Uokil

Uokil (Ukil, Vokil, Augal) is one of Yuezhi tribes, defeated and displaced by the Hun's expansion in the 2nd century BC. Uokil may have been one of the two Yuezhi dynastic tribes. Traces of ethnonym "Uokil" are found in the East Mongolia and Manchuria territories in the Syanbi (Ch. 鲜卑 Xianbei), ancient Turkic, and Mongolian time.^[1] They may be connected to or descended from the:

• Hutsze or Utsze – a part of the Issedones/Wusun and/or Yuezhi, defeated by the Xiongnu and displaced from East Asia in 49 BCE;
• Augal people of the Amu Darya (2nd century);
• Vokil dynastic clan of 1st millennium Danube Bulgaria, and/or;
• the Uokil, a component of the proto-Mongol Syanbi (Chinese Xianbei 鲜卑).

Possible connection to Wusun and/or Yuezhi

Before the end of the 4th century BCE, the country Yuezhi (Chinese Ngiw.at-tie) extended west from the northern bend of the Yellow River (in modern Gansu).^[2] The vassals of the Yuezhi came to include the Xiongnu.

In about 210-200 BC, the Xiongnu leader Modu Chanyu, a former hostage of the Yuezhi,^[3] conquered the Mongolian Plain, subjugating several peoples.^[4] In about 176 BC Mody Chanyu rebelled against and attacked the Yuezhi.^[5]

The Yuezhi attacked the Wusun in about 173 BC,^[5][6] killing their king (Kunmi Chinese: 昆彌 or Kunmo Chinese: 昆莫) Nandoumi (Chinese: 難兜靡).^[6] According to a Wusun legend, Nandoumi's infant son Liejiaomi was left in the wild. He was miraculously saved from hunger being suckled by a she-wolf, and fed meat by ravens.^{[7][8][9][10]} This ancestor myth shares striking similarities with those of many other peoples including the Turks.^[11] Based on this similarity it has been suggested that the royal Ashina clan of the Göktürks may have originated with the Wusun.^[12]

In 162 BC, the Yuezhi suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the Xiongnu and retreated from Gansu.^[5] According to Zhang Qian, the Yuezhi fled westward, driving the Sai (Saka/Scythians) from the Ili river valley (in Zhetysu/Dzungaria).^[5][13]

However, after the retreat of the Yuezhi, the Wusun settled in Gansu, in the Ushui-he (Chinese Raven Water River) valley, as vassals of the Xiongnu.^[6]

Hutsze

The Chinese dynastic chronicle Hanshu (1st century BCE) states that the Xiongnu shanyu Chjichji (Zhizhi), in a western campaign of 49 BCE, defeated a small state named Hutsze or Utsze in the north". The Hutsze appear to have been a part of the Wusun and/or Yuezhi. The Hanshu recorded that the Hutsze retreated to the Lake Baikal area and the Great Khingan slopes (next to the Dingling).^[14] Later, the Hutsze emigrated further westward, initially to the Aral Sea area, and then into Bactria and Sogdiana.

Augals

In the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy (VI, 12, 4) wrote about the Lower Syr-Darya, "near a section of Amu Darya in the north live Yati and Tocharians, below which live Augals." Yury Zuev identified the Augals with the Uokils.^[15]

Oguz tribe

During the Early Middle Ages, the Oghuz Turks, known at that time as Toquz Oghuz ("Nine Tribes"), included a Uokil tribe. In Chinese sources the Uokil were known as the sitsze (γiei-kiet < Igil), and in the middle of the 7th century they were reported to be located on the northern bank of the Kheglench River.^[16]

The text of a Uigur funeral monument for Eletmish-Kagan (d. 759), referred to the Qara Igil bodun: a combination of the determinative qara ("blackness") and "Igil people".^[17] This suggested that the Uokil had been influenced by the Manichaeans (who had a "black and white", dualistic cosmology).^[18]

The Uokil tribe was mentioned in a 9th-century Yugur travel guide as a being led by a strong leader named Igil kül-irkin (Hi-kil-rkor-hir-kin), and located next to the Iduk-az ("Hi-dog-kas") Iduq-kas or Iduq-qash, who may have been offshoot or successor of the Yuezhi or Alans.^[19]

Vokils

In the Early Middle Ages, a Vokil clan was known as a dynastic clan that gave Danube Bulgaria four monarchs listed in the Namelist of Bulgarian Rulers (Nominalia). The Vokil clan was one of the dynastic clans whose ancestors "ruled on that side of Danube for 515 years with shaven heads".^[20] The first Bulgarian supreme Khan of the Vokil lineage listed in Nominalia is Kormisosh (r. 737–754), the last Umor (r. 766).

In the Middle Asia, the ethnonym Uokil left its trace in a name of a hero Vekil in the Oghuz epos "Kitab-i dedem Korkut".^[21]

References

See also

• History of Bulgaria
• Bulgars
• Huns
• Oguz