Mythologies of the Xiongnu Tribe
The Xiongnu were a confederation of nomadic peoples that lived on the eastern Asian Steppe. Ancient Chinese sources report that the Xiongnu Empire was founded by a leader named Modu Chanyu after 209 BC. Ancient Chinese texts also claim that the Xiongnu had inhabited the steppe since the 3rd century BC. The Xiongnu became a dominant power on the steppes of north-east Central Asia during the 2nd century BC, and their empire lasted until the late 1st century AD. This empire centred on the region that we today know as Mongolia but also encompassed parts of Siberia, Gansu and Xinjiang. The Xiongnu had a complicated relationship with the Chinese dynasties, with periods of hostilities and openly violent conflicts alternating with epochs characterised by mutually beneficial trade and even intermarriages.
The important early Chinese historian Sima Qian (145-90 BCE) gives us one of our earliest glimpses into the lives and culture of the people known to the Han as the Xiongnu. In his Shiji (Record of the Historian), he describes them as a pastoral nomadic people wandering in search of grazing lands for their herds of horses, cows and sheep. He also relates that the Xiongnu had no walled cities and did not engage in agriculture, and that the men were formidable warriors, trained from an early age to hunt on horseback with bow and arrow. Historical records also describe the Xiongnu as skilled charioteers, a characterization supported by the discovery of bronze chariot post filials in archeological excavations. Originating in the northeastern Ordos region, the Xiongnu Empire was the first of its kind on the Eurasian steppe, and serves as a prototype of sorts for the many empires to follow, including that of the Mongols. The Ordos was an important gathering point for the various pastoral peoples of Inner Mongolia, and it is more accurate to describe the Xiongnu as a confederacy of these various groups rather than a single, unified culture. The founder of the Xiongnu confederation was Maodun, the son of a powerful and influential shanyu (high chieftain) among the nomads of the Ordos. After Maodun rose to the ranks of military commander he assassinated his father, and succeeded in unifying the various nomad groups under his leadership.
The Xiongnu 匈奴 were a nomad people living north and northwest of China during the Qin 秦 (221-206 BC) and Han 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) periods. They founded a mighty federation of tribes living in the steppe and continuously endangered the border regions of Han China and the city states of the Silk Road. Emperor Wu 漢武帝 (r. 141-87 BCE) was able to destroy the first Xiongnu empire, so that Chinese troops were able to occupy the Western Territories. Yet in times of Chinese weakness, the Xiongnu rose again. From the 2nd century CE on more and more Xiongnu families migrated eastwards onto Chinese territory and settled down in the modern provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi. Some tribesleaders claiming origin from the Xiongnu founded small empires in northern China during the period of the Sixteen Barbarian kingdoms 十六國 (300~430), especially the Former Zhao 前趙 (304-329), Northern Liang 北涼 (398-439) and Xia 夏 (407-432). Western scholars tried identifying them with the Huns that threatened Europe during the 4th century BCE, but there is no archaeological or historiographical evidence for the Xiongnu’s migration to the west. A Central Asian people invading India in the late 5th century was called Huna or “White Huns” (in Greek Hephthalites, see Yeda 嚈噠). Although there might be similarities in the name of these peoples, it must be considered that the name of a mighty nomad tribe (Mongols, Tartars) was often used for very different ethnic people. Pulleyblank has shown that the language of the Xiongnu – of which a few words and terms are preserved in Chinese literature – was related to the Siberian ethnics (Samoyeds, Kets) in the River Yennisej area, and not to the Mongols or Türks, while the Hun hords of Attila that tried to conquer Europe were surely Proto-Türks.
The Xiongnu language was spoken by a nomadic people who lived throughout Central Asia, what is considered to be modern-day China and Mongolia. Most of the information on this dead language comes from Chinese sources and, surprisingly, there is little translated directly from Xiongnu itself. Instead, most of the language is from Chinese transliterations, and even then, only a handful of titles and a single spoken sentence are available today, and only in Chinese documents. It might come as no surprise, then, that there is no general consensus on Xiongnu as a language. Some scholars argue that it is a Turkish language, while others like Paul Pelliot have insisted that the language actually descends from Mongolia instead. There are also archaeological sites in Yinshan and Helanshan that contain petroglyphs and cave paintings. Scholars like Ma Liqing suggest that these are the only true written forms of the Xiongnu language.
Xiongnu, Wade-Giles Hsiung-nu, nomadic pastoral people who at the end of the 3rd century BCE formed a great tribal league that was able to dominate much of Central Asia for more than 500 years. China’s wars against the Xiongnu, who were a constant threat to the country’s northern frontier throughout this period, led to the Chinese exploration and conquest of much of Central Asia. The Xiongnu first appear in Chinese historical records about the 5th century BCE, when their repeated invasions prompted the small kingdoms of North China to begin erecting what later became the Great Wall. The Xiongnu became a real threat to China after the 3rd century BCE, when they formed a far-flung tribal confederation under a ruler known as the chanyu, the rough equivalent of the Chinese emperor’s designation as the tianzi (“son of heaven”). They ruled over a territory that extended from western Manchuria (Northeast Provinces) to the Pamirs and covered much of present Siberia and Mongolia. The Xiongnu were fierce mounted warriors who were able to muster as many as 300,000 horseback archers on their periodic intrusions into North China, and they were more than a match for the much less-maneuverable chariots of the Chinese. The completion of the Great Wall along the whole of China’s northern frontier during the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) slowed but did not stop the Xiongnu. The early Han dynasty rulers attempted to control them by marrying their leaders to Chinese princesses. But Xiongnu raids against China continued periodically until the Han emperor Wudi (reigned 141/140–87/86 BCE) initiated a fiercely aggressive policy against the nomads, sending expeditions into central China to outflank them and to negotiate alliances with their enemies. These expeditions led to the Chinese conquest of the state of Chosŏn in northern Korea and southern Manchuria and the Chinese exploration of Turkistan.
Between approximately 300 BC and 450 AD, there existed a nomadic group known as the Xiongnu. Their ethnic identity has been greatly contested, but they were a very powerful tribal confederation that were considered a great threat to China. In fact, it was their repeated invasions that prompted the small kingdoms of North China to begin erecting barriers, in what later became the Great Wall of China. The Xiongnu formed their tribal league in the area that is now known as Mongolia. It is believed that they stemmed from the Siberian branch of the Mongolian race, although it has been hotly debated whether they are ethnically Turkic, Mongolic, Yeniseian, Tocharian, Iranian, Uralic, or some mixture. Some say the name “Xiongnu” has the same etymological origin as “Hun,” but this is also controversial. Only a few words from their culture, mostly titles and individual names, were preserved in Chinese sources.
The Xiongnu (Chinese: 匈奴; pinyin: Xiōngnú; Wade-Giles: Hsiung-nu); were a nomadic people from Central Asia, generally based in present day Mongolia and China. From the third century B.C.E. they controlled a vast steppe empire extending west as far as the Caucasus. They were active in the areas of southern Siberia, western Manchuria and the modern Chinese provinces of Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang. Very ancient (perhaps legendary) historic Chinese records say that the Xiongnu descended from a son of the final ruler of China’s first dynasty, the Xia Dynasty, the remnants of which were believed by the Chinese of the Spring and Autumn Period to be the people of the state of Qǐ (杞). However, due to internal differences and strife, the Xiongnu fled north and north-west. Relations between the Han Chinese and the Xiongnu were complicated. Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (r. 221 – 206 B.C.E.), who unified China under the Qin, built the Great Wall, extending 2,600 miles from modern Gansu Province in the west to the Liaodong Peninsula in the east, to defend China from the cavalry raids of the Xiongnu. Eventually the Han and the Xiongnu reached a peace settlement which included trade and marriage treaties and periodic gifts to the Xiongnu in exchange for the recognition of the Great Wall as a mutual border. This proved too costly and ineffective, and a series of conflicts between 133 B.C.E. and 89 C.E. culminated in the Han driving the northern Xiongnu beyond the Caspian Sea. Following the fall of the Han dynasty, the Xiongnu controlled much of northern China. In 304, a Sinicized Xiongnu, Liu Yuan, proclaimed himself Emperor of Han. In 391, the Wei dynasty defeated a powerful Xiongnu tribe and forced the survivors to give up their nomadic ways. By the T’ang dynasty, the Xiongnu culture had disappeared. Some historians believe that the Huns originated from the Xiongnu.
Most of what we know about the Xiongnu comes from Chinese historical sources, which are usually depicted negatively. It is not surprising as the Xiongnu and the Chinese had a history of conflict with each other. According to Chinese historian Sima Qian, the Xiongnu are the descendants of a person named Chunwei, who may have been a son of Jie, the last ruler of China’s first dynasty, the Xia Dynasty. There is no direct evidence, however, to support this theory. Furthermore, historical evidence of the Xia Dynasty itself is limited. The Xiongnu’s origin is in the Ordos Desert, located in the northern parts of present-day China. As for the language of the Xiongnu, scholars are divided. Some believe that the Xiongnu spoke a Turkic language, while others believe their language was of Mongolic origin. One reason that it is so difficult to ascertain what language the Xiongnu spoke is that they left almost no evidence of writing. The only writing attributed to the Xiongnu is rock art consisting of petroglyphs and a few painted images found in present-day northern China. Some scholars have compared the petroglyphs to the Orkhon script, the earliest known Turkic alphabet, and have suggested that the two are connected. There is also no agreement on the ethnic origins of the Xiongnu. However, the latest scholarly research on the subject points to the likelihood that they were heterogeneous, meaning that they were composed of various groups.
Xiongnu was a multi-ethnic nomadic grouping from Central Asia which existed between about 300 BCE and 450 CE. The Xiongnu were based in what is now Mongolia and frequently raided south into China. They were such a threat that the first Qin Dynasty emperor, Qin Shi Huang, ordered the construction of huge fortifications along the northern border of China—fortifications that later were expanded into the Great Wall of China. Scholars have long debated the ethnic identity of the Xiongnu: Were they a Turkic people, Mongolian, Persian, or some mixture? In any case, they were a warrior people to be reckoned with. One ancient Chinese scholar, Sima Qian, wrote in the “Records of the Grand Historian” that the last emperor of the Xia Dynasty, who ruled sometime around 1600 BCE, was a Xiongnu man. However, it is impossible to prove or disprove this claim. Be that as it may, by 129 BCE, the new Han Dynasty decided to declare war against the troublesome Xiongnu. (The Han sought to re-establish trade along the Silk Road to the west and the Xiongnu made this a difficult task.) The balance of power between the two sides shifted over the next few centuries, but the Northern Xiongnu were driven out of Mongolia after the Battle of Ikh Bayan (89 CE), while the Southern Xiongnu were absorbed into Han China.
The Xiongnu (Chinese: 匈奴; pinyin: Xiōngnú, [ɕjʊ́ŋ.nǔ]) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 209 BC, founded the Xiongnu Empire. After overthrowing their previous overlords, the Yuezhi, the Xiongnu became the dominant power on the steppes of East Asia, centred on the Mongolian Plateau. The Xiongnu were also active in areas now part of Siberia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang. Their relations with adjacent Chinese dynasties to the south-east were complex—alternating between various periods of peace, war, and subjugation. Ultimately, the Xiongnu were defeated by the Han dynasty in a centuries-long conflict, which led to the confederation splitting in two, and forcible resettlement of large numbers of Xiongnu within Han borders. During the Sixteen Kingdoms era, as one of the “Five Barbarians“, they founded several dynastic states in northern China, such as the Former Zhao and Hu Xia.
The Xiongnu, who are the ancient ancestors of the Mongols of today, was the First Empire to be established by the nomadic people living in the grasslands of Central Asia. The Xiongnu Empire occupied a vast territory extending north and south from Yellow River to Lake Baikal, and east and west from Manchuria to Altai Mountains. The Xiongnu Empire was one of the most powerful empires within Asia and interacted with the Han Dynasty, linking the eastern and western worlds by controlling the main part of the great Silk Road. Researchers are in wide agreement that the unique civilization of nomads of Mongolia and Central Asia was founded by the Xiongnu people. In Mongolia alone, there are over 5000 elite and small circular tombs, and 10 archaeological remains of settlements, and countless examples of rock art.
Funeral Sites of the Xiongnu Elite
The Xiongnu were an Inner Asian people who formed an empire, a state entity encompassing a multiethnic, multicultural, and polyglot population. The ruling elite of this empire were, for the most part, pastoralists. However, the empire also possessed a substantial agrarian base. In the late 3rd and early 2nd centuries BCE, the Xiongnu created the first empire to unify much of Inner Asia. The Xiongnu Empire stretched from Manchuria in the east to the Aral Sea in the west, from the Baikal region in the north to the Ordos and Gansu regions of China in the south. In the 2nd century BCE, the Xiongnu also subjected the Han Empire of China to tribute payments. However, late in that century, the Han broke the heqin policy of engagement with the Xiongnu and began a long struggle for supremacy with its northern foe. Political instability arising from protracted struggles over the imperial succession gradually undermined the Xiongnu Empire. In the middle of the first century CE, the state splintered into two halves: the Northern Xiongnu and the Southern Xiongnu. The Southern Xiongnu later conquered Northern China in the early 4th century CE, while the remnants of the Northern Xiongnu became the political and cultural forebears of the later Huns of western Eurasia.
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