Aspects of nature, in different lands and different climates (Vol. 1 of 2): with scientific elucidationsHumboldt, Alexander von
Science
Aspects of nature, in different lands and different climates (Vol. 1 of 2): with scientific elucidations
Humboldt, Alexander von
Physical geography; Plant morphology; Science; South America -- Description and travel
The Hiongnu (Hiong-nou), who Deguignes, and with him many historians,
long considered to be the Huns, inhabited that vast region of Tartary
which is bounded on the east by Uo-leang-ho (the present Mantschu
dominion), on the south by the Chinese wall, on the west by the U-siün
territory, and on the north by the country of the Eleuthes. But the
Hiongnu belong to the Turkish, and the Huns to the Finnish or Uralian
race. The _northern_ Huns, a rude pastoral people, unacquainted
with agriculture, were dark brown (sunburnt); the southern Huns or
Haja-telah, (called by the Byzantines Euthalites or Nepthalites,
and dwelling along the eastern shore of the Caspian), had a fairer
complexion. The latter cultivated the ground, and possessed towns.
They are often called the white, or fair Huns, and d’Herbelot even
declares them to be Indo-Scythians. On Punu, the Leader or Tanju of
the Huns, and on the great drought and famine which, about 46 A.D.,
caused a part of the nation to migrate northwards, (see Deguignes,
Histoire gén. des Huns, des Turcs, &c., 1756, T. i. pt. i. p. 217; pt.
ii. p. 111, 125, 223, 447.) All the accounts of the Huns taken from
the above-mentioned celebrated work have been subjected to a learned
and strict examination by Klaproth. According to the result of this
research the Hiongnu belong to the widely diffused Turkish races of the
Altai and Tangnu Mountains. The name Hiongnu, even in the third century
before the Christian era, was a general name for the Ti, Thu-kiu or
Turks, in the north and north-west of China. The southern Hiongnu
overcame the Chinese, and in conjunction with them destroyed the empire
of the northern Hiongnu. These latter fled to the west, and this flight
seems to have given the first impulse to the migration of nations in
Middle Asia. The Huns, who were long confounded with the Hiongnu, (as
the Uigures with the Ugures and the Hungarians), belonged, according
to Klaproth, to the Finnish race of the Ural mountains between Europe
and Asia, a race which was variously mingled with Germans, Turks,
and Samoieds. (Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, p. 183 and 211; Tableaux
Historiques de l’Asie, p. 102 and 109.) The Huns (Οὖννοι) are first
named by Dionysius Perigetes, a writer who was able to obtain more
accurate information respecting the interior of Asia, because, as a
learned man born at Charax on the Arabian Gulf, Augustus had sent him
back to the East to accompany thither his adopted son Caius Agrippa.
Ptolemy, a century later, writes the word (Χοῦνοι) with a strong
aspiration, which, as St. Martin observes, is found again in the
geographical name of Chunigard.
[12] p. 7.--“_No carved Stone._”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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