Note 655 — Chapter VIII

I have not thought it desirable to touch on the interminable controversy respecting the ethnical relations of the Hiung-nu, regarding them, not as a distinct ethnical group, but like the Huns, their later western representatives, as a heterogeneous collection of Mongol, Tungus, Turki, and perhaps even Finnish hordes under a Mongol military caste. At the same time I have little doubt that Mongolo-Tungus elements greatly predominated in the eastern regions (Mongolia proper, Manchuria) both amongst the Hiung-nu and their Yuan-yuan (Sien-pi) successors, and that all the founders of the first great empires prior to that of the Turki Assena in the Altai region (sixth century A.D.) were full-blood Mongols, as indeed recognised by Jenghiz-Khan himself. For the migrations of these and neighbouring peoples, consult A. C. Haddon, The Wanderings of Peoples, 1911, pp. 16 and 28.