The Khazars and Huns.—The evidence derived from the use of the term Khaghan, or Khan, so diagnostic of the Turk and Mongol families, is wanting in respect to the Huns of Attila. Neither he nor his brother is anywhere so designated.
On the other hand, it is erroneous to suppose that the Huns of Attila are the only Huns of history. The Byzantine historians—even writers who say little or nothing about Attila,—deal with the name Hun, as a well-known and recognised geographical or ethnological term, applied to the tribes between the Don and Volga. Hence they speak of sections of the Hun nation.
The most satisfactory of these is the identification of the Akatir with the Huns—Ἀκατίροις Οὔννοις—Priscus.
Now the Akatir are, undoubtedly, the Khazars, since the intermediate form Ἀκαζίροι occurs; the Greek form of Khazars being Χάζαροι.
Hence, the reasoning runs thus—that the Huns of Attila were what the Huns of Priscus were;—that one of these Hun tribes was the Khazar tribe. What were the Khazars? The Khazars were Turks from the East. Τούρκοι ἀπὸ τῆς ἑώας, οὓς Χαζάρας ὀνομάζουσι, Theophanes, the first author who names them, denoting them thus. In respect to their history, the Khazars appear as the Avars wane in importance. It was by an alliance with the Khazars, indeed, that Heraclius, as stated above, freed himself from those formidable enemies. From A.D. 626, until the tenth century, the Khazars and Petchinakhi (Πατζινακῖται) are the most formidable enemies to the Goths of the Crimea, and to the Russians of the Dnieper.
If these affiliations be correct, the Turks are one of the oldest material influences that have acted on the history of the world, as well as one of the greatest; the Turk division being the probable ethnological position for the Massagetæ, Sakæ, Cimmerii, Alani, Huns, and Avars, and other less important conquerors. To distribute the still older tribes of Scythia is a matter of minute ethnology, for which the present work will not allow room. The usual notices, however, of the Turk nations, taken from the Chinese records, should not be omitted.
The Hiong-nou.—Under this name a conquering nation, conterminous with China, and against which the Chinese wall had been built, appears in the annals of the dynasty of Han; between B.C. 163 and A.D. 196. These are the Hiong-nou of De Guignes and Gibbon.
The Hiun-yu.—Under the dynasty of Shang, which is supposed to have reigned from B.C. 1766 to B.C. 1234, Klaproth finds notice of a people thus denominated. He considers that they were ancestors of the Hiong-nou.
I give these two names for what they have been believed by better judges than myself to denote—not for what I believe myself. The only fact which to me seems incontestible is that, at an early period in the Chinese history, a non-Chinese nation was known under the name of Hiong-nu.