Yueban

Yueban (or Üeban) "Weak Huns" was the name used by Chinese historians for the Chuy tribes: Chuyue, Chumi, Chumuhun, Chuban, and two divisions of Shatuo. They were also colectively named Chuyue (Pinyin: Chuyue, Ch. 處月 Chuyue = 'abode of the Moon [god]'). The present endoethnonym of the Chuy descendents is Chuy Kiji, Turkic for "Chuy People".

The Yueban underwent a strong influence of the Sogdian culture. The Chuy-descendent tribe Kimek was one of the Turkic tribes known from Arab and Persian Middle Age writers as one of the seven tribes in the Kimek Khanate in the period of 743-1050 AD. The other six constituent tribes per Abu Said Gardizi (d. 1061) were the Kipchaks, Imi, Tatars, Bayandur, Lanikaz, and Ajlad.

Yueban state

Asia in 400 AD, showing the Yuehban (Chuban) Khanate and its neighbors.

Between 155 and 166 a former vassal tribes of the Xiongnu known as the Xianbei united under Tian-Shih-huai and conducted a series of campaigns against Northern Xiongnu dominance, eventually defeating them and forcing the Xiongnu to flee west, which started a series of westward migrations (93-c.380) known collectively as Huns.

The defeat ended the prominence of the Xiongnu as a major power in inner Asia. Tian-Shih-huai expelled Huns from Dzungaria to beyond the Tarbagatai, and pushed Dingling (Gaoche) tribes beyond the Sayan mountains. The defeat had cost the Xiongnu their agricultural dependencies in the "Western Territories" (Xiyu or Xinjian of the Chinese annals), forcing them to find new dependencies, and the Xiongnu split again. The "Weak Huns" remained in Semirechje, where they established the principality of Chuban (commonly called Yueban in Chinese literature), which existed until the 480es CE. The strongest tribes (known to Europeans as "the Huns) migrated towards Europe, where they conquered the Iranian Alans and Germanic Goths, and later attacked the Roman Empire. This Hunnic invasion of Europe led to severe upheavals among European peoples, giving the Huns a reputation in Europe as bandits and robbers, while the Chinese authors characterized them as the most acculturate of all "barbarians".

Chuban (Yueban) are those Huns who in the 2nd century CE settled in Tarbagatai. Later Chuban moved to Jeti-su. In the 5th century they were conquered by Uigurs and split into four tribes: Chuyue, Chumi, Chumuhun, Chuban. In the literature, the Chu tribes of Late Antique period are also called by their generic appellation Middle Asian Huns. The Middle Asian Huns formed a principality in Jeti-su called Chuban (Yueban). A.N.Bernshtam correlated the Chinese "Yueban" with the tribal name Chuban and with related Chuyue, Chumi, Chumugun, all of them descendants of the Huns. The Chuyue branch, intermixing with Turkuts, formed a tribe Shato in Southern Dzungaria, west from the lake Barkul.

The Chuban (Yueban) Huns took advantage of Avar weakness and conquered Jeti-su. Later, some Avars returned to Jeti-su, in cooperation with the Mukrins, a Xianbei tribe occupied the Tianshan slopes in the 2nd century AD, and retained there their independence for some time as a Western Xianbei Horde.

The Jeti-su was also populated by remnants of the Yuezhi tribes, the Tukhsi and Azi, whose armies had conquered Bactria centuries before. The Azes lived between Suyab and Uzket. Mahmud Kashgari, who can be named a founder of comparative linguistics science, in the 11th century listed Tukhsi, a male dynastic tribe of the Az-Tochar composition, as a group of tribes with pure Türkic language.

In 448 Toba Dao received an embassy from the Chuban (Yueban). Negotiations, recorded in history, meant an alliance which could have had only one purpose, a war with Rouran Khaganate. If the Chubans (Yueban) would pressure Jujans from the west, the Rourans would lose any freedom to maneuver. Though no direct records exist about the war in Dzungaria, by the course of the events, there was no peace, and the Nomadic empire of Rouran began to decline.

Based on his reconstructions of the events of the Chuban (Yueban) history, L.N.Gumilev argued against a widespread view that the Rouran were the "Abars" (Avars) who attacked the Sabirs, starting a "Great Migration of people", because the Chuban (Yueban) state separated the Rouran Empire from the Siberian peoples, and therefore the Rouran territories did not border the Sabirs.

By the 6th century CE the Chuy Hun, Avar, and Mukrins tribes merged to form the Turgesh people. The Chuban (Yueban) state survived to the end of 480s, until its independence was destroyed by the Teleuts, who had split from the Rouran in 487. But the Teleuts' dominance was short-lived, first the Hephthalite conquered them in 495-496, then Rouran crushed them, and finally in 547, the Turkut Uyghur people conquered the Teleuts. But the Chuban (Yueban) lived on, forming four tribes - Chuyue, Chumi, Chumuhun and Chuban. These tribes became major players in the later Great Turkic Kaganate and thereafter, but at that time the Huns' descendants were already known under new tribal names.

Altai Chumuhuns

An 8th century Tibetan geographer called Chumuhuns in Altai and south of it Ibilkur, and associated them with Külüg-Külchur, they were the only one of Chuy Huns tribes that in the middle of the 8th century preserved their independence, in spite of being sandwiched between Karluks and Türgeshes. Their possessions were on the west side of Tarbagatai range.

Theism, spirits, and magic

No records address Chuy Huns' religion, shamanic cures, and magic, though Chinese annals depict outward religious rites and magic. A narration about Yuebans tells about sorcerers, able to cause frost and rainstorm. During a war with Jujans, Yueban sorcerers incited a snowstorm against Jujans, who had so many frost-bitten that they had to stop their campaign and retreat. A similar legend is later told about Avar sorcerers in a war with Francs, and Naiman sorcerers against Chingis-Khan.

The reigning clan of western Türkic initially Manichaean Chigil (Persian cihil "forty") tribe was Shato (Persian Sada "Hundred"), which later founded the Chinese state Hou-Tang (Later Tang, 923-936) in Northern China, and adopted a Chinese surname Li. Türks-Shato had a predominant Dragon cult. Later Tang's glorious founder Li Keiun also came from the Dragon tribe. The annals even noted that the Shato were praying "old services following the custom of the North" at the Thunder-mountain, at the Gates of Dragon.

See also

Chigils Turks