Western Mongolia - Mongolia - page 457

Dulmaa Enkhchuluun graduated from Augsburg College in Minnesota and now works to
promote culturally and environmentally responsible tourism and commercial develop-
ment in Mongolia.
People of the Sun
The first of the steppe nomads to make an impact beyond Mongolia were the Hunnu,
whom the Mongols now call the 'People of the Sun', better known as the Huns. They
created the first steppe empire in 209 BC under Modun, a charismatic leader who took
the title shanyu (king) and ruled until his death in 174 BC. Modun created a disciplined
and strong cavalry corps personally devoted to him, and used the corps to overthrow and
kill his father, the tribal chief.
Between the creation of the Qin dynasty in China in 221 BC and the collapse of the
Han dynasty in AD 220, the Chinese became the dominant economic power in East Asia.
Even still, under the Huns the steppe tribes grew into a great military power. During this
period, the Chinese and the Huns vied for dominance through protracted wars with inter-
mittent truces, during which the Chinese lavished the steppe warriors with tributes of
goods and women, including imperial princesses (in exchange the Huns agreed not to
slaughter them all). Using the merchandise extracted from the Chinese, the Huns exten-
ded their trade routes, connecting the civilisations around them.
Following the collapse of the Hun empire in the 4th century AD, various newly inde-
pendent tribes left the Mongolian homeland, wandering from India to Europe in search of
new pastures and new conquests. By the 5th century, one of these branches reached
Europe and created a new Hun empire that stretched from the Ural Mountains to Ger-
many. Under their most famous leader, Attila the Hun, they threatened Rome and rav-
aged much of Western Europe. For the first time in history, mounted archers from the
Mongolian steppe created an intercontinental reputation for their fierceness and tenacity
in battle.
Khan means chief or king; khaan means emperor or great khan.
Descendents of the Wolf
In the 6th century, a new sense of order returned to the Mongolian Plateau with the rise
of a series of tribes speaking Turkic languages. These tribes claimed descent from a boy
who was left for dead but was saved and adopted by a mother wolf who raised him and
then mated with him, creating from their offspring the ancestors of the various steppe
clans. Compared with both the Huns before them and the Mongols after them, the literate