In the winter of 681 to 682, Bishop Israyēl crossed the Caucasus to the Huns north of Derbent. The Armenian History of the Caucasian Albanians sets down the rites that he heard and saw there among the people the History calls Huns.[1] Over their dead the Huns beat drums and whistled.[2] They cut their cheeks and limbs with sabres and daggers. At the graves they fought with swords, man against man and troop against troop, all stripped for battle.[2] Numerous groups wrestled with each other and galloped their horses, wheeling this way and that.[2] The History does not say on which day any of it took place. It names no dead man.[2]

The mission of Bishop Israyēl

In the sixty-second year of the Arab kingdom, a year that began in September 681, Varaz-Trdat, the prince of Albania, called his nobles and the catholicos Eliazar together.[3][4] He told them that the Arabs had laid a tribute on the country. The forces of the Huns invaded it every year. As a result, it was plundered and weakened from both sides.[3] He wanted a bishop who would go to the Huns and make peace.[3] The choice fell on Israyēl. The embassy set out on the eighteenth day of the month of Mehekan, which the English translation reckons as 23 December 681.[5][6]

The embassy crossed the river Kur and the frontier of Albania. It kept Epiphany in a town on the way and came to the foot of the great mountain.[5] There winter storms held it back for three days. Then the bishop led the party over the summit with the cross in his hand.[5] The party reached the town of Varadan at the beginning of the forty-day fast.[7] In 682 Lent began on 8 February. On the translator’s reckoning, the whole journey took six weeks.[8] The great prince of the Huns went out to meet the bishop. He received him with joy and honoured him.[7] The History calls the prince Alp Ilitʿuer. The English translation renders the name as Alp ilteber.[9][10] After many days of rest, Israyēl heard and saw the religion of the people.[7]

The description in the History

The chapter that opens the description is headed with the bishop’s success in converting the Huns. Its first words are hostile.[7] According to the chapter, the Huns held a man or an object struck by lightning to be a sacrifice to a god called K’uar. They burnt horses to a being whom they invoked as T’angri Xan and whom the Persians call Aspandiat.[2] T’angri Xan is understood as the name of Tengri Khan in an Armenian spelling.

The rites for the dead follow in one long sentence.[2] The Huns beat drums and whistled over the corpses. They inflicted bloody sabre and dagger cuts on cheek and limbs.[2] They fought with swords at the graves, naked, man against man and troop against troop.[2] Numerous groups wrestled with each other. In what the translation calls an orgy, they performed swift gallops on horseback.[2] Some were occupied in weeping and wailing, others in what the text calls a game of diabolical fury.[2] The Huns played their games and danced their dances.[2] The History adds that they made sacrifices to fire and water, to gods of the roads, to the moon and to creatures that seemed remarkable to them.[2]

The cuts on the cheek are the mourning that the Chinese histories record for the Göktürks. The gallops at the graves belong with the other reports of riding round the dead. The History does not say that the Huns circled the graves. It says only that they galloped, wheeling this way and that.[2] It does not say which of the acts belonged to the burial and which to the games and dances that it names after them.[2] Wrestling is named again in Kashgari’s dictionary of the 1070s, which gives the Turkic word for it.[11]

Interpretation of the passage

The passage describes a custom. The date 682 belongs to the bishop’s stay. No funeral is told with a day, a dead man or a mourner.[2] The account is also an opponent’s. It calls the Huns tree-worshippers and their rites satanic and filthy. It was written down in a history that goes on to tell how the rites were ended.[12]

Some scholars see the gallops as horse races of the kind that many peoples hold at burials.[13] The same scholars find games joined to burial from Greece to the Bashkirs on the Volga.[14] A note of the translator calls the rite the Khazar funeral.[15] The History does not decide whether the gallops were races or a part of the mourning.[2]

Conversion of the Huns

The bishop prayed night and day for the salvation of the land. He asked God for a way to convert the Huns.[2] The prince and his nobles came to hear him.[2] Later the prince told his sorcerers that the Huns had been convinced and would serve the God whom the bishop proclaimed.[16] The prince authorised the bishop to destroy the sanctuaries. The temples of the Huns were burnt down.[17] What remains of the funeral rites is one long sentence of the History. It holds the drums, the cuts, the swords, the wrestling and the galloping horses.

References

  1. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi, book II; Dowsett 1961, p. 154–156
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Movsēs Dasxurancʿi, book II; Dowsett 1961, p. 156
  3. ^ a b c Movsēs Dasxurancʿi, book II; Dowsett 1961, p. 153
  4. ^ Dowsett 1961, p. 153
  5. ^ a b c Movsēs Dasxurancʿi, book II; Dowsett 1961, p. 154
  6. ^ Dowsett 1961, p. 154
  7. ^ a b c d Movsēs Dasxurancʿi, book II; Dowsett 1961, p. 155
  8. ^ Dowsett 1961, p. 155
  9. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi, book II; Dowsett 1961, p. 150
  10. ^ Dowsett 1961, p. 150
  11. ^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 284
  12. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi, book II; Dowsett 1961, p. 155–156
  13. ^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 277
  14. ^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 278
  15. ^ Dowsett 1961, p. 32
  16. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi, book II; Dowsett 1961, p. 162
  17. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi, book II; Dowsett 1961, p. 166

Sources

Literature

  • Charles J. F. Dowsett (trans.), The History of the Caucasian Albanians by Movsēs Dasxuranci (1961)
  • Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen, The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture (1973)
  • Maḥmūd al-Kāshgharī, Dīwān Lughat al-Turk (1072–1074)

Related

What links here3

Religions
Tengri
Customs & Pastimes
Culture of the Turkic Peoples · Wrestling

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Funeral Games of the Caucasian Huns.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/customs/funeral-games-of-the-caucasian-huns/

Last revised: 8 November 2026