The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1983 (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1983-06-01 / 6. szám
June, 1983 THE EIGHTH HUNGARIAN TRIBE Page 9 already in prehistoric times. They were harbringers of the so-called Higher Civilization, in which most people were farmers living in small villages. The second racial element of the Hungarian ethnic body is the Kushitic one. Their distinctive anthropological characteristics were the darkish skin colour and the Caucasian (not African) face.6 In contrast to the Aryan agriculturists, the Kush were mainly a stock-breeding population and as such moved around extensively. For a long time, they lived in tribal communities, without any higher socio-political organisation. They desintegrated easily and many of them became absorbed into the ethnic bodies of other nations, most often in subject status, so that they soon lost their own ethnic identity through assimilation. Amongst the written references to the existence of white and dark men in Hungary, the most explicit one is that of Adamar of Angouléme, author of Historia Francorum (Xlth century). He described a monk’s journey through Hungary and claimed that two distinct races existed there: a white one in Ungaria Alba and a dark one in Ungaria Nigra, so called after the skin colour of their inhabitants.7 Hungaro-Kush relations were, however, almost always somewhat strained because of the lower cultural niveau of the dark men.8 And when the Kush refused to become Christians, King Saint Stephen (1000-1038) dispersed them all over the country, where they lost their individual identity. Author Adamar of Angouléme writes in that connection the following commentary: “King St. Stephen of Hungary attacked black Hungary with the army and converted the whole country to the true faith, partly by sheer force, partly by intimidation and affection.”9 The anthropological build-up of Hungarians links them to most of the European peoples, e. g. to the French, so far as they are of Gallic descent, and to the English as well, sö far as they are Britons. Scots and Piets. On the other hand, Hungarians have genetic connections with the old Oriental nations (Sumerians, ancient Egyptians, Indians), and also with the youngest offsprings of the said great family: Scythians, Huns, Avars in particular. The kinship of Hungarians is large both in Europe and in South West Asia, and this circumstance explains why Hungarian ancient history is, in many respects, one of the most important keys to the general history of Eurasia. 6. It is important to keep in mind that, when our historical sources mention the “dark” complexion of Kush, they do not always use this word in a literal sense as ‘black’, but rather as opposed to white. - Further, the Kush must not be confused with Negroes, who are either a distinct race, or a product of the jungle. Schuré insists upon this and says: «II faut en chercher le type supérieur non pas dans le Négre dégénéré, mais dans l’Abyssinien et le Nubien, en qui se conserve le moule de cette race parvenue ä son apogée» 7. In the first millenium A.D., almost every Eastern-European nation had some brownish-darkish complexioned ethnic elements in their physical make-up. There were white and dark Huns, white and dark Bulgare, white and dark Ugors, white and dark Chasars. It is surprising that this all-important historical fact escaped the attention of scientists, who persisted in believing that the adjectives White and Dark, when employed in historical sources, in connection with ethnic names, would signify the basic points: East and West, i.e. the geographic position of the respective peoples. This is, of course, a misin terpretation. 8. Chronicler Simon de Kéza accurately reflects the general feeling of Hungarians against the dark coloured population by saying: “Gentes siquidem in eadem (i.e. in Scythia) procreate otia complectuntur, vanitatibus dedite, nature dedignantis actibus venereis intendentes, rapinas amant, generaliter colore plus nigre quam albe” 9. Former linguists and historians were inclined to consider the Kush population as of Old Turkish extraction. It was, however, impossible to find a fitting Turkish branch, or to determine the specific geographic area where contacts between Hungarians and Turks might have taken place. Above all, the beginning of the Kush- Hungarian relations antedates the existence of any Turkish people. Therefore, the idea of early Turkish- Hungarian connections had to be abandoned. 2. The Hungarian language and its great antiquity A language is characterized by its grammatical structure, vocabulary and phonetics. When these characteristics are compared with those of other languages, it can be established which languages are cognate, i.e. have a common origin. The cognate languages form language-families and have such names as Indo-European, Finno-Ugrian, Uralaltaic and so forth. 1. The principal characteristic of the Hungarian grammatical structure is that the root of the verb remains the same throughout the different variations (conjugations) and to this unchanging root the various particles are added, called suffixes, to express tense relations, modes and personal cases. The pattern is always the same: stem + circumstantial suffixes 4- case ending. In the following two words: To give and To write, the basic roots are AD and IR. The root, in itself, expresses the indicative present, therefore the personal case ending comes next here, thus: AD-ok, IR-ok: I I
