Man, Past and Present by Agustus Henry Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, Alfred Court Haddon (free reads .TXT) 📕

CHAPTER IX(THE NORTHERN MONGOLS (continued))

 

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.

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