Late Huns in the Carpathian basin
The European Hun Empire, which determinates the late ancient European politics, established its centre in the Carpathian basin, from where Hun Emperors governed both the Eastern and Western wings. 1
The late ancient chronicles gave us a detailed report on Attila’s deeds and campaigns. Unfortunately, only some fragments remained on those Huns, who settled down in the Carpathian basin. In the second half of the 19th century some Western-European historians created a special theory on the fast disappearance of the Huns from there, but it lacked any real evidences.
In my paper I am trying exploring the traces of the Huns in the Carpathian basin or former Hungarian Kingdom. I recline upon some late ancient sources and Hungarian historical chronicles of Middle Ages, reports of contemporary Byzantine and Gothic sources and I used archaeological findings and anthropological surveys.
Introduction
Regarding some questions of the Late Huns some dogmas and misbelieves, which have been created in the 19th century, make orientations difficult for the historians. Although some Hungarian scholars wanted to make the question of the history of the late Huns clear using own Medieval Hungarian sources, but their theories were not taken into consideration by academic scholars. In the 21st century – using modern technology and discovering huge amount archaeological findings and historical sources - we need to rethink the life and history of the Late Huns in the Carpathian basin.
The first Hungarian royal clan, or Arpad traditionally originated from Scythia or Maeotis-swamp, and it was the centre of Attila’s youngest son, Irnek, who settled down there after the great Gothic and Hunnic war in 454. It was an ancient centre of steppe people, from Cimmerians to the Hungarians.
Arpad, the great-prince of Hungary was the descendant of Attila. Every historical source and legal document of that time proved our historical traditions. After 1850, when the Hungarians lost war against the Habsburgs, the winning Austrian officials wanted to change the Hungarian identity and cancelled the heroic history of the rebellious Magyars and tore the Hungarians from their “original” alliances or Turks forcing them into an artificial, so called “Finno-Ugrian” relationship.
The Hungarians “received” not only a new linguistic theory from the Austrians, but also Hunfalvy who violently changed the ancient history of the Huns and Hungarians using the publications of some German positivist historians. He stated that the Huns –after the Battle of Nedao in 454 - suddenly disappeared from the Carpathian-basin without leaving any traces, and their territory was occupied by German or Gothic “nation”. His theory was based upon Jordanes who reported the following: “After Ellac had been slain, his remaining brothers were driven fleeing to near the shore of the Sea of Pontus, where we have said the Goths first settled.” 2 Jordanes even says that Hernac, the youngest son of
1 The western wing stretches from present-day Austria to Rhone-river, the eastern wing stretches from Tisa-river to Caucasus-mountain.
Attila settled down far Scythia (today: Dagestan)3. It accedes to the Hungarian chronicles4 which recorded Attila’s most favourite son (Chaba) and his followers, namely 15 thousand men, had returned to his relatives to Scythia5.
„So Chaba and his sixty brothers and their 15 thousand men went to his uncle, Honorius Emperor, who ruled the Eastern Romanian throne of that time. But Honorius wanted to settle down them in Greeceland. They didn’t stay there, but returned to Scythia, centre of ancestor’s land to live there. ”6
Some German and Hungarian historians claimed that along with Chaba the whole population of the Huns left the Carpathian-basin; they did not consider the fact of the sources, which tells that only the royal descendants and their guides fled eastward, so the Huns could leave their homeland. Based upon this theory, each finding from the second half of the 5th century was identified as Gepids by archaeologists, although the treasures show steppe impacts.
After the Battle of Nedao
The most Hungarian historians do not accept the reports of the Medieval Hungarian sources which recorded surviving Huns in the Carpathian basin. Despite of its historical concept, Jordanes mentioned some groups of Huns and their allied tribes, Sarmatians, there.
First of all, let us investigate Jordanes’s records on the history of the Carpathian basin. His main work, called Getica, reported the events after the death of Attila in details. The main part deals with only those parts of the Carpathian basin which were under control of the former Roman Empire. The Hungarian historian, Ferenc Salamon, emphasises that the late ancient sources usually focused on two big territories – Pannonia and Illyricum, which were under foreign (Goth and Gepid) occupations. Jordanes says that the allied forces or Goth-Gepids and Huns-Sarmatians wanted to obtain dominion over the Hunnic territories and they fought near a so-called Nedao-river around 454, where Hunnic forces lost. Nobody knows exactly, where this battle took places, only Tarihi Üngürüs supposes that it must happened near the former Hunnic capital, or Sicambria and says that the bet of the battle was the occupation of Pannonia. 7
It is likely that the place was close to Tarnokvolgy, or the present-day Kajaszo8, where big Hunnic troops won over Roman forces in the end of the 4th century. 9
3 In the late ancient time two places are called Lesser-Scythia. One is modern Dagestan. Strabon
recorded when Scythians moved westward and reached Danube-delta, this territory got the same name or Lesser Scythia.
4 Hungarian historical chronicles of the Middle Ages as Kezai Simon’s chronicle, Chronicum Pictum
and Thuroczy-chronicle
5 Hernac, the younger son of Attila, with his followers, chose a home in the most distant part of
Lesser Scythia. Jordanes, L. 266. http://www.harbornet.com/folks/theedrich/Goths/Goths2.htm 6 Chronica Pictum, 20.
7 Salamon, 1882. 1. Tarihi Üngürüs, 112-113.
8 Kajaszo is a small village in Fejer country, near Martonvasar city.
Although lots of historians read from a short report that the Nedao battle sealed the fate of the Huns in the Carpathian basin, Jordanes mentions that it was not the only one battle between the two parts but it was the beginning of the long-lasting Hunnic-Gothic war. Jordanes himself enumerated at least two big Hunnic campaigns against the Goths, led by Dengizich, the second son of Attila. One of them directed to Bassiana: „When Dengizich, king of the Huns, a son of Attila, learned this, he gathered to him the few who still seemed to have remained under his sway, namely, the Ultzinzures, and Angisciri, the Bittugures and the Bardores. Coming to Bassiana, a city of Pannonia.”10
Because Dengizich was not able to get back the former Hunnic territories, Jordanes summarised the Gothic-Hunnic war in the following way ”the tribe of the Huns had finally been subdued by the Goths.” 11
It does not mean that the Huns moved or disappeared from there in masses but that they had been subdued by foreign powers and they lost chief-power in that region. According to Jordanes, Salamon thought that not only the whole territories of Carpathian basin became subdued by the Goths, but also Pannonia and later Moesia, Dacia, or the southern part of the former Roman provinces.
Historians consider Pannonia as a Gothic „ethnic” territory where German tribes despised their feet after the collapse of the Great European Hunnic Empire. Actually, the Goths and Gepids and later the Longobards did not form a clear ethnic block because Scythians, Celts, Romans and Huns lived among them who allied in some military purposes. Ammianus Marcellinus mentioned that Sarmatians and Quads allied against the Romans in the middle of the 4th century. 12
We must pay attention to the fact that the Goths reaching the Eastern-European Plain accepted the Scythian way of life, the customs, the clothing and the military tactics. That is why they were called Scythians. 13 The strong Scythian impact is reflected on their material culture. Unfortunately, in the last century some scholars believed that the Goths were not influenced by the Scythians but it was the evidence of the German people’s highly developed art. 14
The presence of the Huns in the Carpathian basin was proved by Frankish chronicles. Peter Király has published some historical sources which dealt with inhabitants of Pannonia in the course of the 6th century. According to a Meroving source, in the year of 561/562 Hungari lived there.15 It is not the only one data on Hungari or Hungarus, because other western sources also mentioned them under such names! The presence of Hungarus proves not only that Huns survived and lived continuously after the collapse of the Hunnic Empire, but also that Hungarians came to the Carpathian basin at last along with the Huns in the 4th century.
10 Jordanes, Getica LIII. 263. Bassiana was a late ancient city in Pannonia Secunda, or southern part
of former Hungarian Kingdom. 11 Jordanes, Getica, LIII. 273.
12 Ammianus Marcelinus, 17:12
13 Wolfram, 1988. 28.
14 Bóna, 1974. 48-49.
Connecting to Dengizich’s western invasion, nobody realised a very important point of view: he reached Pannonia or the territory beyond the river Danube that no foreign troops wanted to stop him, but according to some historians in some in-between lands– beyond the river Tisa or Transsylvania - Gepids, or the enemy of the Huns lived. However, that he passed over unimpeded up to the Danube means that alliance tribes must have lived in those territories. We have only one data, which live between River Tisa and the Danube: the Sarmatians, who are considered as the allied of the Huns, lived there under King Babai’s leadership. So, we need to investigate the so called Gepid Empire in the Carpathian basin, because this question brings us closer to the question of the remaining Hunnic people.
First of all let us read Jordanes’s report on them: „But the Gepids, by force taking over the Huns’ land for themselves, ruled as victors over the extent of all Dacia, demanding of the Roman Empire nothing more than peace and, as vigorous strongmen, an annual gift, given their friendly alliance.”16
„Now when the Goths saw the Gepids defending for themselves the territory of the Huns and the people of the Huns occupying the Goths’ own ancient abodes, they preferred to ask for lands from the Roman Empire rather than to invade the lands of others with danger to themselves. So they received Pannonia, which stretches in a long plain, being bounded on the east by Upper Moesia, on the south by Dalmatia, on the west by Noricum and on the north by the Danube.”17
But the Sauromats, whom we call Sarmatians, and the Cemandri and certain of the Huns inhabited part of Illyricum near the city of Castra Martis as settlement areas given them.18 We must deal with Dacia, since it is one key point of the survival of the Hunnic settlements in the Carpathian basin. Most Hungarian historians and archaeologists state that Dacia existed in Transsylvania and it served as a centre of the new Gepidian Kingdom. It is true that Dacia as a Roman province situated in Eastern-Transsylvania in the 2nd-3rd centuries. Around 280, after the Goth-Sarmatian invasion, it was evacuated and their Roman inhabitants were resettled in Illyricum, or present-day Voyvodina (Serbia). It was one of the richest Roman provinces, where military and trade routes passed over. Occupying and controlling over it brought a vast income for everybody, namely Huns and lately, Gepids.
We need to clear the position of the late ancient Dacia, what Jordanes meant, because the above mentioned historians and archaeologists insisted on his report and based their theory on his report. Jordanes describes Dacia as the following: Its southern neighbour is Dalmatia, eastern is Moesia, northern neighbour is Noricum. The centre of this territory is situated between Sava and Danube-river and some parts stretched northern bank of Danube-river.19 According to the ancient Roman division, Dacia contains Pannonia Savia and Pannonia Secunda. Besides Jordanes, some late ancient authors, e.g. Procopius mentioned Dacia in the same place, and he emphasises its capital was Sirmium on the bank of Sava-river. 20 We must notice that Bayan khagan, the Emperor of Avars, entered
16 Jordanes, Getica L. 264.
17 Jordanes, Getica L. 264.
18 Jordanes, Getica L. 265.
19 Jordanes, Getica L. 265.
the Carpathian basin, fought against Gepids at Sirmium in 568. If Gepids had lived in Transsylvania, the battle between Avars and Gepids would have happened on the Eastern gate of the Carpathian basin.
So, there are not any sources that could prove the existence of the Gepidian Empire neither in Transsylvania nor in the heart of the present-day Hungary. Even, in the Gepidian Kingdom Huns did not disappear, but they survived with other people, like the Sarmatians, the Celts and the Romans. Transsylvania was not a part of the Gepidian Kingdom, they occupied the territory of the former Pannonia Savia and Pannonia Secunda Huns and Sarmatians also live. Jordanes reports the following:
„Emnetzur and Ultzindur, kinsmen of his, won Utus and Scus and Almus in Dacia on the bank of the Danube, and many of the Huns, then swarming everywhere, betook themselves into the Roman Empire, and from them the Sacromontisi and the Fossatisii of this day are said to be descended.”21
„But the Sauromatć, whom we call Sarmatians, and the Cemandri and certain of the Huns inhabited part of Illyricum near the city of Castra Martis as settlement areas given them.22 Of this race was Bliwila Duke of Pentapolis and his brother Froila and also Bessa, a Patrician of our day.”23
We take a look at a place named Almus. It is likely that it got its name after the local Hunnic ruler, Almos. We can find the same name in Hungarian chronicles, he was the first king of Hungarian tribes, but the name can be found among Volga Bulgarians (Almis).
Huns in present-day Hungary
Most European and Hungarian archaeologists highly emphasises the role of Goths and Gepids after the collapse of the Great Hun Empire, and claim that they populated the Eastern part of the Carpathian basin, namely Tiszántúl (beyond Tisza), Northern-Transsylvania and the Great Plain after 453. Some scholars persist in this theory, despite the archaeologist Bona, who draws attention to some unsolved problems connecting with the early history of German settlements. It is not clear where the early Gepids were concentrated before the invasion of the Huns. Bona supposes that they could have lived in the middle part of Tisza-river. 24
Archaeologists and historians have made lots of mistakes since the end of the 19th century. The biggest one is that they do not count with the survival of the Huns in the Carpathian basin believing the theory that after Attila’s death the Huns moved from there. The second problem is that Goths and Gepids are considered as „clear” ethnical units, and they did not take into account that getting chief-power does not mean that other ethnic groups or tribes would disappear. Neither today nor in the Middle Ages clear ethnic blocks did not exist in Eastern Europe. In the Hunnic Empire also different kinds of people such as Germans, Romans and steppe lived together. Some scholars drew attention to the necessity of the re-evaluation of the relationship between the Gothic and the Scythian-Hunnic tribes and also their mutual connections in the field of material and intellectual cultures. According to our knowledge, the Goths left their Scandinavian homeland and gradually moved southward
21 Jordanes, Getica L. 266.
22 Jordanes, Getica L. 265.
23 Jordanes, Getica L. 265.
and reached the Scythian territories and tribes. They were influenced a lot so that some ancient sources considered Gepids or Goths Scythians.25 The Austrian scholar, Wolfram stated the position of the German tribes in the Eastern-European plain as: „Beset by foreign peoples and by the ethnically related Gepids, the royal Scyths probably remerged as the Greutungi or Ostrogoth. Both designations are names the same tribes: the Greatungi are steppe-dwellers.”26
By the end of the 4th century Goths and Gepids became „Scythians” in the Eastern-European plain. It means that they had learnt horse riding skills and fighting methods from the Scythians and additionally they accepted their special way of life. The same happened in other fields such as in the organisation of their society and their art. The Hungarian historian, Péter Váczy reasserts this impact; he suggests that around 250 AD the Goths who moved to Pontus and the Lower-Danube steppe were influenced by Sarmatians. They learnt special Hun-Sarmatian polychrome style and others. 27
Agreeing with the above mentioned process, János Harmatta also suggests that the Goths accepted the Hunnic symbols of power, and some titles and names also appeared among them. 28
So, Goths moving gradually westward, brought and spread Hunnic elements of art to Western-Europe and it determined the „barbaric” or late Roman fashion up to the end of the 6th century. From the Eastern European findings scholars of the 19th century thought they were originallyGerman style that was taken over by the Huns. The Western scholars drew attention to their mistakes saying that the findings do not belong to Germans but Huns and Sarmatians, and their origin drew back to Central Asia, to the western slopes of the Altai Mountain.
Earlier Russians have published some findings, e.g. Bernshtam excavated some polychrome-style Hunnic objects and he concluded that the Gothic fashion had not existed among the Huns before 375.29 The same observation was made by the Hungarian archaeologist, Nándor Fettich in the 1940’s.30 In the past few years Alexander Koch has presented a paper on this topic, where he has showed that the Far-Eastern origin of the polychrome style is in Boma, the western part of Xinjiang province, China. He has also emphasised that the Goths brought this fashion to Western Europe even up to Belgium, where it survived until the 6th century.31
Along with Nándor Fettich and János Harmatta, those archaeologists also expressed criticism who intended to narrow the period of the Hunnic findings between the years of 375-453, although their significant parts extended up to the 6th century. 32He stated – referring to Fettich- that from the archaeological findings in the near of the Tisa-river can
25 Wolfram, 1988. 28. 26 Wolfram, 1988. 86. 27 Váczy,1940. 125. 28 Harmatta,, 1951. 6. 29 Bernstam, 1946. 30 Fettich, 1951. 78. 31 Koch, 2008. 67. 32 Harmatta, 1951. 4.
be shown the surviving Hunnic metallurgy even in the Avar period, probably Huns remained there. 33
As I mentioned above, foreign and Hungarian archaeologists listed almost every finding from 453 to 568 as Gepids. They evolved theories of the so-called „ethnical” characters, e.g. fibula and bone-combs. Objects made in polychrome style and those vessels which were originated in the steppe mythology have not been taken into consideration. They took no notice of Fettich’s observation and of the fact that the remnants of the Hunnic tribes and people usually made their objects from silver after the collapse of the Great Hun Empire since they had no chance to get such a huge amount of noble metal, than in Attila’s time. 34 I refer to the treasures of Szilágysomlyó or Apahida which remind us to Hunnic art, but they were listed among the Gepid ones, but their richness and characters of the objects remind us of the Huns.
Shortly I make some comments to the above mentioned ethnical characters. These objects did not belong to the Goths or Gepids but to other steppe tribes who lived in the Carpathian basin or in the Eastern European plain. Sarmatians, Scythians and even western Romans had also used these objects before the Goths. 35 The same observation is related to the bone-combs. Earlier steppe dwellers also used that, they used them not only as an everyday tool but also as sacrificial objects. Moreover, it is clear that the Goths and Gepids borrowed lots of motifs and ornaments from the rulers of the steppe.
We must mention the anthropologicalresults of the research of the Late Hunnic period in Hungary. Anthropologists while searching anthropological features in Gepidian graves got an interesting result.
They stated that there are big differences between the early and late Gepidians. „Among Gepids early period Nordic or Northern types were dominant, and they mixed with Huns and Alans and some transitive or mixed types were formed.”36 It means that in the Carpathian basin the Gepids did not retain their Nordic type but gradually lost it and assimilated into the Scythian or/ and Hunnic types.
The anthropologists have found slight Mongoloid characters in lots of Gepidian graves which prove an Eastern- or Inner-Asian influence. Among the 5-6th century so-called Gepidian graves Eastern-European types can be found and can be related with Sarmatians or Scythians who populated in that territory. The gracil-Gediterraen types referred to Roman population who also survived the collapse of their Empire and settled down in some villages or cities of the Huns. Anthropologists discovered such Turanic traces which did not belong to Gepids but steppe people as Scythians and Huns.
Despite the anthropological evidences, which showed surviving Scythian-Hunnic types of people in Hungary, the archaeologists based their theory upon the fact that European skulls belonged to only Gepids who were the only, non-Asian population. 37
33 Harmatta, 1951. 5.
34 Fettich, 1951. 77.
35 Fibula can be found even in the early Etrusk graves.
36 Bóna, 1974. 33-34. According to great Hungarian anthropologists as Kiszely István, Bartucz Lajos,
Malán Mihály, Tóth Tibor 37 Holló, 2009. 14.
They insisted on an old pre-concept that Huns were mostly Mongoloids. This theory is not accepted among scientists now; we have huge portrayals of Central Asian and Inner Asian Huns, where they had European characters. Moreover, Hunnic graves in Mongolia contains European characters, certainly they had a few Mongolian ones, too. According to the Mongolian anthropologists in the Hunnic Empire at least six types of anthropological characters could be differed. As Tumen presented her research, in the Western and Central part of present-day Mongolia European characters were dominant, 38 it means that European characters in Carpathian basin also refers to Huns and Scythians, not only Gepids or Goths.
The Hungarian archaeologists have made another big mistake. They listed as Gepids those skulls on which an artificial skull distortion could be observed.39 Some scholars noticed that this custom was specific among the Sarmatians and those Huns who brought it from the Central Asian Scythian civilisation. They are unable to find out why only Gepidians inherited this foreign custom. 40
I assume that most Gepidian graves belonged to Huns and Sarmatians who did not escape from Hungary but they lived scattered, in clans or in tribal communities.
As a consequence of the above mentioned we can find evidences of surviving Huns in the former Hungarian Kingdom, too.
Huns in Moldavia
I have mentioned Jordanes’s notice above, the fact, that Dengizich led some military campaigns in Pannonia 41 refers to his near settlement. Some historians think that he was the ruler of Kutrigur Huns who established his centre in Moldavia (Bessarabia). 42 According to some points of view, he was allied with the Onogurs who also lived at the Eastern border of the Carpathian-basin. 43
It is likely that the Onogurs are equivalent with the Hungarus or Hungarians who remained in Pannonia after the collapse of the Hunnic Empire. In the Hungarian literature József Thury drew attention to the question of Onogurs, 44 or Hungarians. Bolgarians were never mentioned as Onogurs. We can find only one reference for the Bolgarian-Onogur connection, namely Kovrat’s reign, when he led Onogundur-Bolgars to a new homeland, where “Onogundur” meant „belonged to Onogurs”. Osman Karatay held Onogur as the early name of Hungarians, so did Péter Király, who identified the name of Hungars and Onogurs only with Hungarians.
38 Tümen, 2011. 374.
39 Holló, 2009. 17.
40 Bóna, 1974. 34. Wolfram, 1988. 34.
41 This campaign has taken place in 456, when Dengizich suddenly attacked Gothic Walamir, other
Goths hadn’t heard about that. Jordanes, Getica L. 268. 42 Bury, 1958. 302.
43 Bury, 1958. 302. Kutrigurs closely allied with Bulgarians or Onogundurs (Belongs to Onogurs)
44 Among Eastern sources, only Byzantine do not spell “h” voice in front of the words, that is why they
Nobody identified the Dengizich centre. In February 2010 Ukrainian scholars found a royal kurgan near the Yalpug-lake, 45 and some professionals think that it belonged to Dengizich or some Attila’s sons.
In the territory of Moldva and the neighbouring Moldavia we can find some traces which refer to the ancient name of Hungarians or Onogurs. Onglos was a geographic name of a part of Moldavia in the 8th-century Byzantine sources. Most scholars think that it was Asparukh’s centre from 678 to 680, before he occupied a homeland of ancient Scythians. As Theophanes recorded: „At last the third of them (the brothers), called Asparukh, after crossing Dnepr and Dnestr rivers which are to the north of Danube, and after capturing the Oglos (Onglos), settled in the lands between it and the aforementioned rivers, because he noticed that that place was protected and difficult to attack from any side; being swampy in the front and from the other sides - surrounded by a ring of rivers, it offered great security against enemies for the weakened by the parting people”46
Nikephoros also mentioned Onglos or Oglos: „And the emperor Constantine, learning that a ungodly and filthy people settled in the lands beyond the Danube, in the Oglos, and that they attack and devastate the lands near the Danube, i.e. the presently held by them country, previously held by the Christians, was very upset and ordered for the departure of all troops to Thrace.”47
Academic scholars have not accepted Onglos or Oglos as a settlement or place of the ancient Hungarians, although this place is equivalent with Etelkuzu or the former territory of the Hungarians, before entered the Carpathian-basin48 in order to get back Attila’s sacred land. Among scholars, Bolgarian Zlatarski and Péter Király agreed that Onglos or Oglos refers to the name of the Hungarians in the course of 7th century. 49
We have additional sources of the Hungarian appearance in Moldavia. Byzantine sources recorded Nicephoros’s campaign against Krum in 811. When they reached the Dnieper, Bolgars got help from local „vegre” or „egre” people who were identified as a group of Hungarians. 50
During 818-820 Omurtag, the King of Bolgars led a campaign against Hungarians, who lived along the lower Dnieper.51 We can assume that in the territory of Moldavia (Etelkuzu) Hungarian tribes lived not only in the end of the 9th century but at least a century earlier. We do not have a decision whether it was the centre of the Hungarians or it served as a wing. The Hunnic and Hungarian history is also connected there.
Seklers, descendants of Huns
45 Ukrainian archaeologists think this magnificent finding belongs to Dengzich or any other son of
royal Hunnic clan in the 5th century.
46 Theophanes, 358.
47 Nikephoros, 34.
48 Etelkuzu is mentioned by Byzantine Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, the real place name of
Hungarian land is Hungaria.
49 Király Péter’s head word for Onglos/Oglos. In: Bartha-Erdélyi, 2005. 327-328.
50 Király, 2006. 132, 134.
Westward to Moldavia, in the eastern part of Carpathian basin a special community lives who has preserved their Hunnic origin until now. The Hungarian chronicles from the Middle Ages also confirm their ancient origin. According to them, after the Nedao battle, 3000 Huns decided to move eastward and settled down Chigle-plain52 and they got a new name: Sekler, and they preserve the Hunnic heritage. As the Chronicle Pictum records: „Only 3000 men remained from those Huns, who fled after Krimhild’s battle. They decided to gather in Chigel-Plain. Fearing from unexpected western attacks that’s why they went to Transylvania and they called themselves not Hungarus, but chose another name, or Seklers... These Seklers are the remnants of Huns and until the returning of Hungarians settled down the above mentioned place.” 53
We have no other sources for the purpose of this group there. If we want to know it, we must find some ethnographic analogies of related tribes. Some Inner Asian Hun related tribes, Turks, Mongols, Khitan and even Korean have preserved an ancient cult of great kings. They erected special memorial places where they commemorated on their material and intellectual heritages. Not only in history, but also until nowadays we can find a place where this ancient cult is a living tradition, a part of some groups of people – it is Ordos, were a group of Mongols – or Shara Darkhats- preserved the ancient cults of bow-stretching people. It is likely, that the Seklers went on such a tradition and erected some sacrificial places in Seklerland, e.g. Budvar, which was their centre of ancient cults.54 According to the Chiki Sekler chronicle55 they elected a “rabonban” who stood above them and facilitate the ceremony. One of their sacrificial tools was a cup. This is not an outstanding object, but a widespread tool of sacrifice throughout the great Eurasian steppe.56 In Seklerland Balázs Orbán collected numerous ancient traditions of the Huns and Attila. Some places are also connected with them, such as Reka’s grave or Attila’s route, but we have a legend of Irnek’ sword, etc. 57
In the past two centuries lots of publications have been printed on the Seklers. The local, or Sekler-origin researchers proved similarities between their ancient customs with Scythians and Huns, but Pál Hunfaly attacked this ancient tradition in the end of the 19th century and created a new one. He stated that the Seklers are not the remains of the Huns, but frontier-guides who were settled by some late Hungarian kings. He presented strange evidence as if it was a historical source. He mentioned Andras II privilege for Saxonians, where Pechenegs served as frontier-guides of Hungarians and he added the following: “probably Seklers has the same function”. 58It is not historical evidence but only an assumption. So, this strange theory is not considered related to the ancient history of the Seklers.
Balázs Orbán said the following: „The ancient inhabitants of Seklerland had no any writings of privileges from Hungarian kings, because they homeland posses not by
52 Chigle is equvalent to Chik-basin in Seklerland.
53 Chronica Pictum, 23.
54 Orbán, 1868. 60-61.
55 Orbán, 1868. 61. He refers to Chiki Sekler Chronicle.
56 Such a cup can be seen in Idols (Balbal) in the vas Eurasian steppe.
57 We can find this place in Orbán Balázs’s main work or Descriptions of Seklerland. He has gathered
legends connecting to this sacred land. 58 Hunfalvy, 1878. 301-302..
privileges, but by inheritance according to ancient Sekler constitution, which is earlier than the Hungarian Kingdom.”59
Elek Jakab, the Hungarian-Sekler historian also refused Hunfalvy’s theory. He wanted to discover relatives of Seklers among the Hungarian population that is why he visited those groups that consider themselves as the descendants of Huns and Avars. Together with some scholars he drew the conclusion that the Seklers have a strong connection with the Paloc and the people of Gochey.60 According to his point of view, they did not wander throughout the Carpathian basin or were made to settle down by royal decrees, but they are the remnants of those Huns who survived and stayed in their ancient land. Arpad, the leader of the joint Hungarian forces, did not lead a war to them61 rather they concluded an alliance.
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