Hun ethnicities

Source: TW

Xiongnu

What were the ethnicities included in the Huns?

There has been much discussion about the ethnicity of the Huns and the Xiongnu and whether they are related at all. Otto Maenchen-Helfen, the great scholar of Hun studies, in my opinion, made a mistake by rejecting the Xiongnu-hUNa equation. The early chIna translators of Sanskrit texts clearly use the term Xiongnu for hUNa. They do not conflate it with several other ethnonyms of “barbarians” at their disposal. If they do not understand a Sanskrit ethnonym, they replace it with a calque or a phonetic rendering.(5) This point was combined in the early 2000s by de la Vaissiere with several others to strongly revive the view that hUNa == Xiongnu.

Ethnic shifts

At the same time, it is also clear that several ethnicities were wrapped up in the hUNa identity, and we do not understand that landscape entirely:

  1. The term hUNa itself seems to be of ultimately Indo-Aryan origin (Skt syona) via an Iranic intermediate. This suggests that the original Hunnic confederation had an I-Ir elite with East Asian admixture in the Altai-Mongolia region. This is supported by the archaeogenetic recovery of R1a1 Y haplogroup lineages among the Xiongnu males.
  2. At some point before the establishment of the Xiongnu Shanyuate, this Hun confederation seems to have acquired a predominantly East Asian group. Some propose this was Yeniseian (e.g., Vovin), but we believe it was some form of early Mongolic: it is notable that Chingiz Khan, almost a millennium and a half later, remembered his link to the Shanyuate. From chIna annals, we know that this Shanyuate definitely included the distinct Avar and Serbi groups of the Serbi-Mongolian assemblage as their vassals.
  3. After a prolonged struggle with the Han, the Xiongnu Shanyuate eventually collapsed and suffered defeat at the hands of their Serbi and Avar vassals. However, their remnants survived as a smaller kingdom in the Altai region. This region contained Iranic groups distinct from the earlier Hun founder lineage and were absorbed by them. These Iranic lineages were likely the dominant force among the groups that initially invaded Persia (Kidara) and India (Alkhan), and the subsequent Hepthalites (shveta-hUNa).
  4. Atilla, the Hun who invaded Europe, had probably swept up an Eastern Germanic element into their “horde,” as suggested by his brother’s name and possibly his own. Priscus noticed Gothic being spoken among the Huns.
  5. Atilla’s three principal sons, Ilek, Dengizich and Ernak, all likely have Turkic etymologies. It is almost certain for the first two and likely for the third though the exact interpretation is uncertain. This has long been taken to indicate a Turkic element in the horde over a hundred years before the first Turk Khaghanate.
  6. Western sources have called Atilla’s first wife Kreka (still retained in modern Hungarian as Reka). This name was likely derived from a Mongolic word related to wife: Gergei. However, a Turkic etymology is also possible.

Kir

Shimunek and Beckwith noted that the Chinese annal, the Chin Shu, records the history of the short-lived kingdom known as the Later Chao (319-351 CE). It was founded by a people whose name is reconstructed by them from the Chinese transliteration as Kir. The Kir lord Shih Le asks a bauddha shramaNa Fotu Cheng for advice on a campaign against the Xiongnu rump state who had captured Yeh and Loyang (307-311 CE) to take those towns. The bauddha uses a bell-ringing “prashna” and answers in the Kir language that was transliterated into Chinese. Using this transliteration, Shimunek et al. reconstruct it as an old Turkic utterance in a language related to the Turkic dialect found on the Orkhon stelae in Mongolia. Thus, this is the earliest attestation of Turkic, and it occurs in proximity to the Xiongnu rump state.

Further, the Chin Shu annal alternatively terms the Kir as Xiongnu, suggesting that they were originally part of that “horde” before turning against them. It is likely that this Turkic element traveled west as part of the Hunnic sweep across Eurasia after the fall of the Later Chao kingdom. They definitely contributed to the Atillanic Huns. If the title Chiqin among the Hepthalite Huns was equivalent to Turkic Tegin, they might have even had a role in that horde.