Following a lord in death, 殉, is recorded among the Göktürks after the death of Ilig Khan, the last khan of the eastern khaganate, in 634.[1] Two men followed him: his old retainer Hunye, and Suni Shi, a younger brother of Yami Khan.[2]

The death of Ilig Khan

Ilig had been taken alive in 630 and brought to Chang’an. There the emperor Taizong gave him lands, a house and a general’s rank.[1] He died there in 634.[1] The emperor ordered Ilig’s own people to bury him according to their customary rites, and his body was burned east of the Ba river.[1] The Xin Tang Shu adds that a mound was raised over him.[2]

Hunye

Ilig’s old minister, whom the Jiu Tang Shu names the Hulu Daguan 吐谷渾邪, cut his own throat to follow him in death.[1] The Xin Tang Shu calls him Hunye, 渾邪, after the first mention.[2]

The Xin Tang Shu explains the bond.[2] Hunye had come with Ilig’s mother, Lady Poshi, as a retainer at her marriage. When Ilig was born, he had been given into Hunye’s care.[2] At Ilig’s death he grieved bitterly and killed himself.[2]

The emperor found the deed remarkable.[2] He gave Hunye the posthumous rank of zhonglangjiang and had him buried beside Ilig’s mound.[2] He ordered Cen Wenben, the vice-director of the secretariat, to record what had happened on the grave stelae of both men.[2] The Cefu Yuangui gives the same account and dates Ilig’s death to the first month of 634.[3]

Suni Shi

Soon afterwards Suni Shi also followed Ilig in death.[2] Shibi Khan had made him Shaboluo Shad over fifty thousand tents, with his camp north-west of Lingzhou.[2] When Ilig’s rule fell into disorder, Suni Shi’s people alone stayed loyal. After Töles went over to the Tang, Ilig made him a lesser khan.[2]

In 630 the beaten Ilig fled to the camp of the Shaboluo. There the Tang commander Zhang Baoxiang took him.[1] The Tang Huiyao names the Shaboluo Shad as Suni Shi and says that the Tang made him seize Ilig.[4] The Jiu Tang Shu calls the Shaboluo a son of Ilig’s cousin. By contrast, the Xin Tang Shu makes Suni Shi a younger brother of Ilig’s father.[5] Suni Shi then went over to the Tang with his people. The land south of the desert was left empty.[6] He was made governor of Beiningzhou and prince of Huaide.[2]

The Cefu Yuangui records the death of Ashina Suni Shi, prince of Huaide, in the sixth month of 634 and the emperor’s mourning for him. It does not record the manner of his death.[3] By the Xin Tang Shu’s account, the man who had handed Ilig over to the Tang was among those who followed him in death.

Captives at the mourning of 576

Menander records a different act at a Göktürk mourning in 576.[7] When Türk-shad mourned his father Istemi, whom Menander calls Silzibul, he had four Hunnic captives brought in bonds and set among his father’s horses.[8] In his own tongue he told them to go and tell his father how great …. The text breaks off at that point.[9] What was done with the four men is lost in the gap.[10] The errand may have been a human sacrifice, with the prisoners killed to carry the message to the dead man. It sets this apart from the funerals that the Chinese accounts describe.[11] Menander gives the Göktürks’ own word for the rites of the dead, dogia.[9]

The Xiongnu record

The Shiji says of the Xiongnu that the ruler’s favourite servants and concubines followed him in death, 從死. It puts their number at hundreds or thousands. The Han Shu copies the passage and puts the number at tens or a hundred.[12] The notice speaks of the ruler’s burial in general and names no occasion and no man. In excavated Xiongnu cemeteries of western Mongolia, small satellite graves lie beside the great tombs of noblewomen, and the dead in them are understood as servants who followed their mistresses in death. Satellite graves are reported as well at a tomb in central Mongolia thought to be a chanyu’s.[13] The numbers of the Chinese text have found no confirmation in the graves.[14] The Sui Shu closes its account of Göktürk custom with the remark that it was broadly the same as that of the Xiongnu.[15] The remark does not mention following in death, and the Tang histories record it only for the two men of 634.

A study of the old Turkic and Mongol religion sets the burial of a hundred or a thousand women and servants with the dead beside the Xiongnu and the Göktürks alike. It holds that from the Xiongnu on the old custom weakened and that the burial of widows is rarely mentioned afterwards.[16] It counts the Xiongnu customs of watching the moon before a campaign, of marrying a widow into the dead man’s family and of burying servants and wives with the dead as the same customs that the Chinese record for the Göktürks.[17]

Scope of the record

Neither Tang history calls following in death a custom of the Göktürks.[5] The Xin Tang Shu depends on the Jiu Tang Shu, so for Hunye the two are one witness. Suni Shi’s death in this manner stands in the Xin Tang Shu alone. A modern commentary on the Göktürk histories judges that notice unreliable.[18] The word 殉 is the one the Chinese used for retainers buried with a ruler in antiquity.[18] What the sources preserve are two men bound to one khan: the retainer who had raised him, and the kinsman who had given him up.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
  3. ^ a b Cefu yuangui, juan 974
  4. ^ Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 94
  5. ^ a b Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
  6. ^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215; Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 94
  7. ^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 19.1, p. 171
  8. ^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 19.1, p. 177–179
  9. ^ a b Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 19.1, p. 179
  10. ^ Menander Protector
  11. ^ Ecsedy 1984, p. 264–266
  12. ^ Shiji, juan 110; Han Shu, juan 94
  13. ^ Erkoç 2026, p. 242–243
  14. ^ Erkoç 2026, p. 243
  15. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  16. ^ Roux 1994, p. 228–229
  17. ^ Roux 1994, p. 108, 200, 228–229
  18. ^ a b Ecsedy 1984, p. 268

Sources

Literature

  • R. C. Blockley, The History of Menander the Guardsman: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes (1985)
  • Ildikó Ecsedy, Ancient Turk (T'u-chüeh) Burial Customs (1984)
  • Hayrettin İhsan Erkoç, Asya Hunlarında Dinî İnançlar (Religious Beliefs of the Xiongnu) (2026)
  • Jean-Paul Roux, Türklerin ve Moğolların Eski Dini (1994)

Related

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Persons
Suni Shi · Tuyuhun Hunye
States
Xiongnu
Institutions and Titles
Daguan
Religions
Ancestor Cult
Customs & Pastimes
Culture of the Turkic Peoples

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Following in Death.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/religions/following-in-death/

Last revised: 8 November 2026