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Yueban

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Chumuhun is one of six Chuy Hun tribes, the name Chumuhun was used by Chinese historians as a collective name for the six Chu tribes: Chuüe, Chumi, Chumuhun, Chuban, and two divisions of Shato which sprung from the Chuüe (Pinyin: Chuyue, Ch. 處月 Chuyue = 'abode of the Moon [god]').

The Chuy Hun tribes were also collectively called Üeban (Pinyin: Yueban) "Weak Huns" by the Chinese historians, Üeban Huns underwent a strong influence of the Sogdian culture[1]. The Chuy-descendent tribe Kimak was one of the Türkic tribes known from Arab and Persian Middle Age writers as one of the seven tribes in the Kimak Kaganate in the period of 743-1050 AD. The other six constituent tribes per Abu Said Gardizi (d. 1061) were Kipchaks, Imi, Tatars, Bayandur, Lanikaz, and Ajlad. The present endoethnonym of the Chuy Hun descendents is Chuy Kiji, Türkic for "Chuy People"[2].

Chuban (Yueban) state

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

Between 155 and 166, former vassal tribes of the Xiongnu, known as the Xianbei (Pinyin: Hsien-pi/Hsien-pei/Xienbi) united under Tian-Shih-huai (Pinyin rendition) and conducted a series of campaigns against Western (Northern) Xiongnu dominance, eventually defeating and forcing the Xiongnu to flee west and starting a series of westward migrations (93-c.380).

The defeat ended the prominence of the Xiongnu as a major power in inner Asia. The western border of Tian-Shih-huai state leaped 6,5 thousand km from Ussuri to the meridian of Volga or Ural, Tian-Shih-huai expelled Huns from Dzungaria to beyond the Tarbagatai, and pushed Dinlins beyond the Sayan mountains. This situation lasted for 400 years.

The Huns lost their agricultural dependencies in the "Western Territory" of the Chinese annals, turned west to find new dependencies, and split again. The "Weak" Huns remained in Semirechje, where they established a princedom Chuban, commonly called in the literature by its Chinese rendition Yueban, which existed for 300 years from 160es CE until 480es CE, and the strongest Huns left to Europe, where they finished with Alans, Goths, and, surrounded by new Ugrian and Caucasian allies, reached Rome. Grave defeats inflicted by the Huns on many European peoples created them in the west a reputation of bandits and robbers, while the Chinese authors characterized them as people most acculturate of all "barbarians". [3]

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. [4] 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 possession Chuban (Yueban) in Jeti-su. 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. [5]

The Chuban (Yueban) Huns took advantage of Abar weakness, and spread to the whole Jeti-su. Later, Abars returned to the Jeti-su, but not any more as an independent tribe. They had to cooperate with Mukrins, one of Syanbi tribes that in the 2nd century AD carted to the Tianshan slopes, and retained there their independence for some time under a name of a Western Syanbi horde. [6]

Jeti-su also was populated by the remains of Yueji tribes Tukhsi and Azi, whose armies "stormed 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. [7]

In 448 Toba Dao received an embassy from Chuban (Yueban) princedom, from the Middle Asian branch of the Huns, who at that time were living in Tarbagatai and Western Dzungaria. Negotiations, recorded in history, meant a conclusion of an alliance which could have had only one purpose, a war with Jujans. If the Chubans would pressure Jujans from the west, the Jujans at once 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 Jujan Empire began declining. [8]

Based on his reconstructions of the events of the Chuban (Yueban) history, L.N.Gumilev argued against a widespread view that the Jujans were the "Abars" (Avars) who pushed Sabirs, starting a "Great Migration of people", because the Chuban (Yueban) state separated Jujan Empire from the Siberia peoples, and therefore the Jujans did not border on Sabirs. [9]

By the 6th century CE the Chuy Hun, Abar, and Mukrins tribes merged and formed Turgesh people. The Chuban (Yueban) state survived to the end of 480es. Its independence was destroyed by Teleuts, who split from the Jujan Empire in 487. But the Teleut's luck was short-lived, first the Ephtalites conquered them in 495-496, then Jujans crushed them, and at last in 547 Turkuts subdued Teleuts. But the Chuban descendants of the Middle Asia Huns lived on. They formed four tribes - Chuyue, Chumi, Chumuhun and Chuban, playing a huge role during the existence of the Great Turkic Kaganate and thereafter, but at that time the Huns' descendants were already known under new tribal names. [10]

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. [11]

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. [12]

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. [13]

See also

Chigils Turks

References

  1. ^ Gumilev L.N., "History of Hun People", Moscow, 'Science', Ch.15 http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/HPH/hph15.htm (In Russian)
  2. ^ Gumilev L.N., "Ancient Türks", Moscow, 'Science', 1967, Ch.20 http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/OT/ot20.htm (In Russian)
  3. ^ Gumilev L.N., "History of Hun People", Moscow, 'Science', Ch.15, http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/HPH/hph15.htm (In Russian)
  4. ^ Gumilev L.N., "History of Hun People", Moscow, 'Science', Ch.16, http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/HPH/hph16.htm (In Russian)
  5. ^ Gumilev L.N., "Ancient Türks", Moscow, 'Science', 1967, Ch.20 http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/OT/ot20.htm (In Russian)
  6. ^ Gumilev L.N., "Hunnu in China", Moscow, 'Science', 1974, Ch. 9, http://gumilevica.kulichki.com/HIC/hic09.htm (In Russian)
  7. ^ Yu. Zuev, "Early Türks: Sketches of history and ideology", Almaty, Daik-Press, 2002, p. 152-153, ISBN 9985-441-52-9
  8. ^ Gumilev L.N., "Hunnu in China", Moscow, 'Science', 1974, Ch. 9, http://gumilevica.kulichki.com/HIC/hic09.htm (In Russian)
  9. ^ Gumilev L.N., "Hunnu in China", Moscow, 'Science', 1974, Ch. 9 Note 26, http://gumilevica.kulichki.com/HIC/hic09.htm (In Russian)
  10. ^ Gumilev L.N., "Hunnu in China", Moscow, 'Science', 1974, Ch. 9, http://gumilevica.kulichki.com/HIC/hic09.htm (In Russian)
  11. ^ Bacot J. "Reconnaissance en Haute Asie Seplentrionale par cinq envoyes ouigours au VIII siecle" // JA, Vol. 254, No 2,. 1956, p.147, in Gumilev L.N., "Ancient Türks", Moscow, 'Science', 1967, Ch.27 http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/OT/ot27.htm (In Russian)
  12. ^ Gumilev L.N., "Ancient Türks", Moscow, 'Science', 1967, Ch.7 http://gumilevica.kulichki.com/OT/ot07.htm (In Russian)
  13. ^ Yu. Zuev, "Early Türks: Sketches of history and ideology", Almaty, Daik-Press, 2002, p. 145, ISBN 9985-441-52-9
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