Chapter IX: THE NORTHERN MONGOLS (continued) (1)

The Finno-Turki Peoples--Assimilation to the Caucasic Type--Turki
Cradle--Ural-Altaian Invasions--The Scythians--Parthians and
Turkomans--Massagetae and Yue-chi--Indo-Scythians and
Graeco-Baktrians--Dahae, Jat, and Rajput Origins--The "White
Huns"--The Uigurs--Orkhon Inscriptions--The Assena Turki
Dynasty--Toghuz-Uigur Empire--Kashgarian and Sungarian
Populations--The Oghuz Turks and their Migrations--Seljuks and
Osmanli--The Yakuts--The Kirghiz--Kazak and Kossack--The
Kara-Kirghiz--The Finnish Peoples--Former and Present Domain--Late
Westward Spread of the Finns--The Bronze and Iron Ages in the
Finnish Lands--The Baltic Finns--Relations to Goths, Letts, and
Slavs--Finno-Russ Origins--Tavastian and Karelian Finns--The
Kwaens--The Lapps--Samoyeds and Permian Finns--Lapp Origins and
Migrations--Temperament--Religion--The Volga Finns--The Votyak
Pagans--Human Sacrifices--The Bulgars--Origins and Migrations--An
Ethnical Transformation--Great and Little Bulgaria--Avars and
Magyars--Magyar Origins and early Records--Present Position of the
Magyars--Ethnical and Linguistic Relations in Eastern Europe.

In a very broad way all the western branches of the North Mongol division may be comprised under the collective designation of Finno-Turki Mongols. Jointly they constitute a well-marked section of the family, being distinguished from the eastern section by several features which they have in common, and the most important of which is unquestionably a much larger infusion of Caucasic blood than is seen in any of the Mongolo-Tungusic groups. So pronounced is this feature amongst many Finnish as well as Turkish peoples, that some anthropologists have felt inclined to deny any direct connection between the eastern and western divisions of Mongolian man and to regard the Baltic Finns, for instance, rather as "Allophylian Whites" than as original members of the yellow race. Prichard, to whom we owe this now nearly obsolete term "Allophylian," held this view[671], and even Sayce is "more than doubtful whether we can class the Mongols physiologically with the Turkish-Tatars [the Turki peoples], or the Ugro-Finns[672]."

It may, indeed, be allowed that at present the great majority of the Finno-Turki populations occupy a position amongst the varieties of mankind which is extremely perplexing for the strict systematist. When the whole division is brought under survey, every shade of transition is observed between the Siberian Samoyeds of the Finnic branch and the steppe Kirghiz of the Turki branch on the one hand, both of whom show Mongol characters in an exaggerated form, and on the other the Osmanli Turks and Hungarian Magyars, most of whom may be regarded as typical Caucasians. Moreover, the difficulty is increased by the fact, already pointed out, that these mixed Mongolo-Caucasic characters occur not only amongst the late historic groups, but also amongst the earliest known groups--"Chudes," Usuns, Uigurs and others--who may be called Proto-Finnish and Proto-Turki peoples. But precisely herein lies the solution of the problem. Most of the region now held by Turki and Finnish nations was originally occupied by long-headed Caucasic men of the late Stone Ages (see above). Then followed the Proto-Mongol intruders from the Tibetan table-land, who partly submerged, partly intermingled with their neolithic neighbours, many thus acquiring those mixed characters by which they have been distinguished from the earliest historic times. Later, further interminglings took place according as the Finno-Turki hordes, leaving their original seats in the Altai and surrounding regions, advanced westwards and came more and more into contact with the European populations of Caucasic type.

We may therefore conclude that the majority of the Finno-Turki were almost from the first a somewhat mixed race, and that during historic times the original Mongol element has gradually yielded to the Caucasic in the direction from east to west. Such is the picture now presented by these heterogeneous populations, who in their primeval eastern seats are still mostly typical Mongols, but have been more and more assimilated to the European type in their new Anatolian, Baltic, Danubian, and Balkan homes.

Observant travellers have often been impressed by this progressive conformity of the Mongolo-Turki to Europeans. During his westward journey through Central Asia Younghusband, on passing from Mongolia to Eastern Turkestan, found that the people, though tall and fine-looking, had at first more of the Mongol cast of feature than he had expected. "Their faces, however, though somewhat round, were slightly more elongated than the Mongol, and there was considerably more intelligence about them. But there was more roundness, less intelligence, less sharpness in the outlines than is seen in the inhabitants of Kashgar and Yarkand." Then he adds: "As I proceeded westwards I noticed a gradual, scarcely perceptible, change from the round of a Mongolian type to a sharper and yet more sharp type of feature.... As we get farther away from Mongolia, we notice that the faces become gradually longer and narrower; and farther west still, among some of the inhabitants of Afghan Turkestan, we see that the Tartar or Mongol type of feature is almost entirely lost[673]." To complete the picture it need only be added that still further west, in Asia Minor, the Balkan Peninsula, Hungary, and Finland, the Mongol features are often entirely lost. "The Turks of the west have so much Aryan and Semitic blood in them, that the last vestiges of their original physical characters have been lost, and their language alone indicates their previous descent[674]."

Before they were broken up and dispersed over half the northern hemisphere by Mongol pressure from the east, the primitive Turki tribes dwelt, according to Howorth, mainly between the Ulugh-dagh mountains and the Orkhon river in Mongolia, that is, along the southern slopes and spurs of the Altai-Sayan system from the head waters of the Irtysh to the valleys draining north to Lake Baikal. But the Turki cradle is shifted farther east by Richthofen, who thinks that their true home lay between the Amur, the Lena, and the Selenga, where at one time they had their camping-grounds in close proximity to their Mongol and Tungus kinsmen. There is nothing to show that the Yakuts, who are admittedly of Turki stock, ever migrated to their present northern homes in the Lena basin, which has more probably always been their native land[675].

But when they come within the horizon of history the Turki are already a numerous nation, with a north-western and south-eastern division[676], which may well have jointly occupied the whole region from the Irtysh to the Lena, and both views may thus be reconciled. In any case the Turki domain lay west of the Mongol, and the Altai uplands, taken in the widest sense, may still be regarded as the most probable zone of specialisation for the Turki physical type. The typical characteristics are a yellowish white complexion, a high brachycephalic head, often almost cuboid, due to parieto-occipital flattening (especially noticeable among the Yakuts), an elongated oval face, with straight, somewhat prominent nose, and non-Mongolian eyes. The stature is moderate, with an average of 1.675 m. (5 ft. 6 in.), and a tendency to stoutness.

Intermediate between the typical Turki and the Mongols Hamy places the Uzbegs, Kirghiz, Bashkirs, and Nogais; and between the Turks and Finns those extremely mixed groups of East Russia commonly but wrongly called "Tartars," as well as other transitions between Turk, Slav, Greek, Arab, Osmanli of Constantinople, Kurugli of Algeria and others, whose study shows the extreme difficulty of accurately determining the limits of the Yellow and the White races[677].

Analogous difficulties recur in the study of the Northern (Siberian) groups--Samoyeds, Ostyaks, Voguls and other Ugrians--who present great individual variations, leading almost without a break from the Mongol to the Lapp, from the Lapp to the Finn, from Finn to Slav and Teuton. Thus may be shown a series of observations continuous between the most typical Mongol, and those aberrant Mongolo-Caucasic groups which answer to Prichard's "Allophylian races." Thus also is confirmed by a study of details the above broad generalisation in which I have endeavoured to determine the relation of the Finno-Turki peoples to the primary Mongol and Caucasic divisions.

Peisker's description of the Scythian invasions of Irania[678] may be taken as typical of the whole area, and explains the complexity of the ethnological problems. The steppes and deserts of Central Asia are an impassable barrier for the South Asiatics, the Aryans, but not for the North Asiatic, the Altaian; for him they are an open country, providing him with the indispensable winter pastures. On the other hand, for the South Asiatic Aryan these deserts are an object of terror, and besides he is not impelled towards them as he has winter pastures near at hand. It is this difference in the distance of summer and winter pastures that makes the North Asiatic Altaian an ever-wandering herdsman, and the grazing part of the Indo-European race cattle-rearers settled in limited districts. Thus, while the native Iranian must halt before the trackless region of steppes and deserts and cannot follow the well-mounted robber-nomad thither, Iran itself is the object of greatest longing to the nomadic Altaian. Here he can plunder and enslave to his heart's delight, and if he succeeds in maintaining himself for a considerable time among the Aryans, he learns the language of the subjugated people and, by mingling with them, loses his Mongol characteristics more and more. If the Iranian is now fortunate enough to shake off the yoke, the dispossessed iranised Altaian intruder inflicts himself upon other lands. So it was with the Scythians. Leaving their families behind in the South Russian steppes, the Scythians invaded Media _c._ B.C. 630, and advanced into Mesopotamia as far as Egypt.

In Media they took Median wives and learned the Median language. After being driven out by Cyaxares, on their return, some 28 years later, they met with a new generation, the offspring of the wives and daughters whom they had left behind, and slaves of an alien race. A hundred and fifty years later Hippocrates remarked their yellowish red complexion, corpulence, smooth skins, and their consequent eunuch-like appearance--all typically Mongol characteristics. Hippocrates was the most celebrated physician and natural philosopher of the ancient world. His evidence is unshakeable and cannot be invalidated by the Aryan speech of the Scythians. Their Mongol type was innate in them, whereas their Iranian speech was acquired and is no refutation of Hippocrates' testimony. On the later Greek vases from South Russian excavations they already appear strongly demongolised and the Altaian is only suggested by their hair, which is as stiff as a horse's mane--hence Aristotle's epithet [Greek: euthytriches]--the characteristic that survives longest among all Ural-Altaian hybrid peoples.

E. H. Parker unfortunately lent the weight of his authority to the statement that the word "Tuerkoe" [Turki] "goes no farther back than the fifth century of our era," and that "so far as recorded history is concerned the name of Turk dates from this time[679]." But Turki tribes bearing this national name had penetrated into East Europe hundreds of years before that time, and were already seated on the Tanais (Don) about the new era. They are mentioned by name both by Pomponius Mela[680] and by Pliny[681], and to the same connection belonged, beyond all doubt, the warlike _Parthians_, who 300 years earlier were already seated on the confines of Iran and Turan, routed the legions of Crassus and Antony, and for five centuries (250 B.C.-229 A.D.) usurped the throne of the "King of Kings," holding sway from the Euphrates to the Ganges, and from the Caspian to the Indian Ocean. Direct descendants of the Parthians are the fierce Turkoman nomads, who for ages terrorised over all the settled populations encircling the Aralo-Caspian depression. Their power has at last been broken by the Russians, but they are still politically dominant in Persia[682]. They have thus been for many ages in the closest contact with Caucasic Iranians, with the result that the present Turkoman type is shown by J. L. Yavorsky's observations to be extremely variable[683].

Both the Parthians and the _Massagetae_ have been identified with the _Yue-chi_, who figured so largely in the annals of the Han dynasties, and are above mentioned as having been driven west to Sungaria by the Hiung-nu after the erection of the Great Wall. It has been said that, could we follow the peregrinations of the Yue-chi bands from their early seats at the foot of the Kinghan mountains to their disappearance amid the snows of the Western Himalayas, we should hold the key to the solution of the obscure problems associated with the migrations of the Mongolo-Turki hordes since the torrent of invasion was diverted westwards by Shih Hwang Ti's mighty barrier. One point, however, seems clear enough, that the Yue-chi were a different people both from the Parthians who had already occupied Hyrcania (Khorasan) at least in the third century B.C., if not earlier, and from the Massagetae. For the latter were seated on the Yaxartes (Sir-darya) in the time of Cyrus (sixth century B.C.), whereas the Yue-chi still dwelt east of Lake Lob (Tarim basin) in the third century. After their defeat by the Hiung-nu and the Usuns (201 and 165 B.C.), they withdrew to Sogdiana (Transoxiana), reduced the _Ta-Hia_ of Baktria, and in 126 B.C. overthrew the Graeco-Baktrian kingdom, which had been founded after the death of Alexander towards the close of the fourth century. But in the Kabul valley, south of the Hindu-Kush, the Greeks still held their ground for over 100 years, until Kadphises I., king of the Kushans--a branch of the Yue-chi--after uniting the whole nation in a single Indo-Scythian state, extended his conquests to Kabul and succeeded Hermaeus, last of the Greek dynasty (40-20 B.C.?). Kadphises' son Kadaphes (10 A.D.) added to his empire a great part of North India, where his successors of the Yue-chi dynasty reigned from the middle of the first to the end of the fourth century A.D. Here they are supposed by some authorities to be still represented by the _Jats_ and _Rajputs_, and even Prichard allows that the supposition "does not appear altogether preposterous," although "the physical characters of the Jats are very different from those attributed to the Yuetschi [Yue-chi] and the kindred tribes [Suns, Kushans, etc.] by the writers cited by Klaproth and Abel Remusat, who say that they are of sanguine complexion with blue eyes[684]."

We now know that these characters present little difficulty when the composite origin of the Turki people is borne in mind. On the other hand it is interesting to note that the above-mentioned Ta-Hia have by some been identified with the warlike Scythian Dahae[685], and these with the Dehiya or Dhe one of the great divisions of the Indian Jats. But if Rawlinson[686] is right, the term _Dahae_ was not racial but social, meaning _rustici_,--the peasantry as opposed to the nomads; hence the Dahae are heard of everywhere throughout Irania, just as _Dehwar_[687] is still the common designation of the Tajik (Persian) peasantry in Afghanistan and Baluchistan. This is also the view taken by de Ujfalvy, who identifies the Ta-Hia, not with the Scythian Dahae, or with any other particular tribe, but with the peaceful rural population of Baktriana[688], whose reduction by the Yue-chi, possibly Strabo's Tokhari, was followed by the overthrow of the Graeco-Baktrians. The solution of the puzzling Yue-chi-Jat problem would therefore seem to be that the Dehiya and other Jats, always an agricultural people, are descended from the old Iranian peasantry of Baktriana, some of whom followed the fortunes of their Greek rulers into Kabul valley, while others accompanied the conquering Yue-chi founders of the Indo-Scythian empire into northern India.

Then followed the overthrow of the Yue-chi themselves by the _Ye-tha_ (_Ye-tha-i-li-to_) of the Chinese records, that is, the _Ephthalites_, or so-called "White Huns," of the Greek and Arab writers, who about 425 A.D. overran Transoxiana, and soon afterwards penetrated through the mountain passes into the Kabul and Indus valleys. Although confused by some contemporary writers (Zosimus, Am. Marcellinus) with Attila's Huns, M. Drouin has made it clear that the Ye-tha were not Huns (Mongols) at all, but, like the Yue-chi, a Turki people, who were driven westwards about the same time as the Hiung-nu by the Yuan-yuans (see above). Of Hun they had little but the name, and the more accurate Procopius was aware that they differed entirely from "the Huns known to us, not being nomads, but settled for a long time in a fertile region." He speaks also of their white colour and regular features, and their sedentary life[689] as in the Chinese accounts, where they are described as warlike conquerors of twenty kingdoms, as far as that of the A-si (Arsacides, Parthians), and in their customs resembling the Tu-Kiu (Turks), being in fact "of the same race." On the ruins of the Indo-Scythian (Yue-chi) empire, the White Huns ruled in India and the surrounding lands from 425 to the middle of the sixth century. A little later came the Arabs, who in 706 captured Samarkand, and under the Abassides were supreme in Central Asia till scattered to the winds by the Oghuz Turki hordes.

From all this it has been suggested that--while the Baktrian peasants entered India as settlers, and are now represented by the agricultural Jats--the Yue-chi and Ye-tha, both of fair Turki stock, came as conquerors, and are now represented by the Rajputs, "Sons of Kings," the warrior and land-owning race of northern India. It is significant that these Thakur, "feudal lords," mostly trace their genealogies from about the beginning of the seventh century, as if they had become Hinduized soon after the fall of the foreign Ye-tha dynasty, while on the other hand "the country legends abound with instances of the conflict between the Rajput and the Brahman in prehistoric times[690]." This supports the conjecture that the Rajputs entered India, not as "Aryans" of the Kshatriya or military caste, as is commonly assumed, but as aliens (Turki), the avowed foes of the true Aryans, that is, the Brahman or theocratic (priestly) caste. Thus also is explained the intimate association of the Rajputs and the Jats from the first--the Rajputs being the Turki leaders of the invasions; and the Jats their peaceful Baktrian subjects following in their wake.

The theory that the haughty Rajputs are of unsullied "Aryan blood" is scarcely any longer held even by the Rajputs themselves; they are undoubtedly of mixed origin. But the definite physical type which H. H. Risley[691] describes as characteristic of Rajputs and Jats in the Kashmir Valley, Punjab and Rajputana, shows them to be wavy-haired dark-skinned dolichocephals, linked rather with the "Caucasic" than the "Mongolian" division.

Nearly related to the White Huns were the _Uigurs_, the _Kao-che_ of the Chinese annals, who may claim to be the first Turki nation that founded a relatively civilised State in Central Asia. Before the general commotion caused by the westward pressure of the Hiung-nu, they appear to have dwelt in eastern Turkestan (Kashgaria) between the Usuns and the Sacae, and here they had already made considerable progress under Buddhist influences about the fourth or fifth century of the new era. Later, the Buddhist missionaries from Tibet were replaced by Christian (Nestorian) evangelists from western Asia, who in the seventh century reduced the Uigur language to written form, adapting for the purpose the Syriac alphabet, which was afterwards borrowed by the Mongols and the Manchus.

This Syriac script--which, as shown by the authentic inscription of Si-ngan-fu, was introduced into China in 635 A.D.--is not to be confused with that of the Orkhon inscriptions[692] dating from 732 A.D., and bearing a certain resemblance to some of the Runic characters, as also to the Korean, at least in form, but never in sound. Yet although differing from the Uiguric, Prof. Thomsen, who has successfully deciphered the Orkhon text, thinks that this script may also be derived, at least indirectly through some of the Iranian varieties, from the same Aramean (Syriac) form of the Semitic alphabet that gave birth to the Uiguric[693].

It is more important to note that all the non-Chinese inscriptions are in the Turki language, while the Chinese text refers by name to the father, the grandfather, and the great-grandfather of the reigning Khan Bilga, which takes us back nearly to the time when Sinjibu (Dizabul), Great Khan of the Altai Turks, was visited by the Byzantine envoy, Zimarchus, in 569 A.D. In the still extant report of this embassy[694] the Turks ([Greek: Tourkoi]) are mentioned by name, and are described as nomads who dwelt in tents mounted on wagons, burnt the dead, and raised to their memory monuments, statues, and cairns with as many stones as the foes slain by the deceased in battle. It is also stated that they had a peculiar writing system, which must have been that of these Orkhon inscriptions, the Uiguric having apparently been introduced somewhat later.

Originally the Uigurs comprised nineteen clans, which at a remote period already formed two great sections:--the On-Uigur ("Ten Uigurs") in the south, and the Toghuz-Uigur ("Nine Uigurs") in the north. The former had penetrated westwards to the Aral Sea[695] as early as the second century A.D., and many of them undoubtedly took part in Attila's invasion of Europe.

Later, all these Western Uigurs, mentioned amongst the hordes that harassed the Eastern Empire in the fifth and sixth centuries, in association especially with the Turki Avars, disappear from history, being merged in the Ugrian and other Finnish peoples of the Volga basin. The Toghuz section also, after throwing off the yoke of the Mongol or Tungus Geugen (Jeu-Jen) in the fifth century, were for a time submerged in the vast empire of the Altai Turks, founded in 552 by Tumen of the House of Assena (A-shi-na), who was the first to assume the title of Kha-Khan, "Great Khan," and whose dynasty ruled over the united Turki and Mongol peoples from the Pacific to the Caspian, and from the Frozen Ocean to the confines of China and Tibet. Both the above-mentioned Sinjibu, who received the Byzantine envoy, and the Bilga Khan of the Orkhon _stele_, belonged to this dynasty, which was replaced in 774 by Pei-lo (Huei-hu), chief of the Toghuz-Uigurs. This is how we are to understand the statement that all the Turki peoples who during the somewhat unstable rule of the Assena dynasty from 552 to 774 had undergone many vicissitudes, and about 580 were even broken into two great sections (Eastern Turks of the Karakoram region and Western Turks of the Tarim basin), were again united in one vast political system under the Toghuz-Uigurs. These are henceforth known in history simply as Uigurs, the On branch having, as stated, long disappeared in the West. The centre of their power seems to have oscillated between Karakoram and Turfan in Eastern Turkestan, the extensive ruins of which have been explored by D. A. Klements, Sven Hedin and M. A. Stein. Their vast dominions were gradually dismembered, first by the _Hakas_, or _Ki-li-Kisse_, precursors of the present Kirghiz, who overran the eastern (Orkhon) districts about 840, and then by the Muhammadans of Mawar-en-Nahar (Transoxiana), who overthrew the "Lion Kings," as the Uigur Khans of Turfan were called, and set up several petty Mussulman states in Eastern Turkestan. Later they fell under the yoke of the Kara-Khitais, and were amongst the first to join the devastating hordes of Jenghiz-Khan; their name, which henceforth vanishes from history[696], has been popularly recognised under the form of "Ogres," in fable and nursery tales, but the derivation lacks historical foundation.

At present the heterogeneous populations of the Tarim basin (Kashgaria, Eastern Turkestan), where the various elements have been intermingled, offer a striking contrast to those of the Ili valley (Sungaria), where one invading horde has succeeded and been superimposed on another. Hence the complexity of the Kashgarian type, in which the original "horse-like face" everywhere crops out, absorbing the later Mongolo-Turki arrivals. But in Sungaria the Kalmuk, Chinese, Dungan, Taranchi, and Kirghiz groups are all still sharply distinguished and perceptible at a glance. "Amongst the Kashgarians--a term as vague ethnically as 'Aryan'--Richthofen has determined the successive presence of the Su, Yue-chi, and Usun hordes, as described in the early Chinese chronicles[697]."

The recent explorations of M. A. Stein have thrown some light on the ethnology of this region, and a preliminary survey of results was prepared and published by T. A. Joyce. He concludes that the original inhabitants were of Alpine type, with, in the west, traces of the Indo-Afghan, and that the Mongolian has had very little influence upon the population[698].

In close proximity to the Toghuz-Uigurs dwelt the _Oghuz_ (_Ghuz, Uz_), for whom eponymous heroes have been provided in the legendary records of the Eastern Turks, although all these terms would appear to be merely shortened forms of Toghuz[699]. But whether true Uigurs, or a distinct branch of the Turki people, the Ghuz, as they are commonly called by the Arab writers, began their westward migrations about the year 780. After occupying Transoxiana, where they are now represented by the Uzbegs[700] of Bokhara and surrounding lands, they gradually spread as conquerors over all the northern parts of Irania, Asia Minor, Syria, the Russian and Caucasian steppes, Ukrainia, Dacia, and the Balkan Peninsula. In most of these lands they formed fresh ethnical combinations both with the Caucasic aborigines, and with many kindred Turki as well as Mongol peoples, some of whom were settled in these regions since neolithic times, while others had either accompanied Attila's expeditions, or followed in his wake (Pechenegs, Komans, Alans, Kipchaks, Kara-Kalpaks), or else arrived later in company with Jenghiz-Khan and his successors (Kazan and Nogai "Tatars"[701]).

In Russia, Rumania (Dacia), and most of the Balkan Peninsula these Mongolo-Turki blends have been again submerged by the dominant Slav and Rumanian peoples (Great and Little Russians, Servo-Croatians, Montenegrini, Moldavians, and Walachians). But in south-western Asia they still constitute perhaps the majority of the population between the Indus and Constantinople, in many places forming numerous compact communities, in which the Mongolo-Turki physical and mental characters are conspicuous. Such, besides the already mentioned Turkomans of Parthian lineage, are all the nomad and many of the settled inhabitants of Khiva, Ferghana, Karategin, Bokhara, generally comprised under the name of Uzbegs and "Sartes." Such also are the Turki peoples of Afghan Turkestan, and of the neighbouring uplands (Hazaras and Aimaks who claim Mongol descent, though now of Persian speech); the Aderbaijani and many other more scattered groups in Persia; the Nogai and Kumuk tribes of Caucasia, and especially most of the nomad and settled agricultural populations of Asia Minor. The Anatolian peasantry form, in fact, the most numerous and compact division of the Turki family still surviving in any part of their vast domain between the Bosporus and the Lena.

Out of this prolific Oghuz stock arose many renowned chiefs, founders of vast but somewhat unstable empires, such as those of the Gasnevides, who ruled from Persia to the Indus; the Seljuks, who first wrested the Asiatic provinces from Byzantium; the Osmanli, so named from Othman, the Arabised form of Athman, who prepared the way for Orkhan (1326-60), true builder of the Ottoman power, which has alone survived the shipwreck of all the historical Turki states. The vicissitudes of these monarchies, looked on perhaps with too kindly an eye by Gibbon, belong to the domain of history, and it will suffice here to state that from the ethnical standpoint the chief interest centres in that of the Seljukides, covering the period from about the middle of the eleventh to the middle of the thirteenth century. It was under Togrul-beg of this dynasty (1038-63) that "the whole body of the Turkish nation embraced with fervour and sincerity the religion of Mahomet[702]." A little later began the permanent Turki occupation of Asia Minor, where, after the conquest of Armenia (1065-68) and the overthrow of the Byzantine emperor Romanus Diogenes (1071), numerous military settlements, followed by nomad Turkoman encampments, were established by the great Seljuk rulers, Alp Arslan and Malek Shah (1063-92), at all the strategical points. These first arrivals were joined later by others fleeing before the Mongol hosts led by Jenghiz-Khan's successors down to the time of Timur-beg. But the Christians (Greeks and earlier aborigines) were not exterminated, and we read that, while great numbers apostatised, "many thousand children were marked by the knife of circumcision; and many thousand captives were devoted to the service or the pleasures of their masters" (_ib._). In other words, the already mixed Turki intruders were yet more modified by further interminglings with the earlier inhabitants of Asia Minor. Those who, following the fortunes of the Othman dynasty, crossed the Bosporus and settled in Rumelia and some other parts of the Balkan Peninsula, now prefer to call themselves _Osmanli_, even repudiating the national name "Turk" still retained with pride by the ruder peasant classes of Asia Minor. The latter are often spoken of as "Seljuk Turks," as if there were some racial difference between them and the European Osmanli, and for the distinction there is some foundation. As pointed out by Arminius Vambery[703], the Osmanli have been influenced and modified by their closer association with the Christian populations of the Balkan lands, while in Anatolia the Seljuks have been able better to preserve the national type and temperament. The true Turki spirit ("das Tuerkentum") survives especially in the provinces of Lykaonia and Kappadokia, where the few surviving natives were not only Islamised but ethnically fused, whereas in Europe most of them (Bosnians, Albanians) were only Islamised, and here the Turki element has always been slight.

At present the original Turki type and temperament are perhaps best preserved amongst the remote _Yakuts_ of the Lena, and the _Kirghiz_ groups (_Kirghiz Kazaks_ and _Kara Kirghiz_) of the West Siberian steppe and the Pamir uplands. The Turki connection of the Yakuts, about which some unnecessary doubts had been raised, has been set at rest by V. A. Sierochevsky[704], who, however, describes them as now a very mixed people, owing to alliances with the Tunguses and Russians. They are of short stature, averaging scarcely 5 ft. 4 in., and this observer thought their dark but not brilliant black eyes, deeply sunk in narrow orbits, gave them more of a Red Indian than of a Mongol cast. They are almost the only progressive aboriginal people in Siberia, although numbering not more than 200,000 souls, concentrated chiefly along the river banks on the plateau between the Lena and the Aldan.

In the Yakuts we have an extreme instance of the capacity of man to adapt himself to the _milieu_. They not merely exist, but thrive and display a considerable degree of energy and enterprise in the coldest region on the globe. Within the isothermal of -72 deg. Fahr., Verkhoyansk, in the heart of their territory, is alone included, for the period from November to February, and in this temperature, at which the quicksilver freezes, the Yakut children may be seen gambolling naked in the snow. In midwinter R. Kennan met some of these "men of iron," as Wrangel calls them, airily arrayed in nothing but a shirt and a sheepskin, lounging about as if in the enjoyment of the balmy zephyrs of some genial sub-tropical zone.

Although nearly all are Orthodox Christians, or at least baptized as such, they are mere Shamanists at heart, still conjuring the powers of nature, but offering no worship to a supreme deity, of whom they have a vague notion, though he is too far off to hear, or too good to need their supplications. The world of good and evil spirits, however, has been enriched by accessions from the Russian calendar and pandemonium. Thanks to their commercial spirit, the Yakut language, a very pure Turki idiom, is even more widespread than the race, having become a general medium of intercourse for Tungus, Russian, Mongol and other traders throughout East Siberia, from Irkutsk to the Sea of Okhotsk, and from the Chinese frontier to the Arctic Ocean[705].

To some extent W. Radloff is right in describing the great Kirghiz Turki family as "of all Turks most nearly allied to the Mongols in their physical characters, and by their family names such as Kyptshak [Kipchak], Argyn, Naiman, giving evidence of Mongolian descent, or at least of intermixture with Mongols[706]." But we have already been warned against the danger of attaching too much importance to these tribal designations, many of which seem, after acquiring renown on the battle-field, to have passed readily from one ethnic group to another. There are certain Hindu-Kush and Afghan tribes who think themselves Greeks or Arabs, because of the supposed descent of their chiefs from Alexander the Great or the Prophet's family, and genealogical trees spring up like the conjurer's mango plant in support of such illustrious lineage. The Chagatai (Jagatai) tribes, of Turki stock and speech, take their name from a full-blood Mongol, Chagatai, second son of Jenghiz-Khan, to whom fell Eastern Turkestan in the partition of the empire.

In the same way many Uzbeg and Kirghiz Turki tribes are named from famous Mongol chiefs, although no one will deny a strain of true Mongol blood in all these heterogeneous groups. This is evident enough from the square and somewhat flat Mongol features, prominent cheek-bones, oblique eyes, large mouth, feet and hands, yellowish brown complexion, ungainly obese figures and short stature, all of which are characteristic of both sections, the Kara-Kirghiz highlanders, and the Kazaks of the lowlands. Some ethnologists regard these Kirghiz groups, not as a distinct branch of the Mongolo-Turki race, but rather as a confederation of several nomad tribes stretching from the Gobi to the Lower Volga, and mingled together by Jenghiz-Khan and his successors[707].

The true national name is _Kazak_, "Riders," and as they were originally for the most part mounted marauders, or free lances of the steppe, the term came to be gradually applied to all nomad and other horsemen engaged in predatory warfare. It thus at an early date reached the South Russian steppe, where it was adopted in the form of _Kossack_ by the Russians themselves. It should be noted that the compound term Kirghiz-Kazak, introduced by the Russians to distinguish these nomads from their own Cossacks, is really a misnomer. The word "Kirghiz," whatever its origin, is never used by the Kazaks in reference to themselves, but only to their near relations, the Kirghiz, or Kara-Kirghiz[708], of the uplands.

These highlanders, who roam the Tian-Shan and Pamir valleys, form two sections:--_On_, "Right," or East, and _Sol_, "Left," or West. They are the _Diko Kamennyi_, that is, "Wild Rock People," of the Russians, whence the expression "Block Kirghiz" still found in some English books of travel. But they call themselves simply Kirghiz, claiming descent from an original tribe of that name, itself sprung from a legendary Kirghiz-beg, from whom are also descended the Chiliks, Kitars and others, all now reunited with the Ons and the Sols.

The Kazaks also are grouped in long-established and still jealously maintained sections--the _Great_, _Middle_, _Little_, and _Inner Horde_--whose joint domain extends from Lake Balkash round the north side of the Caspian down to the Lower Volga[709]. All accepted the teachings of Islam many centuries ago, but their Muhammadanism[710] is of a somewhat negative character, without mosques, mollahs, or fanaticism, and in practice not greatly to be distinguished from the old Siberian Shamanism. Kumiss, fermented mare's milk, their universal drink, as amongst the ancient Scythians, plays a large part in the life of these hospitable steppe nomads.

One of the lasting results of Castren's labours has been to place beyond reasonable doubt the Altai origin of the Finnish peoples[711]. Their cradle may now be localised with some confidence about the head waters of the Yenisei, in proximity to that of their Turki kinsmen. Here is the seat of the _Soyotes_ and of the closely allied _Koibals_, _Kamassintzi_, _Matores_, _Karagasses_ and others, who occupy a considerable territory along both slopes of the Sayan range, and may be regarded as the primitive stock of the widely diffused Finnish race. Some of these groups have intermingled with the neighbouring Turki peoples, and even speak Turki dialects. But the original Finnish type and speech are well represented by the Soyotes, who are here indigenous, and "from these their ... kinsmen, the Samoyeds have spread as breeders of reindeer to the north of the continent from the White Sea to the Bay of Chatanga[712]." Others, following a westerly route along the foot of the Altai and down the Irtysh to the Urals, appear to have long occupied both slopes of that range, where they acquired some degree of culture, and especially that knowledge of, and skill in working, the precious and other metals, for which the "White-eyed Chudes" were famous, and to which repeated reference is made in the songs of the _Kalevala_[713]. As there are no mines or minerals in Finland itself, it seems obvious that the legendary heroes of the Finnish national epic must have dwelt in some metalliferous region, which could only be the Altai or the Urals, possibly both.

In any case the Urals became a second home and point of dispersion for the Finnish tribes (_Ugrian Finns_), whose migrations--some prehistoric, some historic--can be followed thence down the Pechora and Dvina to the Frozen Ocean[714], and down the Kama to the Volga. From this artery, where permanent settlements were formed (_Volga Finns_), some conquering hordes went south and west (_Danubian Finns_), while more peaceful wanderers ascended the great river to Lakes Ladoga and Onega, and thence to the shores of the Baltic and Lapland (_Baltic and Lake Finns_).

Thus were constituted the main branches of the widespread Finnish family, whose domain formerly extended from the Katanga beyond the Yenisei to Lapland, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Altai range, the Caspian, and the Volga, with considerable _enclaves_ in the Danube basin. But throughout their relatively short historic life the Finnish peoples, despite a characteristic tenacity and power of resistance, have in many places been encroached upon, absorbed, or even entirely eliminated, by more aggressive races, such as the Siberian "Tatars" in their Altai cradleland, the Turki Kirghiz and Bashkirs in the West Siberian steppes and the Urals, the Russians in the Volga and Lake districts, the Germans and Lithuanians in the Baltic Provinces (Kurland, Livonia, Esthonia), the Rumanians, Slavs, and others in the Danube regions, where the Ugrian Bulgars and Magyars have been almost entirely assimilated in type (and the former also in speech) to the surrounding European populations.

Few anthropologists now attach much importance to the views not yet quite obsolete regarding a former extension of the Finnish race over the whole of Europe and the British Isles. Despite the fact that all the Finns are essentially round-headed, they were identified first with the long-headed cavemen, who retreated north with the reindeer, as was the favourite hypothesis, and then with the early neolithic races who were also long-headed. Elaborate but now forgotten essays were written by learned philologists to establish a common origin of the Basque and the Finnic tongues, which have nothing in common, and half the myths, folklore, and legendary heroes of the western nations were traced to Finno-Ugrian sources.

Now we know better, and both archaeologists and philologists have made it evident that the Finnish peoples are relatively quite recent arrivals in Europe, that the men of the Bronze Age in Finland itself were not Finns but Teutons, and that at the beginning of the new era all the Finnish tribes still dwelt east of the Gulf of Finland[715].

Not only so, but the eastern migrations themselves, as above roughly outlined, appear to have taken place at a relatively late epoch, long after the inhabitants of West Siberia had passed from the New Stone to the Metal Ages. J. R. Aspelin, "founder of Finno-Ugrian archaeology," points out that the Finno-Ugrian peoples originally occupied a geographical position between the Indo-Germanic and the Mongolic races, and that their first Iron Age was most probably a development, between the Yenisei and the Kama, of the so-called Ural-Altai Bronze Age, the last echoes of which may be traced westwards to Finland and North Scandinavia. In the Upper Yenisei districts iron objects had still the forms of the Bronze Age, when that ancient civilisation, associated with the name of the "Chudes," was interrupted by an invasion which introduced the still persisting Turki Iron Age, expelled the aboriginal inhabitants, and thus gave rise to the great migrations first of the Finno-Ugrians, and then of the Turki peoples (Bashkirs, Volga "Tatars" and others) to and across the Urals. It was here, in the Permian territory between the Irtysh and the Kama, that the West Siberian (Chudish) Iron Age continued its normal and unbroken evolution. The objects recovered from the old graves and kurgans in the present governments of Tver and Iaroslav, and especially at Ananyino on the Kama, centre of this culture, show that here took place the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age some 300 years before the new era, and here was developed a later Iron Age, whose forms are characteristic of the northern Finno-Ugrian lands. The whole region would thus appear to have been first occupied by these immigrants from Asia after the irruption of the Turki hordes into Western Siberia during the first Iron Age, at most some 500 or 600 years before the Christian era. The Finno-Ugrian migrations are thus limited to a period of not more than 2600 years from the present time, and this conclusion, based on archaeological grounds, agrees fairly well with the historical, linguistic, and ethnical data.

It is especially in this obscure field of research that the eminent Danish scholar, Vilhelm Thomsen, has rendered inestimable services to European ethnology. By the light of his linguistic studies A. H. Snellman[716] has elucidated the origins of the Baltic Finns, the Proto-Esthonians, the now all but extinct Livonians, and the quite extinct Kurlanders, from the time when they still dwelt east and south-east of the Baltic lands, under the influence of the surrounding Lithuanian and Gothic tribes, till the German conquest of the Baltic provinces. We learn from Jordanes, to whom is due the first authentic account of these populations, that the various Finnish tribes were subject to the Gothic king Hermanarich, and Thomsen now shows that all the Western Finns (Esthonians, Livonians, Votes, Vepses, Karelians, Tavastians, and others of Finland) must in the first centuries of the new era have lived practically as one people in the closest social union, speaking one language, and following the same religious, tribal, and political institutions. Earlier than the Gothic was the Letto-Lithuanian contact, as shown by the fact that its traces are perceptible in the language of the Volga Finns, in which German loan-words are absent. From these investigations it becomes clear that the Finnish domain must at that time have stretched from the present Esthonia, Livonia, and Lake Ladoga south to the western Dvina.

The westward movement was connected with the Slav migrations. When the Slavs south of the Letts moved west, other Slav tribes must have pushed north, thus driving both Letts and Finns west to the Baltic provinces, which had previously been occupied by the Germans (Goths). Some of the Western Finns must have found their way about 500 A.D., scarcely earlier, into parts of this region, where they came into hostile and friendly contact with the Norsemen. These relations would even appear to be reflected in the Norse mythology, which may be regarded as in great measure an echo of historic events. The wars of the Swedish and Danish kings referred to in these oral records may be interpreted as plundering expeditions rather than permanent conquests, while the undoubtedly active intercourse between the east and west coasts of the Baltic may be explained on the assumption that, after the withdrawal of the Goths, a remnant of the Germanic populations remained behind in the Baltic provinces.

From Nestor's statement that all three of the Varangian princes settled, not amongst Slavish but amongst Finnish peoples, it may be inferred that the Finnish element constituted the most important section in the newly founded Russian State; and it may here be mentioned that the term "Russ" itself has now been traced to the Finnish word _Ruost_ (_Ruosti_), a "Norseman." But although at first greatly outnumbering the Slavs, the Finnish peoples soon lost the political ascendancy, and their subsequent history may be summed up in the expression--gradual absorption in the surrounding Slav populations. This inevitable process is still going on amongst all the Volga, Lake and Baltic Finns, except in Finland and Lapland, where other conditions obtain[717].

Most Finnish ethnologists agree that however much they may now differ in their physical and mental characters and usages, Finns and Lapps were all originally one people. Some variant of _Suoma_[718] enters into the national name of all the Baltic groups--_Suomalaiset_, the Finns of Finland, _Somelaized_, those of Esthonia, _Samelats_ (Sabmelad), the Lapps, _Samoyad_, the Samoyeds. In Ohthere's time the Norsemen called all the Lapps "Finnas" (as the Norwegians still do), and that early navigator already noticed that these "Finns" seemed to speak the same language as the Beormas, who were true Finns[719]. Nor do the present inhabitants of Finland, taken as a whole, differ more in outward appearance and temperament from their Lapp neighbours than do the Tavastians and the Karelians, that is, their western and eastern sections, from each other. The Tavastians, who call themselves Hemelaiset, "Lake People," have rather broad, heavy frames, small and oblique blue or grey eyes, towy hair and white complexion, without the clear florid colour of the North Germanic and English peoples. The temperament is somewhat sluggish, passive and enduring, morose and vindictive, but honest and trustworthy.

Very different are the tall, slim, active Karelians (_Karialaiset_, "Cowherds," from _Kari_, "Cow"), with more regular features, straight grey eyes, brown complexion, and chestnut hair, like that of the hero of the Kalevala, hanging in ringlets down the shoulders. Many of the Karelians, and most of the neighbouring _Ingrians_ about the head of the Gulf of Finland, as well as the Votes and Vepses of the great lakes, have been assimilated in speech, religion, and usages to the surrounding Russian populations. But the more conservative Tavastians have hitherto tenaciously preserved the national sentiment, language, and traditions. Despite the pressure of Sweden on the west, and of Russia on the east, the Finns still stand out as a distinct European nationality, and continue to cultivate with success their harmonious and highly poetical language. Since the twelfth century they have been Christians, converted to the Catholic faith by "Saint" Eric, King of Sweden, and later to Lutheranism, again by the Swedes[720]. The national university, removed in 1827 from Abo to Helsingfors, is a centre of much scientific and literary work, and here E. Loennrot, father of Finnish literature, brought out his various editions of the _Kalevala_, that of 1849 consisting of some 50,000 strophes[721].

A kind of transition from these settled and cultured Finns to the Lapps of Scandinavia and Russia is formed by the still almost nomad, or at least restless _Kwaens_, who formerly roamed as far as the White Sea, which in Alfred's time was known as the _Cwen Sae_ (Kwaen Sea). These Kwaens, who still number nearly 300,000, are even called nomads by J. A. Friis, who tells us that there is a continual movement of small bands between Finland and Scandinavia. "The wandering Kwaens pass round the Gulf of Bothnia and up through Lappmarken to Kittalae, where they separate, some going to Varanger, and others to Alten. They follow the same route as that which, according to historians, some of the Norsemen followed in their wanderings from Finland[722]." The references of the Sagas are mostly to these primitive Bothnian Finns, with whom the Norsemen first came in contact, and who in the sixth and following centuries were still in a rude state not greatly removed from that of their Ugrian forefathers. As shown by Almqvist's researches, they lived almost exclusively by hunting and fishing, had scarcely a rudimentary knowledge of agriculture, and could prepare neither butter nor cheese from the milk of their half-wild reindeer herds.

Such were also, and in some measure still are, the kindred Lapps, who with the allied _Yurak Samoyeds_ of Arctic Russia are the only true nomads still surviving in Europe. A. H. Cocks, who travelled amongst all these rude aborigines in 1888, describes the Kwaens who range north to Lake Enara, as "for the most part of a very rough class," and found that the Russian Lapps of the Kola Peninsula, "except as to their clothing and the addition of coffee and sugar to their food supply, are living now much the same life as their ancestors probably lived 2000 or more years ago, a far more primitive life, in fact, than the Reindeer Lapps [of Scandinavia]. They have not yet begun to use tobacco, and reading and writing are entirely unknown among them. Unlike the three other divisions of the race [the Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish Lapps], they are a very cheerful, light-hearted people, and have the curious habit of expressing their thoughts aloud in extempore sing-song[723]."

Similar traits have been noticed in the Samoyeds, whom F. G. Jackson describes as an extremely sociable and hospitable people, delighting in gossip, and much given to laughter and merriment[724]. He gives their mean height as nearly 5 ft. 2 in., which is about the same as that of the Lapps (Von Dueben, 5 ft. 2 in., others rather less), while that of the Finns averages 5 ft. 5 in. (Topinard). Although the general Mongol appearance is much less pronounced in the Lapps than in the Samoyeds, in some respects--low stature, flat face with peculiar round outline--the latter reminded Jackson of the Ziryanians, who are a branch of the Beormas (Permian Finns), though like them now much mixed with the Russians. The so-called prehistoric "Lapp Graves," occurring throughout the southern parts of Scandinavia, are now known from their contents to have belonged to the Norse race, who appear to have occupied this region since the New Stone Age, while the Lapp domain seems never to have reached very much farther south than Trondhjem.

All these facts, taken especially in connection with the late arrival of the Finns themselves in Finland, lend support to the view that the Lapps are a branch, not of the Suomalaiset, but of the Permian Finns, and reached their present homes, not from Finland, but from North Russia through the Kanin and Kola Peninsulas, if not round the shores of the White Sea, at some remote period prior to the occupation of Finland by its present inhabitants. This assumption would also explain Ohthere's statement that Lapps and Permians seemed to speak nearly the same language. The resemblance is still close, though I am not competent to say to which branch of the Finno-Ugrian family Lapp is most nearly allied.

Of the Mongol physical characters the Lapp still retains the round low skull (index 83), the prominent cheek-bones, somewhat flat features, and ungainly figure. The temperament, also, is still perhaps more Asiatic than European, although since the eighteenth century they have been Christians--Lutherans in Scandinavia, Orthodox in Russia. In pagan times Shamanism had nowhere acquired a greater development than among the Lapps. A great feature of the system were the "rune-trees," made of pine or birch bark, inscribed with figures of gods, men, or animals, which were consulted on all important occasions, and their mysterious signs interpreted by the Shamans. Even foreign potentates hearkened to the voice of these renowned magicians, and in England the expression "Lapland witches" became proverbial, although it appears that there never were any witches, but only wizards, in Lapland. Such rites have long ceased to be practised, although some of the crude ideas of a material after-life still linger on. Money and other treasures are often buried or hid away, the owners dying without revealing the secret, either through forgetfulness, or more probably of set purpose in the hope of thus making provision for the other world.

Amongst the kindred Samoyeds, despite their Russian orthodoxy, the old pagan beliefs enjoy a still more vigorous existence. "As long as things go well with him, he is a Christian; but should his reindeer die, or other catastrophe happen, he immediately returns to his old god _Num_ or _Chaddi_.... He conducts his heathen services by night and in secret, and carefully screens from sight any image of Chaddi[725]." Jackson noticed several instances of this compromise between the old and the new, such as the wooden cross supplemented on the Samoyed graves by an overturned sledge to convey the dead safely over the snows of the under-world, and the rings of stones, within which the human sacrifices were perhaps formerly offered to propitiate Chaddi; and although these things have ceased, "it is only a few years ago that a Samoyad living on Novaia Zemlia sacrificed a young girl[726]."

Similar beliefs and practices still prevail not only amongst the Siberian Finns--Ostyaks of the Yenisei and Obi rivers, Voguls of the Urals--but even amongst the Votyaks, Mordvinians, Cheremisses and other scattered groups still surviving in the Volga basin. So recently as the year 1896 a number of Votyaks were tried and convicted for the murder of a passing mendicant, whom they had beheaded to appease the wrath of Kiremet, Spirit of Evil and author of the famine raging at that time in Central Russia. Besides Kiremet, the Votyaks--who appear to have migrated from the Urals to their present homes between the Kama and the Viatka rivers about 400 A.D., and are mostly heathens--also worship Inmar, God of Heaven, to whom they sacrifice animals as well as human beings whenever it can be safely done. We are assured by Baron de Baye that even the few who are baptized take part secretly in these unhallowed rites[727].