The Finno-Turki Peoples—Assimilation to the Caucasic Type—Turki Cradle—Ural-Altaian Invasions—The Scythians—Parthians and Turkomans—Massagetae and YuÉ-chi—Indo-Scythians and Graeco-Baktrians—Dahae, JÁt, and RÁjput 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—KazÁk 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 KwÆns—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. The Finno-Turki Peoples. Assimilation to the Caucasic Type. 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 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. Turki Cradle. 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 But when they come within the horizon of history the Turki are already a numerous nation, with a north-western and south-eastern 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 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. Ural-Altaian Invasions. The Scythians. Peisker's description of the Scythian invasions of Irania 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 e???t???e?—the characteristic that survives longest among all Ural-Altaian hybrid peoples. Parthians and Turkomans. E. H. Parker unfortunately lent the weight of his authority to the statement that the word "TÜrkÖ" [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 Massagetae and YuÉ-chi. Indo-Scythians and Graeco-Baktrians. Dahae, JÁt, and RÁjput Origins. Both the Parthians and the Massagetae have been identified with the YuÉ-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 YuÉ-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 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 The "White Huns." Then followed the overthrow of the YuÉ-chi themselves by the YÉ-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 YÉ-tha were not Huns (Mongols) at all, but, like the YuÉ-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 From all this it has been suggested that—while the Baktrian peasants entered India as settlers, and are now represented by the agricultural JÁts—the YuÉ-chi and YÉ-tha, both of fair Turki stock, came as conquerors, and are now represented by the RÁjputs, "Sons of Kings," the warrior and land-owning race of northern India. It is significant that these ThÁkur, "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 YÉ-tha dynasty, while on the other hand "the country legends abound with instances of the conflict between the RÁjput and the BrÁhman in prehistoric times The theory that the haughty RÁjputs are of unsullied "Aryan blood" is scarcely any longer held even by the RÁjputs themselves; they are undoubtedly of mixed origin. But the definite physical type which H. H. Risley The Uigurs. 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 The Orkhon Inscriptions. 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 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 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 The Assena Turki Dynasty. Toghuz-Uigur Empire. 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-KissÉ, precursors of the present Kirghiz, who overran the eastern (Orkhon) districts about 840, and then by the Muhammadans of MÁwar-en-Nahar (Transoxiana), who overthrew 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, YuÉ-chi, and Usun hordes, as described in the early Chinese chronicles 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 The Oghuz Turks and their Migrations. 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 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. Seljuks and Osmanli. 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 The Yakuts. 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 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° 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 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 The Kirghiz. 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 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 KazÁk and Kossack. The Kara-Kirghiz. The true national name is KazÁk, "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 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 The Finns. One of the lasting results of CastrÈn's labours has been to place beyond reasonable doubt the Altai origin of the Finnish peoples 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 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. Late Westward Spread of the Finns. Few anthropologists now attach much importance to the views not yet quite obsolete regarding a former extension of 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 The Iron and Bronze Ages in the Finnish Lands. 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, The Baltic Finns. 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 Relations to Goths, Letts, and Slavs. 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. Finno-Russ Origins. 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 Tavastian and Karelian Finns. 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 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 The KwÆns. 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 KwÆns, who formerly roamed as far as the White Sea, which in Alfred's time was known as the Cwen SÆ (KwÆn Sea). These KwÆns, 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 KwÆns pass round the Gulf of Bothnia and up through Lappmarken to KittalÄ, 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 The Lapps, Samoyeds and Permian Finns. 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 KwÆns 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, 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 Lapp Origins and Migrations. 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. Temperament—Religion. 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 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 The Volga Finns. 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 To the Ugrian branch, rudest and most savage of all the Finnish peoples, belong these now moribund Volga groups, as well as the fierce Bulgar and Magyar hordes, if not also their precursors, the Jazyges and Rhoxolani, who in the second century A.D. swarmed into Pannonia from the Russian steppe, and in company with the Germanic Quadi and Marcomanni twice (168 and 172) advanced to the walls of Aquileia, and were twice arrested by the legions of Marcus Aurelius and Verus. Of the once numerous Jazyges, whom Pliny calls Sarmates, there were several branches—Maeotae, Metanastae, Basilii ("Royal")—who were first reduced by the Goths spreading from the Baltic to the Euxine and Lower Danube, and then overwhelmed with the Dacians, Getae, Bastarnae, and a hundred other ancient peoples in the great deluge of the Hunnish invasion. The Bulgars—Origins and Migrations. From the same South Russian steppe—the plains watered by the Lower Don and Dnieper—came the Bulgars, first in association with the Huns, from whom they are scarcely distinguished by the early Byzantine writers, and then as a separate people, who, after throwing off the yoke of the Avars (635 A.D.), withdrew before the pressure of the Khazars westwards to the Lower Danube (678). But their records go much farther back than these dates, and while philologists and archaeologists are able to trace their wanderings step by step north to the Middle Volga and the Ural Mountains, authentic Armenian documents carry their history back to the second century B.C. Under the Arsacides numerous bands of Bulgars, driven from their homes about the Kama confluence by civil strife, settled on the banks of the Aras, and since that time (150-114 B.C.) the Bulgars were known to the Armenians as a great nation dwelling away to the north far beyond the Caucasus. Originally the name, which afterwards acquired such an Acting at first in association with the Slavs, and then assuming "a vague dominion" over their restless Sarmatian allies, the Bulgars spread the terror of their hated name throughout the Balkan lands, and were prevented only by the skill of Belisarius from anticipating their Turki kinsmen in the overthrow of the Byzantine Empire itself. Procopius and Jornandes have left terrible pictures of the ferocity, debasement, and utter savagery, both of the Bulgars and of their Slav confederates during the period preceding the foundation of the Bulgar dynasty in Moesia. Wherever the Slavs (Antes, Slavini) passed, no soul was left alive; Thrace and Illyria were strewn with unburied corpses; captives were shut up with horse and cattle in stables, and all consumed together, while the brutal hordes danced to the music of their shrieks and groans. Indescribable was the horror inspired by the Bulgars, who killed for killing's sake, wasted for sheer love of destruction, swept away all works of the human hand, burnt, razed cities, left in their wake nought but a picture of their own cheerless native steppes. Of all the barbarians that harried the Empire, the Bulgars have left the most detested name, although closely rivalled by the Slavs. To the ethnologist the later history of the Bulgarians is of exceptional interest. They entered the Danubian lands in the seventh century as typical Ugro-Finns, repulsive alike in physical appearance and mental characters. Their dreaded chief, Krum, celebrated his triumphs with sanguinary rites, and his followers yielded in no respects to the Huns themselves in coarseness and brutality. Yet an almost complete moral if not physical transformation had been effected by the middle of the ninth century, when the Bulgars were evangelised by Byzantine missionaries, exchanged their rude Ugrian speech for a Slavonic tongue, the so-called "Church Slav," or even "Old Bulgarian," and became henceforth merged in the surrounding Slav populations. The national name "Bulgar" alone survives, as that of a somewhat peaceful southern "Slav" people, who in our time again acquired the political independence of which they had been deprived by Bajazet I. in 1392. Great and Little Bulgaria. Nor did this name disappear from the Volga lands after the great migration of Bulgar hordes to the Don basin during the third and fourth centuries A.D. On the contrary, here arose another and a greater Bulgar empire, which was known to the Byzantines of the tenth century as "Black Bulgaria," and later to the Arabs and Western peoples as "Great Bulgaria," in contradistinction to the "Little Bulgaria" south of the Danube Avars and Magyars. In the same region, but farther north Magyar Origins and early Records. Then came the opportunity of the Hunagars (Hungarians), who, after advancing from the Urals to the Volga (550 A.D.), had reached the Danube about 886. Here they were invited to the aid of the Germanic king Arnulf, threatened by a formidable coalition of the western Slavs under the redoubtable Zventibolg, a nominal Christian who would enter the church on horseback followed by his wild retainers, and threaten the priest at the altar with the lash. In the upland Transylvanian valleys the Hunagars had been joined by eight of the derelict Khazar tribes, amongst whom were the Megers or Mogers, whose name under the form of Magyar was eventually extended to the united Hunagar-Khazar nation. Under their renowned king Arpad, son of Almuth, they first overthrew Zventibolg, and then with the help of the surviving Avars reduced the surrounding Slav populations. Thus towards the close of the ninth century was founded in Pannonia the present kingdom of Hungary, in which After reducing the whole of Pannonia and ravaging Carinthia and Friuli, the Hunagars raided Bavaria and Italy (899-900), imposed a tribute on the feeble successor of Arnulf (910), and pushed their plundering expeditions as far west as Alsace, Lorraine, and Burgundy, everywhere committing atrocities that recalled the memory of Attila's savage hordes. Trained riders, archers and javelin-throwers from infancy, they advanced to the attack in numerous companies following hard upon each other, avoiding close quarters, but wearing out their antagonists by the persistence of their onslaughts. They were the scourge and terror of Europe, and were publicly proclaimed by the Emperor Otto I. (955) the enemies of God and humanity. This period of lawlessness and savagery was closed by the conversion of Saint Stephen I. (997-1038), after which the Magyars became gradually assimilated in type and general culture, but not in speech, to the western nations "The modern Magyars," says Peisker, "are one of the most varied race-mixtures on the face of the earth, and one of the two chief Magyar types of today—traced to the Arpad era [end of ninth century] by tomb-findings—is dolichocephalic with a narrow visage. There we have before us Altaian origin, Ugrian speech and Indo-European type combined Politically the Magyars continue to occupy a position of vital importance in Eastern Europe, wedged in between the FOOTNOTES: |