not descendents of the Mesopotamian Guti Scythians, are unrelated
to the Zhou Scythians that ruled China for 1400 years, are unrelated to the Qin empire that was the
last non-Chinese empire in China. The Huns were not descendents of the Minusinsk Kurganians that
carried their kurgans to the Near East, Eastern Europe, and China. These laughable premises are not
openly proclaimed and asserted, they are inconspicuously smuggled under a pretense of learned
science. |
Motifs borrowed from the plant kingdom are exceedingly rare in the art of Eurasian nomadic
tribes, such as the Hun (Hsiung-nu). All the more interesting, therefore, are the conventional
representations of trees on the Noin-Ula carpets in the spaces between the animal combat scenes.
Here we have a replica of the 'sacred tree', a typical feature of Assyrian art. Hun (Hsiung-nu) felt
carpets were decorated with borders of squares, crosses, 'battle-axes' and other figures. The most
widespread motif on the seams of the felt carpets consisted of rhomboids or spirals arranged in two
varieties. It is interesting to note that this Hun (Hsiung-nu) motif later found widespread
application in the art of the Mongolian and Turkic peoples and can still be seen today on the felt
carpets and the protective covers of the Buryats, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs.
161
While there is no real trace of the influence of Chinese art on objects found in the graves of
common people, traces are to be found in those of the nobility. The mythological animal embroidered
on the silk fabrics found in Noin-Ula is essentially Chinese in character. Its body resembles an
eagle with upraised tail, of which the tuft is abnormally large. The animal's paws are like the
tiger paws in the art of the Altaic and southern Siberian tribes of Scythian date. The front of the
chest is represented by a succession of superimposed scales, and the wings are in the Persian style
of the Achaemenids. Thus we have here an example of the influences of Hun (Hsiung-nu), Altaic,
Scythian and Persian art on fabrics of Chinese character.
| The very material of the silk fabrics attests to its Chinese origin, silk production and
embroidery was a traditional Chinese craft.
Huns were receiving silk from China in huge quantities, draining the Chinese economy. That was the
reason for the Chinese rebellion of the Han emperor Wu-ti in 129 BC and the Chinese eventual victory
over the Huns in 53 BC with the split of the Hunnic Confederation. Accordingly, felt
production and embroidery was a traditional nomadic craft.
None of the art was self-contained. The nomad-headed East-West exchange was beneficial and
educational for all sides. |
162
Hun (Hsiung-nu) customs, religion and culture
The influence of the Hun (Hsiung-nu) and also of Middle and Western Asia on China was especially
great in the military field. As early as 307 BC, Wu Ling Wang, a prince of the Chou dynasty,
introduced the use of the dress of the nomadic Hu into China and began to instruct his subjects in
the art of shooting with bow-and-arrow. The Emperor Qin (Ch'in) Shih-huang-ti introduced large
cavalry detachments into the Chinese army and thereby ensured the success of his operations against
the Hun (Hsiung-nu) at Men Ch'ien Yang. His cavalrymen were heavily armed and armored, like those of
the Assyrian army which had introduced cavalry as an arm of their military organization, and already
used chain mail, plate amour and protective amour for horses.14
When Mao-tun reorganized the Hun (Hsiung-nu) army, he replaced its heavily armed horsemen by
light cavalry, armed with long composite bows, creating a military force with much greater
maneuverability. He reorganized his army, subjected it to strict discipline, and introduced major
improvements in military strategy and tactics. These developments in military science and weaponry
were of great importance both for China and other countries. The composite bow and the stirruped
saddle were widely adopted throughout the Eurasian steppe, Parthia and Syria; and the descendants of
the Hun (Hsiung-nu) with their traditional bows later became one of the most dangerous adversaries
of the Roman legionaries in Pannonia.15
| Nomadic cavalry served in the armies of all able to pay sedentary polities as far back as 2300
BC (Assyria), and were spreading the cavalry technology from the earliest times, at least as a
cultural trait, if not as an example to emulate. In practice, no sedentary state could form a usable
cavalry without nomadic involvement till the days when cavalry became deprecated by machinery,
well into the 20th century. |
The emergence of its powerful empire had a great influence on the Hsi-ung-nu's material and
spiritual life. Although it could not radically change their nomadic ways, it led to the
establishment of an entirely new central headquarters for their shan-yu in the Khangay
mountains where, in addition to his residence, they erected a sanctuary and other buildings.
Settlements appeared in the steppe - fortified places for agricultural and craft communities like
Gua-dov (367 x 360 m), Baruun dereegiin kherem (345 x 335 m) in Mongolia and the settlement at
Ivolginsk (348 x 200 m) beyond Lake Baikal. In the Talas valley under the rule of Chjichji
(Chih-chih,
56-47 BC) a fortress showing distinct Roman influence was built,
and more than 100 foot-soldiers were garrisoned there. It has been suggested that they may have been
Roman legionaries from the defeated army of Crassus who had surrendered to the Parthians after the
battle of Carrhae in 53 BC and been sent to serve on their eastern frontier at Merv, from where they
became mercenaries of the Hun (Hsiung-nu).
14. Laufer, 1914, p. 217; Kiselev, 1951, p. 321.
15. Uray-Kohalmi, 1974, p. 148.
163
Nevertheless, the shan-yu of the Huns (Hsiung-nu) did not alter their way of life. They
continued to receive ambassadors in their yurts which were now more presentable than in earlier
days. The overwhelming majority of the Hun (Hsiung-nu), especially the rank-and-file, also continued
to live in yurts. The image of a yurt of that period, a covered wagon on high wheels drawn by oxen,
found on one of the south Siberian stone sculptures, and the miniature images of a harness yoke
found among the south Siberian and north Chinese bronze articles, need not cause any surprise.16
In these yurts of the Hun (Hsiung-nu), as later in those of the Mongols and Turks, the left side of
the entrance was for men and the right side for women.
Hunting and archery played a major role in their daily life and existence; and a reference in the
Shih-chi shows that they actively encouraged their children to learn hunting from an early
age: 'As soon as a boy is able to ride a ram, he shoots birds and small game with a bow, and when he
gets to be a little older, he shoots foxes and hares.'17 The
Hun (Hsiung-nu) women were not only remarkable horse-riders but had bows and arrows, and assisted
their husbands in defending children and old people from enemy attack. On the wall of the Talas
fortress they fought valiantly beside their husbands and the Romans against the Chinese troops, and
they were the last to leave their posts. The participation of women in defense and the training of
children to handle the bow-and-arrow were evidently dictated by the necessities of life. Only in
this way could the nomadic Hun (Hsiung-nu), a numerically small group, defend their independence and
way of life.
| A repeat reference to the inspired speculation about Romans is exciting, a few possible
Romans go against major facts and events. In 50 BC, the Roman Empire was still a quilt of states and
languages hastily pieced together, and its army was recruited from a potpourri of nations;
Roman legionaries were mercenaries, serving for a pay and a share of the loot. Legions had their
engineers, craftsmen, and service personnel that could be useful for the Huns, they could have
joined the Hunnic ranks and settled among the Huns as free associates among many others, but to
emphasize a speculation about some valiant Armenians and Illyrians from the Roman army protecting a
Hunnic fortress against Chinese takes a daring fantasy and ingrained prejudice. |
The Hun (Hsiung-nu) practiced exogamy, but their shan-yii could only take wives from a
limited number of noble clans. They practiced polygamy and levirate marriage was customary, that is,
on the death of a father or elder brother, a wife was transferred to a surviving son or younger
brother, provided that she was not that man's mother. The shan-yu's court also complied with
this practice.
| Even in the 21st c. the fate of widows is not envious in the world, in many countries their
lifespan is a fraction of that of their married countrywomen. The pastoral life on the march was
perilous for men, and impossible for widows. Adopting a household of a deceased brother was a
survival tradition inappropriately called levirate but for the absence of a better term. The Hunnic
levirate tradition was disseminated with demographic migrations, and at some particular localities
was contorted by the local mentalities. In the Biblical tradition, for example, levirate is cited as
a way to maintain the brother's line, a typical machoistic mentality reflecting the Near Eastern
attitudes of sexism. In these epitomes of the levirate, within the societal moral values the intent
is noble in both cases, in the Türkic and specifically Hunnic tradition it was a matter of survival,
and does not deserve the scorn propagated by the Chinese dynastic chroniclers, nor the negative
connotations recited by modern historians. The Hunnic model of levirate is still active in
Afganistan and Pakistan, where out of necessity it has survived for two millennia; it is still
active in the Caucasus and in the Central Asia and Altai it had openly survived to the Soviet times,
and surreptitiously through the Soviet times. Since economically, the Shanyu and upper elite were
on a par with the laymen, and since the Hunnic society did not know taxation of the of the subjects,
the upper elite had to continue their nomadic pastoralism to earn a living. Like anybody else, they
lived on the income from commerce and loot. Like anybody else, they could hire their fellow
tribesmen and war prisoners for help, but the absence of a tradition of forced labor, slavery, and
exploitation contrasted highly with the practices of the contemporary sedentary polities.
Occasionally, the Türkic levirate tradition touched on the upper elite who lived in the conditions
of relative safety, but it was essential for the rest of the Türkic nomadic and farming society. |
The Shih-chi says that on the death of a Hun (Hsiung-nu) emperor his close relatives and
concubines were buried with him, but archaeological excavations do not bear this out. If such a
custom had ever been practiced by the Hun (Hsiung-nu), the actual burial of people had long been
replaced by symbolic actions. After the death of her husband, a Hun (Hsiung-nu) woman would place a
lock of her hair in her husband's grave as a sign of mourning, symbolizing her journey to the next
world to accompany him.
The Hun (Hsiung-nu) initially believed in animism, totemism and in life beyond the grave. From
the time of Mao-tun, Shamanism became the state religion. The chief shaman was chosen from the
sorcerers and served the shan-yu, his clan and relatives.
| This assertion is a bunch of pure nonsense. The idea of a second coming, paradise, and hell,
that is the etiology advocated by the organized and disorganized modern religions is first
attested by the kurgan burials of the 6th millennia BC, and the Huns inherited it the same way as
the modern religious folks, passed from generation to generation. The Huns also inherited all fears
of unknown in the surrounding world, including the fears and respect to animals, that until recent
permeated, and in places still permeate, the more vulnerable and less educated folks of today's
world. Stories of giants are on record in all religious codes, like the Jonah swallowed by a fish,
or an Almighty God creating the universe. The animistic stories only moved from a fireplace to a
pulpit. Ditto with the totemism, the lions and eagles on the national coats of arms and on national
currency are still with us, depicted on slightly modernized media and with slightly modernized
connotations. The difference between Vatican and Huns is in 2 millenniums of development, not in
etiology. Either one can be called Shamanism, either one has its ritual uniform and a ritual routine
to connect this world with the invisible world of spirits and transcendence. Either one offers to do
what is not doable in this earthly world. The distance between Shamanism and Tengriism is
precisely the same as between Christianity and Christian magic, its miracles, and miraculous
appearances. They co-exist, permeate the same society, but exist on different levels. Neither
shamans (kams) nor their paraphernalia could attend Tengrian celebrations. One is a Black magic, the
other is a White magic, and they do not mix, like the traditional pagan rituals of Santa Claus and
the Christian church service. One is for now and material, the other is for future and in promise.
Neither Shamanism nor Tengriism became a Hunnic state religion. The idea of a state religion, of
forcing people to change their traditional beliefs to suit the powers to be, or of religious
violence, did not exist neither in the Türkic society, nor in the world before the advent of
organized religions in the 1st millennium AD. In those innocent days, the freedom of religion and
tolerance ruled the day, and in less civilized societies that continued well into the Middle Age:
Khazaria stands on record of coexistence of Tengriism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. In the
Kipchak Khanate, one Khan was a Tengriist, another Christian, a third a Moslem. Outside of the
domain of proscribed religions, everyone was free to believe in what he liked, and practice what he
believed in, on the state, village, or family level. Only the advent of religious civilization
brought intolerance and systemic religious violence that plaques the modern civilizations. The claim
of the Hunnic state religion is asinine, anachronic, and averse. |
16. Bira et al., 1984, p. 48.
17. Bichurin, 1950, Vol. I, p. 40.
164
The head-dress of a shaman was found in one of the graves of Noin-Ula and was very reminiscent of
the Mongol darkhans'
(tarkhan?) head-dress, the only difference being in the frontal
representation of the totem spirits. On the Hun (Hsiung-nu) head-dress there is a bird, which may
represent the face of the anthropomorphic spirit of an ancestor.
| Since Tengriism does not need clergy, the head of the community officiates at religious rituals.
At the funerals, it is an elder of the family or a village, at a public service it is a Shanyu at
the state ceremony, a head of the tribe (khan) at the tribal level, and an elder at the village
level. The system is the same as in Reform Judaism or in Protestant churches. Actually, these
deviants from the institutionalized order were resurrected from the suppressed Tengriist traditions.
Between annihilation of Catharism and Bogomilism, and the rise of Protestantism barely have passed a
few generations. |
The Hun ((Hsiung-nu) worshipped the sun, the moon and other heavenly bodies and made sacrificial
offerings to the heavens, the earth, spirits and their ancestors. The shan-yu described
himself as 'born of heaven and earth, brought forth by the sun and moon'. The Shih-chi says:
'At daybreak the
shan-yu sets out from camp to worship the rising sun, at nightfall to worship the moon.'18
The Hun (Hsiung-nu) nobles gathered at the shan-yu's headquarters in the fifth lunar month
and made sacrificial offerings to their ancestors, the heavens, the earth and the spirits. Three
times a year they congregated at the shrine of the moon where, on the day of the 'dog' of the first,
fifth and ninth months, they offered sacrifices to the heavenly spirit.
| Greeting of the rising Sun was worshipping in the sense of attending religious services, and
should not be misinterpreted as deification of the Sun and other celestial bodies. Of many
interpretations possible, prejudice selects the most demeaning in its eyes. Christianity has daily
morning and evening services without worshipping Sun or daybreak, but timed with the cycle of daily
activities of the congregants. The synagogues, churches, and mosques were invented in the 1st
millennium AD, before that and long after that services were conducted according to traditions,
which varied more with locality than with religion. Albeit Sun is held as an Alp created by Tengri
for a purpose and in some respects equivalent to the Catholic angels, archangels, and saints, the
criteria for deification is the etiology that is, Cf. Christian Madonna and other heavenly bodies.
The Tengrian etiology was not conducive for asking Sun or Moon etc. for heavenly favors, they were
not deified and not some proxies of the Almighty. On the other hand, the Alps involved in the
mortal's life were respected and a part of the religious ritual was giving them gifts of respect,
now expressed as candles in the Christian version of the same rituals. A burnt offering is a burnt
offering, whether it started as a burnt meat and bread or a candle. |
It is not known whether the Hun (Hsiung-nu) had images of their ancestors or spirits. Of great
interest, in that regard, was the discovery, in the Noin-Ula tomb, of a translucent stone 5 mm
thick, with a schematic incised representation of a human figure. Three holes bored into the figure
indicate that it was attached to something. It may have been some kind of anthropomorphic amulet.
The Hun (Hsiung-nu) prince who ruled over the region of Koko Nor and Gansu worshipped a huge 'golden
idol'.
| The image of Buddha predates the records of Shi ji, and syncretization of Buddhism and Tengriism
also predates the records of Shi ji, it is likely that the generic idol of the Chinese dynastic
chronicles is a golden Buddha. That Buddhism made deep inroads into the Türkic society is attested
by the Buddhist relicts in English that came with Anglo-Saxons: English bode “augur” ~ Türkic
bodi “insight; achievement of perfect wisdom”, a Buddhist religious term; the
conventional Skt. spelling is bodhi; Anglo-Sax. derivatives: bod, boda,
bodere, bodiend, bodlic,
bodscipe, bodong
bodungdaeg. English hall “expansive room”, Anglo-Saxon Waelheall “death-hall”, Gothic
Walhalla (Valhalla) “dead-hall” ~ Türkic qalïq “upper chambers, upper floors, hall,
room”, “sky, heaven, air space, air”, Buddhist Türkic ölqalïq “death-hall” (öl
“death”). English sin “transgression”, Anglo-Sax. synn “moral wrongdoing, offense
against God, misdeed”, Gmc. forms sende, sannr, sundia, sonde, Sünde
“sin, transgression, trespass, offense” ~ Türkic sın- “break, trespass”,
a reflexive derivative of the verb sı:- “break, destroy”, Buddhist religious terms syn,
suin, tsuy
(tsui 罪), sü (Ar.) “sin”. |
In reckoning time the Hun (Hsiung-nu) used a duodecimal animal cycle in which the days of the
'dog' and the 'snake' were regarded as auspicious for worship. This duodecimal cycle, which reached
the Hun (Hsiung-nu) from India or Babylon via Sogdiana, remained in force for as long as the Hun
(Hsiung-nu) existed. Their basic system of calculation, however, was decimal, and they used this in
their military organization. They customarily launched a military expedition at the time of the full
moon, but its outcome hinged on the prophecies of the shamans, sorcerers and soothsayers. Like the
Mongols, they used a ram's shoulder-bone to predict the future, placing the bone in a fire, and
reading the future from the lines which appeared on it.
| As attested by the Tarim mummies dated by 1300 BC, the horse nomads brought to the Tarim basin
the unique technique of bronze axes directly connected with the Altai Scythian technique and the
Mesopotamian technique of the horse nomadic Guties of the 2300 BC. Temporally, that predates the
appearance of the bronze casting technique in China, brought over by the horse nomads Zhous in
1600BC. This archeologically consistent tracing of the Scythian horse nomads from Mesopotamia to
China does not need a wanton speculation of duodecimal calendar coming from India or Babylon via
Sogdiana, especially so since Babylon is a late development in respect to the Guties' rule over
Akkad in ca. 2300 BC, and the start of re-population of the Sogdiana ca. 1000 BC at the beginning of
the 1st millennium BC. Rather, the Sumerian technique of chronology was brought over to the Sogdiana
not by the agricultural migrants from Afganistan, but by the Guties-like horse nomadic migrants form
the Mesopotamia. The very name Guties attests to their Türkic appellation Guzes, generic “(nomadic)
tribes”. A second appellation Yirk (Cf. Hyrcania) means the same, generic “(horse) nomads”,
attesting that a part of the Mesopotamian nomadic population never left Mesopotamia and Iranian
Plateau. |
The Chinese sources say that the Hun (Hsiung-nu) did not have an ideographic form of writing as
the Chinese did, but in the second century BC a renegade Chinese dignitary by the name of Yue
'taught the shan-yu how to write official letters to the Chinese court on a wooden tablet 31
cm long, and to use a seal and large-sized folder'. But the same sources indicate that when the Hun
(Hsiung-nu) noted down something or transmitted a message, they made cuts on a piece of wood
(k'o-mu) and they also mention a 'Hu script'. The fact is that over twenty carved characters were
discovered among the objects at Noin-Ula and other Hun burial sites in Mongolia and the region
beyond Lake Baikal (Figs. 5 and 6). Most of these characters are either identical or very similar to
letters of the Orkhon-Yenisey script of the Turks of the Early Middle Ages that occurs now and again
in the Eurasian steppes.
| The arrival of literacy to China in the form of the first bamboo script coincides with the
arrival of the Zhou Scythians at the beginning of the Yin period, ca. 1600. That script froze in
China for the next 3500 years, while the horse nomads were exposed to all literary developments
across Eurasia, and kept developing adopting and spreading more practical new literacy techniques. |
18. Ibid., p. 50.
165
From this some specialists hold that the Hun (Hsiung-nu) had a script similar to ancient Eurasian
runiform, and that this alphabet itself later served as the basis for ancient Turkic writing.
| Fig. 5. Runic characters of Hun (Hsiung-nu)-Syanbi (Hsien-pi) script (Mongolia and Inner
Mongolia). |
Fig. 6. Runic characters of Hun (Hsiung-nu)-Syanbi (Hsien-pi) script (Mongolia and Inner
Mongolia). |
 |
 |
Myths, legends and other forms of oral literature occupied an important place in Hun (Hsiung-nu)
spiritual life. Tradition has it that in front of the headquarters of the shan-yii there was
an artificial pool, the dwelling place of a dragon who had fallen from heaven and become an object
of worship. It was not only the Chinese who worshipped the dragon. While the sources portray the Hun
(Hsiung-nu) as a redoubtable nation of fierce warriors, they were actually fun-loving people. They
would gather before the headquarters of the shan-yu and the temple of their ancestors to
organize amusements like horse-jumping and camel races and other festivities. They would sing slow
songs, a custom that later became widespread among the Mongolians (rather, among the entire Central
Asia and Siberia). The sounds of flutes and drums and the strains of a few types of string
instruments were heard throughout the steppes. As early as the beginning of the second century BC
Hun (Hsiung-nu) music and dances were favored by the Han emperor. The k'ung-hou
and the fife, which had come at an earlier time to Inner Asia from Sogdiana, were adopted by
the Chinese from the Hun (Hsiung-nu).
Many Chinese silks and embroidered fabrics as well as cloth of Western origin were found in the
Noin-Ula tombs. There was one woolen wall carpet of Western manufacture and two of Uigurs/Tokhars
(Yueh-chih) or Usun (Wu-sun) origin, a series of embroideries provisionally described as
'Graeco-Bactrian', two portraits displaying similar workmanship and, finally, a tapestry from
Parthia or Asia Minor. There were also some remarkable fragments of wall hangings, decorated with
patterns representing horsemen, a child warrior flinging a spear or a trident at an eagle, lion
griffins and garlands of flowers that have been described in detail by K. V. Trever.19
The two horsemen depicted on the largest fragment are of Europoid type, with moustaches and tufts of
hair over their foreheads reminiscent of Gandharan sculpture. Their dress and headdress are
typically Iranian.
| As attested by the Tarim mummies dated by 1300 BC, the horse Scythian nomads of the Tarim basin
were Türkic light haired and light eyed Caucasoid folks, little in common with the typical brunette
taxon of the Iranian peasantry. Again, that the Iranian migrants adopted the distinct Türkic fashion
of kaftans and conical hats upon their arrival to the Iranian Plateau is no surprise, everybody in
the Central Asia adopted it. We do not know what Iranians were wearing at their arrival, nor do we
know if the Türkic trademark lapel to the left was adopted by the Iranian farmers, they escaped the
attention of the Chinese explorers, but more likely than not the Chinese-abhorred uncivilized
lapeling also became the Iranian uncivilized lapeling. As far as the hats, the Türkic trademark hat
was a bonnet hat, known from the depictions of the Scythians and Saka to the hats of all Türkic folk
dresses. It is the hat of the Issyk Prince, among others. This bias away from the real Türkic in
favor of the fake Iranians must have some justification other than a bare racism. |
The horses are notable for their coats of different colors, their cropped manes, their elegant
long-necked heads and their long slender legs. They were probably the famous thoroughbred Parthian
war-horses or the remarkable 'thousand-li' horses of the Hun (Hsiung-nu). Along the lower edge of
the fragment, between two broad bands, is an embroidered garland of palm leaves interspersed with
acacia flowers, their tendrils entwined - a border that is Greek or Graeco-Indian in design.20
Of the two portraits found on the fragments, one has preserved the face of a man whose features are
not Mongolian, but bear a much closer resemblance to the Turanian type found in Central Asia and
Persia.
19. Trever, 1940, pp. 141-3, Plates 39-44.
20. Rostovtzeff, 1929, p. 87.
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Trever compared this portrait to the heads found on the bas-reliefs of Gandharan art and
concluded that it represented one of the peoples of Central Asia whose culture was in contact with
the Hellenized culture of Central Asia, such as that of the Graeco-Bactrians. It is clear that these
works are representative of a great artistic culture and consummate craftsmanship.
This nomadic civilization of the Hun (Hsiung-nu) exerted an influence even on the more advanced
cultures of China.21 We might mention in this context the
Hun (Hsiung-nu) treatment of the tiger, one of the prototypes of the Chinese tao-te, of
winged wolves, goats and horses and, finally, of the bizarre 'aquiline griffon', a fabulous animal
with the body of a winged lion and the head of a phoenix.
Syanbi (Hsien-pi) culture
Syanbi (Hsien-pi) culture was also suggestive of Hun (Hsiung-nu) culture in many ways; but so far
it has not been adequately studied. Between the first and third centuries AD it attained a similar
level to the culture of the Hun (Hsiung-nu). According to historical sources, the Syanbi (Hsien-pi)
also recorded events by incising wooden tablets. In their practice of Shamanism, they initially
worshipped a wooden idol. However, later on, the casting of idols from iron and other metals (Fig.
7) became widespread among the Syanbi (Hsien-pi), as among many other nomadic peoples of Central
Asia. In later centuries, other branches of the Syanbi (Hsien-pi) tribe, the Mu-yung, T'o-pa and
T'u-yii-hun in Inner Mongolia and northern China, created a more advanced form of culture,
inheriting many elements from the Hun (Hsiung-nu) and also borrowing a great deal from the
neighboring countries of Central Asia, China, East Turkestan and southern Siberia. In turn, the
Syanbi (Hsien-pi) also exerted an influence on them.
Fig. 7. Syanbi (Hsien-pi) terracotta from Inner Mongolia
(Illustrations omitted for poor quality and irrelevant content. One photo
shows a model of a nomadic motorhome camper)
The original and distinctive culture of the Hun (Hsiung-nu) and of the Syanbi (Hsien-pi) together
constituted the first important stage in the formation of the nomadic civilization of Central Asia,
playing an important role between East and West and linking China and Central Asia, while, at the
same time, remaining distinctive - a very significant contribution to world culture.
Fig. 7. Syanbi (Hsien-pi) terracotta from Inner Mongolia.
21. Serodzhav, 1977, pp. 4, 22, 106, 109-11.
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